[...] Consider a seat for your baby: The National Transportation Safety Board has been making a big push to require a seat for all [...]

That said, the airlines are entitled to make their own rules and its not out of the question to require the babies to have a seat. Just glad our time for this has passed because my particular baby would have not sat in the carseat for long anyway….

ah…I see what you mean…yeah, we did pay like $300 or something for her, you’re right. It was way less than ours, though…but you’re right.

We can barely afford to fly the 2 of us anywhere at this point. Having to pay for the baby would be a deal breaker for us, and many of our friends as well who schedule trips to see far away relatives so that their barely under 2 child can fly free. I wonder if it just our set of lower middle class peers that wouldn’t think twice about not flying if they had to pay for a baby.

If individual airlines want to charge for everyone to have a seat for comfort and profit reason, that’s their prerogative. But the safety benefit is pretty dubious if the best case they can find is one where everyone died and their logic rests on the fact that the childrens’ corpses were farther from the wreckage? It wasn’t even a regular passenger jet. That’s really the best they can do? They can’t point to a runway fender-bender or a bumpy turbulence encounter, or anything, going back more than a decade?
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Maybe the problem is that the presence of un-belted babies gives lie to the safety theater the rest of us are expected to participate in.

They will loose our business, and we will loose too, because we do not have the option of making the trip by car since my family is in Puerto Rico. That is the only time we fly and sometimes we go twice a year.
If airlines ever forced parents to purchase a seat for their babies, it should be at a discounted price since I am sure most kids will spend most of the time on their parents laps (other than at take off or landing) On the other hand, I am glad they do not have that rule yet :)

If the FAA really wanted to use a news story to make their point, they should have used this one: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=4182202&page=1. The baby girl was the sole survivor BECAUSE she was strapped to her carseat. I agree it’s more expensive to purchase an extra ticket, but sometimes these things do have a purpose (and they can also help in cases of bad turbulence, when parents might not be physically able to hold on to their baby). In lieu of that, you can always buy a KIDCares harness, which straps to the adult’s harness. I actually prefer it to the strap they give to parents for lap infants on international flights (I’ve had two of those things slip right off of my baby). The KIDCares harness is secure, although it’s not made of seatbelt material (which it should be!).

Whoops! I was thinking about the Baby Bair harness. Yes, the KidCares harness is definitely made out of seatbelt material which is why I love it! The Baby Bair is made out of stuff that I’m not sure would hold a child in a true airline crash, but it is designed to help parents during turbulence and if the parent falls asleep while the baby is in their lap. Although at that last part, I just have to laugh. I flew with my infant son on my lap to England and I didn’t sleep a wink. It’s hard to sleep when you’re acting as someone else’s pillow (and he screamed every time I put him in the baby hammock bed provided by the airline).

We took a family trip across country last year with our 11 month old. I bought a seat for her because I did NOT want to spend 5 hours with her on my lap. She was much more accommodating of the car seat than I thought she would be. Yes, she did spend a good amount of time in our laps, but she also happily sat in her car seat and took a nap, or played with some toys. Kids are more flexible than you think, and I am so glad that we spent the extra money to have a seat for her. That being said, I do understand that sometimes you just don’t have the extra money and that’s ok.

Someday I think we’ll all look back in wonder at the days when infants were allowed to sit on parents’ laps for takeoff and landing, just as we marvel now at how we grew up unsecured in cars. don’t confuse the issue of cost with safety — airlines could still let children under 2 fly free or very cheap, but say they have to be in a car seat. I flew ONCE with a baby on my lap and I would never do it again — it’s uncomfortable for all of us, and very scary during takeoff and landing, when clearly I would not be able to hold on to her in case of an accident. There are plenty of examples of planes sliding off runways – those are survivable, but much riskier for a baby flying through the cabin when a parent can’t possibly hang on!

We have always bought a seat and brought a car seat on board for our now 3 year old, even when he was an infant. We fly cross country several times a year, both as a family and just my son and I. I never understood how adults were required to be strapped in, but our most precious passengers were left unsecured. Carrying the car seat and paying for his seat seemed a small price to pay to provide my son the same level of protection that I was getting. While a car seat won’t protect him in a fiery crash, a car seat may well save his life in a water landing on the Hudson or a slide off a snowy runway.
I found that he is happy and comfortable in his car seat. He knows it is his place and he knows the rules of the car seat. It also boosts him high enough to see out the window. I use a thing made by GoGoKidz that turns his car seat into a stroller and he rides it through the airport.

This is just a way of discouraging families from travelling with babies. Small babies have been flying “in arms” forever, and I have NEVER heard of a baby being yanked from its mothers arms by turbulence. The fact that babies were thrown from a plane wreck where EVERY SINGLE passenger died doesn’t really illustrate the safety of flying “in arms” in flights that don’t crash. Bottom line: society is becoming less tolerant of children. They want to financially punish parents for bringing babies on flights. Parents fight back! This is a no brainer – if you want the seat, buy the seat. If you don’t mind holding your baby, no one should be able to punish you for that in the name of “safety” when there is NO THREAT.