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Original poster

Flying with Car seats

11 replies

Debbiethemum · 18/10/2004 20:10

Hope you can help with this travel quandary. We are flying to Nimes on Thursday with Ryanair to stay with friends.

dd (6 months) uses the M&P travel system, though doesn't bother with the car seat in the pushchair most of the time. Can we get away with saying the car seat is part of the pushchair and therefore stays connected to the pushchair. I think fat chance, but dh thinks this is perfectly reasonable.

Also are we totally irresponsable to use seat belt adjusters for ds (3 years old) rather than risk unseen damage to his car seat (which dd will also have to use one day).

Finally any recomendations as to how we pack the car seats for travel.

Thank you
Debbie

OP posts:

collision · 18/10/2004 20:15

You dont actually take the chair onto the plane. You leave it at the bottom of the steps with the pushchair and they will put it on top of all the luggage. Make sure the pushchair is folded as they tend to be a bit rough with them sometimes.

What is a seatbelt adjuster?? I think it would be fine for ds rather than lug something else on holiday with you.

Just to warn you. Ryanair are EVIL and will charge you for overweight luggage so make sure you keep to the restrictions. And the size of handluggage and buy food at the airport before you get on the plane as it is very expensive.

Have fun.

LIZS · 18/10/2004 20:25

ime I think your dh is correct. We and friends have travelled with baby in Rockatot onto planes several times. If there is a spare seat we have had it strapped in and been able to use it during the flight, if not for take off and landing. Otherwise it just gets stowed as hand luggage in the cabin.

We have just flown with both Easyjet and Helvetic and taken a booster seat on board which has not been questioned so perhaps it is worth buying an inexpensive lightweight one for your ds. Have to say I'm still paranoid about car seat safety and prebooked a taxi with one for dd (3) for our 15 minute transfer in Majorca last week and used our booster for ds who is 6.

hth

whizzz · 18/10/2004 20:41

We flew with Scandic & BMI this summer & took a booster seat on board as hand luggage for DS (now 4). It stowed in the over head locker & was light(ish) - no questions asked. You can get some boosters for younger children which is what we got. Ours from Toy R us for less than £20 I think

Original poster

Debbiethemum · 18/10/2004 20:42

Collision & LizS - Thank you for your replies. It is nice to know that we can get away with dd's car seat.

Collision - the seat belt adjuster, straps the the lap part of the belt to the diagonal (sp) part of the belt so that it lies properly across his body. We originally got this for an short taxi journey aftewr a long train journey.

I also agree that Ryanair are EVIL - though they are cheap!! tuna sandwiches & cheese sandwiches will be taken with us. I am waiting for anyone to suggest that ds sits on our lap as we paid full adult fare for him!! (£10)

Cheers

OP posts:

collision · 18/10/2004 20:45

Good that you paid full price for him as you will get the extra baggage allowance....15kg. How they expect you to travel with such little weight and children is beyond me!

fisil · 18/10/2004 20:49

We took our M&P travel system on Easy Jet last year. I didn't even think of treating it as all one thing. They stood over us at Heathrow making us fold the pushchair down and then took it off who knows where and we had to hang around waiting for it to turn up at Edinburgh - and then dp had to rush back to find where the rainhood had got to. Carseat we followed their advice and booked it in as fragile luggage. It got there OK but damaged on the way home. I like the idea of booking it in as all one thing - but I still would want to know what and how they were going to do with it once we were on the plane!

SofiaAmes · 19/10/2004 01:02

Debbiethemum, we had an awful awful time with RyanAir and I wouldn't fly them again if you paid me. We had a car seat that we had been told we could take on the plane AND we had purchased a seat for our ds (even though he was an infant and entitled to a free seat). On the way out we had no problem, but on the way back we got in a big fight with the flight attendant who tried to give our paid for seat away and confiscated our car seat and took it off the plane. We were furious and made a complaint when we got back. They sent me a semi illiterate response saying that I'd made the whole thing up. The flight attendant turned out to be Brian off the first Big Brother.
I would advise that you go onto RyanAir's website and read up carefully on their official policy on Car Seats and print it out in case you come across staff who don't know their own rules (the people who work for RyanAir are really really dumb in my experience). You might also want to call them and get everything confirmed. Get the name of the person you talk to.

Chuffed · 19/10/2004 09:53

We flew Singapore with our Mountain Buggy and the car seat attached on as well. When you turn up to check in make sure that dd is sitting in the car seat part. We checked it in at the gate, folded the chair into its travel bag and then put the car seat in a big clear plastic bag knotted at the top so it couldn't get wet or fall out and then they issued the baggage tags there for both. It did count as one piece of luggage though.
Can't say for Ryan Air but it worked ok for us.

NotQuiteCockney · 19/10/2004 10:46

We've taken a booster seat with us to Canada (on BA), and just sat DS1 (then 2.5) on it on the flight. It meant he could see the movie better, and was a very easy way to carry it. It's a nice middle ground between carrying a whole seat and not bothering. I'm not sure about seat belt adjusters, it depends how much driving you'll be doing at the other end, surely?

We always checked our Rockatot, but we were always flying BA or Air Canada. Don't know about Ryanair.

californiagirl · 19/10/2004 23:20

In my experience you should always print out the airline's policy, even in the US where they are legally required to let you use the carseat. If the airline's policy allows you to use a carseat, you've already paid for the seat, and you want the carseat along, I would use it on the plane for sure -- there's no reason not to in this case. And you can be sure they are not mistreating it.

Because I am a geek, I have just updated our carseats and airplanes page with the UK regulations. I will happily add other people's experiences to the list if you use Contact Another Talker to get them to me.

Original poster

Debbiethemum · 19/10/2004 23:57

Ryanair, doesn't allow car seats on board - only in the hold.

So we are trying to use seat belt adjusters for ds as we won't be doing huge amounts of driving and will try to keep dd's car seat attached to the pushchair. Ds's car seat has to be used for dd as well, however dd has almost grown out of her car seat so if it is ruined we can move her into the next seat.

Ryanair say that they cannot be held responsible for damage to fragile items such as car seats, basically you get what you pay for and we paid very little for the four of us. We wouldn't be having this break if we had to pay BA prices!

It is nice to know that we have a good chance of keeping dd's car seat with the pushchair (& hopefully better taken care of it).

I will spend tomorrow making sandwiches etc for our flight on Thursday, cannot wait to see our friends, he is ds's godfather and I have known him since I was 16, only have one other friend I have known for longer.

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