Etihad - bassinet

[ReturnofSaturn]

We are looking to fly from Brisbane to Manchester in a couple of months with Etihad as they are the cheapest.

However Etihad say you cannot pre-book a bassinet and it will be decided on the day if you get one or not.

My question then is, how do we book seats? Because usually when booking you choose your own seats. But obviously all the bulkhead seats will no doubt already be all booked out.

Anyone have any experience with this with Etihad?
We really really want a bassinet for our baby who will be 6 months.

Not sure on Ethiad specifically but usually you book a bassinet seat in advance; it will have a carrycot symbol in front of the seat on the map. They only usually show as available to parties with a lap infant in their booking and will open up to everyone else at check in only if not booked by an infant. Then you request the bassinet itself when you board. As they don’t have an unlimited number and there may be more babies than bassinets, airlines won’t guarantee you one. I suspect they probably prioritise the youngest babies and/or passengers in the highest class of travel.

I’ve found the bulkhead seats are usually available for booking online with Etihad a couple of months in advance (I usually fly monthly with them, and often on the AUH-MAN leg).

I’ve also found that ringing up and flagging that you would like something, more often than not, gets you what you want even if they say they can’t guarantee. Although I’ve been a gold member a while now so that possibly has a bearing.

You book the bulkhead seat, that's the only place where there's a bassinet. In my experience they will move people without young children who've pre-booked the seat if you arrive to check in early enough.

When you go to book your seat, you will see the ones with bulkhead - they are ones beside the start of the seat rows.

I’ve flown quite a few times with Etihad - beware if your baby is tall they may say they are too big for the bassinet once your on the plane my own baby couldn’t fit in bassinet after 7 months . Neat trick is to use the pillow they give you on your seat underneath to lift baby’s legs if they look a little cramped.

Bassinets in my experience go to the youngest babies first. Any older than about 6 months are usually too big anyway.

When we flew with them we booked bassinet marked spaces when we checked in online.

Have you phoned them OP? We couldn't book bassinets/bulkhead seats online either but they were very helpful when we phoned.

I flew with them to Australia in March and couldn't check in online. I rang them and it was apparently because I'd requested the bassinet seat but they can't confirm til the day of - presumably in case 20 babies are on the flight.

We just got there 3 hours before and checked in, and got a bassinet seat for every leg

Just an update. Well we went to book the flights and all the seats with the bassinet points were booked out for the whole month.
So we just had to select regular seats but did put a note on requesting a bassinet.
We will just get to the check-in super early on the day and hope for the best.