OT - Anyone know airline regs for bringing Booster seats?

#1

We are flying from Maine to Florida in March on Southwest airlines and I’ve been trying to find out if I can bring the kids’ highback booster seats on the flight. The car rental companies that we’ve looked at want $9/per day per booster seat (and I need 2 seats for 10 days), so obviously I want to bring the ones we have. I looked online at southwest.com and it talks about car seats, but doesn’t specify booster seats and I checked the FAA website and there was a bunch of stuff about how most airlines don’t allow booster seats…does anyone have any experience with this?

#2

My boys are much older now, a junior in high school and freshmen in college but I used to bring my seats on planes all they time, you have to pay for the seat and you have to have a sticker that says airline approved and then all is good.

Of course times have changed a bit since I was in your shoes so just call your airline and get the straight scoop.

#3

even if they don’t allow you to actually bring them on board i would think that there wouldn’t be a problem with checking them. :thinking: have you actually called the airline itself to see what they say?

#4

Here’s the low down: your seat has to say it is approved by the FAA (it should be somewhere on the seat on a sticker, like where they have the warnings and stuff). As long as it does, you are good. Most of the time they don’t check but I did have a flight attendant check it once so it is a good idea to make sure. Even if you can’t have the kids sit in them on the plane, you can always check a carseat and it doesn’t count as your 2 allowable pieces of luggage. Also, you can check it at the gate, just like a stroller, if you don’t feel comfortable with the way they handle checked luggage. I have flown with carseats A LOT. There is no reason to rent one. :smiley: HTH!

#5

[color=darkblue]If the boosters have harnesses, yes you can use them on the plane. If they are belt positioning boosters only with no harness, then you can’t use them on the plane (because airplanes don’t have shoulders belts, only lap belts and you never use boosters with just a lap belt). Your best bet at that point would be to gate check them to make sure to have them at your destination and not have the potential to get lost with luggage.
HTH ands feel free to post back with any more questions!
(I want to become a Child Passenger Safety Technician so that is why I know about car seat stuff.)

Mary, SAHM to Aimee 14, Heather 5, and Laura 2 1/2[/color]