Has anyone used a travel cart for your car seat in the airport

[limeyguk]

As the title states I am looking for a travel cart to click our car seat on while at the airport.

We are flying long haul with our 14 month old soon and have decided to purchase a seat on the plane for her and use a car seat, we are not guaranteed a bulk head seat or bassinet, so didn't want to risk not getting that. She will sleep better if we take the car seat (we hope, ha ha) we are flying American Airlines.

We have considered taking a pushchair that we can leave at he gate, but will then have to carry around a heavy seat around the airport. I have two other children aged 5 & 7 so will defo need some free hands.

I know they sell these carts in the states, but cannot find them in the UK.

Has anyone had experience of taking a baby of this age on a 8 hour flight and how did it work for you?
I am in planning and panic mode and want to make life as easy as possible. I have thoughts of miserable passengers around me and an unsettled baby.

I have seen special bags with wheels to put car seats in, but wasn't sure if these were any good.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks

Do you really need the car seat?. It may actually be more trouble that it is worth. Many car seats end up in the hold particularly if they are too big.

Can you use instead a pushchair or a sling to carry your youngest child?.

I would check with American airlines website as to the actual dimensions of the airline seat; it may be that the car seat you have will not actually fit the seat.

I know what you mean re the travel cart but have never seen them used in the UK for travelling.

Re your children and meals, do not fully rely on the airline to fully provide re foodstuffs; bring along plenty of what they like and leave any uneaten foodstuff on the aircraft.

The child can't sit in the seat during take off and landing anyway (car seat). Why waste £££ on a seat for it when baby will want to sit with you or siblings anyway.

I think you're over planning, buggy is needed for actual trip anyway surely? And you have it til you get ON the plane

Good that you have booked a seat but don't bother with the car seat. She will be on your knee anyway for take off and landing. In her own seat without car seat she can lie out a bit if you lift the arm rests

There is no guarantee your car seat will even fit on the plane, the airline might not accept it and it may not be legal at your destination.

I strapped the car seat (maxi cosi) to a normal cheap luggage cart using a bungee and wheeled it around the airport that way. Also piled various kids backpacks into it!

I found the car seat a huge help when flying to the USA (we booked seat for 18 month old). He was safely strapped in during flight - could sleep more comfortably as it could be slightly reclined and was used to this method of transport as similar to being in the car. I could sleep more comfortably on the overnight flight on the way back as I knew he was safely strapped in and I wasn't going to fall asleep and drop him. Our ds was strapped into the car seat on take off and landing - but we flew with American so other airlines may have different rules.

The main reason for taking it though was so that we would have it at the other end for travelling in the car as previous times going to the USA we had hired a car seat and I was very unhappy with the quality of the car seats provided. They charged $50 a week for 2 weeks to hire the seat then the rental place had no idea how to fit it and left it to me to do. When out shopping I saw the same model of car seat on sale in Walmart for about $60. It was a very basic seat with no padding or recline and not what I wanted my 15 month old dd sitting in for hours at a time. So every trip after that we took our own car seats - I packed the older dds booster seats into a suitcase and took ds's big car seat on the plane with us.

Meant to add a link to show you - we had something like this here. Attached using elasticated bungee from halfords.

www.reallifetravels.com/featured-friday-britax-travel-cart/ no idea if you can buy it in UK.