Infant carseat choice for air travel to US

S

steveholy

Registered User
We made the decision to buy an extra seat for our baby during our travel to the States, who will be around 4 months at that time. We are struggling to find a carseat that will fit into the aircraft and which has been approved by the FAA. I know the average width of plane seats is around 17inches. So, basically the carseat should not exceed this limit.
This is going to be our first trip and we have no idea what to expect. (Baby is not even born yet.) I think it will be a bit difficult to carry the baby in a carseat in the plane, but we don't mind this.

Anyone flew to the US with an infant in a carseat before? Can you give some information on the brands that are available in Hong Kong and that were accepted onboard with no problems.

Thanks a lot.
 
car seat...

I have flown around the world with my babies and have used the Maxi-Cosi brand without problem. You just need to ensure that it has the special 'airline approved' sticker on the seat (don't remove when you purchase the seat). Basically once my children got to 6 months they were too big for the bassinet on the planes, so we had to buy them a seat and put the car seat into the seat.

The car seat is also safer in that they are securely fastened in at all times - as opposed to the bassinet where they can quite easily fall out... plus you have to pick them up whenever the seatbelt sign goes on. You don't if they are in there own car seat.

You can buy this brand at Bumps 2 Babes.

Bon voyage!
 
We've only ever used our Britax First Class on CX flights. It fits perfectly and bringing your own car seat with you on the flight saves you the hassle of renting a car seat once you're on the ground, esp. if it's somewhere where car seats are mandatory for all kids under xx age. Ours is old, so I don't know if they still carry this model...

The only thing to watch out is that with a car seat, the person sitting in front of the baby cannot recline much or if s/he does, then it gets a bit cramped.

Have a good trip!
 
It's not only the width that is the problem, but many of the car seats only use a shoulder belt and cannot be secured with a lap belt. My LO is 2 years old now, but when I was looking for one about 18 months ago they didn't have much choice at either Mothercare or B2B. I think there was one suitable model at B2B at the time and it looked really uncomfortable as it had no recline. In the end, I made my DH carry one back from the US after a business trip!
 
we brought our Maxi Cosi carseat on board with us this past Christmas on JAL en route to California. In the end, we found the carseat to be a total pain. It made our seats actually feel even more cramped. Like Buckeroo said, the person in front of him could not recline back which we felt very bad about. Our son (then 11 months) ended up not even sleeping in it for more than 40 minutes. The rest of the time we were counting down the hours to when we could check it through. Having our son lie between us was so much better for everyone and I don't think we'll ever take on board our carseat again. For a long haul flight, it was just not worth it.
 
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