Has anyone taken a car seat on Ryanair?

[YoniBottsBumgina]

Do you have to have it in a bag or do you just sort of present it at the desk? It's a high backed booster which doesn't come apart.

If you don't have to have it in a bag, are the special car seat bags worth it? Can you sneak other things in there??

Ryanair will charge you what they call an Infant Equipment Fee (£20) to check the seat. I would certainly bag this item and not just present it to them at the desk.

With them, checking and rechecking the terms and conditions is key prior to making any booking. They will charge you for practically everything.

When traveling with 2 children, I pay for 1 piece of hold luggage, which is a car seat bag containing a high backed car seat, a booster seat, and a few things that don't fit in the hand luggage.

I only have one child though. Attila their website says £10? It doesn't state whether it has to be bagged, and I just remember I've seen people saying you can fit packs of nappies etc in with the car seat bag, but am wary on ryanair of being charged. There is a weight limit on it but it's 20kg, and DS' car seat weighs about 3.

i checked dd2's stage 1 carseat on ryanair once, it cost £20 for the return journey (which was annoying as i was leaving it there, but there wasn't the option just to pay for one leg at the time - there may be now, not sure...) BUT we were already taking her pushchair - i believe you are allowed one piece of 'infant equipment' for free, so if you are not taking a pushchair your carseat could be your infant equipment.

and i didn't use a bag, but did take it to the oversize baggage desk.

i would have thought it cost more to take a piece of 'hold luggage' than to pay for a carseat nowadays though. hasn't hold luggage become extortionately expensive recently?

Ah, I see - we are flying one way because we're moving there. If I had a choice I wouldn't fly Ryanair but it's the only company who fly that route for less than £400 per person! It's only a 1 hour flight!

The regulations say a pushchair is free but other equipment is counted as extra. Plus he's not an infant, he travels on a child's ticket.

rules as of May 2015:
www.ryanair.com/en/questions/what-is-ryanairs-policy-on-the-carriage-of-infants/

Infants (aged 8 days to 23 months inclusive) travelling must be accompanied by an adult aged 16 or over (one infant per adult). Infants can be included in a flight reservation during the online booking process. An infant can sit on an adult's lap (an infant seat belt is provided by the cabin crew) A baby bag up to 5kg can be also carried by the accompanying adult in addition to their own cabin bag allowance

2 items of baby equipment are carried free of charge per child - 1 pushchair plus one of the following items: car seat or booster seat or travelcot. On arrival at the airport the 2 free items of baby equipment can be tagged for travel at a Bag Drop Desk, which close 40 minutes before the scheduled flight departure time

Children's pushchairs can be used up to the aircraft steps and after landing the pushchair will be available at the aircraft steps (provided local conditions permit this). There are baby changing facilities onboard located at the rear of the aircraft. Cabin crew can warm baby bottles if required. Other items of baby equipment in addition to the 2 free items can be checked in upon payment of an Infant/Child Equipment Fee(maximum weight 20 kgs).

notes from our recent flight to France:

• our Quinny buzz3 pram technically folds down into 2 pieces however they let us take both this and the car seat without question, it's possible they could charge you for an extra item but this hasn't happened to anyone I know.
• the allowance for baby hand luggage is only 5kg so you might want to take a 10kg baby bag and use the 5kg allowance for your hand luggage. The 100ml liquid rules don't seem to apply to baby stuff we didn't have any issues taking flasks of water etc.
• our car seat went down with the checked baggage, remember to fasten all the straps as we lost one of the shoulder pad things in transit
• they let us push baby right up to the plane steps in the pram and when we landed it was at the bottom of the steps waiting for us however this may not be the case with all airports so make sure you get a luggage sticker/tag put on both bits of the pram if it collapses into 2 pieces.
• for our return flight they assigned my wife a seat 20 rows in front of me but you don't find this out until you have checked in and then you have to call them up and pay to change it although I said "why did you not seat us together when the plane is half empty and do you not have an obligation to seat families with infants together?" and after some arguing they changed the seats for free but if you don't want to have the hassle just pay for assigned seats - if you are choosing seats and you see the plane is half empty you could just leave it and change seats after you have boarded if you need to as they don't seem to mind.