Car seats on planes?

[popeye123]

Hi,
We're about to buy DD the next car seat (9kg+). I know that we will be flying at least twice next year and wondered if there were any seats better or worse for taking on the plane. Although she's only 1 we're thinking of splashing out for an extra seat to save our sanity!
Also, we will we always be able to take our own car seat or do some airlines insist you use theirs?
Thanks

as far as i know, no airlines have their own... so you have to take yours. which sounds like a PITA, but, every time i have hired a car with child seats, they have been CRAP and i will not be doing it again... worse than useless some of them. so i reckon taking your own is a good idea.

as for ones good for planes... dunno. light one? (for carrying?)

I seem to remember there's a width restriction for most airlines, so some seats would be out. ryanair don't let you use em at all, the bastards.

Virgin offer you the choice of using their inflight infant seat or you can take your car seat on

Taking the car seat onboard can be a pain as you have to carry it up the aisle etc but at least it doesn't get damaged by the baggage handlers

Just had a similar posting yesterday about this, I have a maxi-cosi priori xp, phoned BA and was told any british standards approved car seats are allowed, which means pretty much any hard back seat that can take a single strap seatbelt, I know they favour Britax.

It will also be good to find out the seat dimensions to make sure it fits the aircraft seat.

HTH

snap M2FD - i like that seat muchly (and like most baby stuff, ive tried a lot of them. sigh.)

i guess it all depends on the airline then... (too much to hope there could be a simple answer, huh?)

thanks everyone - just been looking at flights...ryannair £40 each but can't take car seat and can't get seperate seat for DD. BA £233 each including for her if she has seat/car seat. aaaggghhhh what a difference but can't help having a bad feeling about Ryannair - why not let DD have her own seat if we're willing to pay for it? its only a 3hr flight but just makes me feel uneasy about how baby friendly they are going to be before/during and after. a bad flight can make or break a holiday AND put you off any future holidays. oh god. hassle.

It depends where you are going but sometimes we have paid more for BA instead of using Easyjet or Ryanair simply as they have more flights a day - so if your flight gets cancelled you still have a chance to get there

er... since you metion it, i have had awful experience of toddler-accompanied travel with easyjet etc... swore blind id never do it again... (my sis and i actually had to wait outside on a runway at gatwick i think stuggling to hold hands of 1 and 2 yolds, while pg, carrying buggies, bags etc unassisted by staff, toddlers trying to run off and play with the planes... at the back of a queue of passengers, none of whom would let us go ahead in the Q to get out of danger, and when i asked a staff member if they could move us forward for that reason they shrugged, said no and walked off while my jaw hit the tarmac)

child friendly? customer service? remotely helpful in any way? even slightly humanely compassionate?? in a pigs ear!!