Bringing carseat on flight

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We have flown with carseats on Virgin America, United, Delta, KLM, Lufthansa, and British Airways. We have NEVER had to pay for carseats and or strollers. I don't know any airline that will make you pay.

we have both flown with the seat in the hold and in the cabin. It was very helpful for our youngest (up to about 2.5) to sit in a seat, especially when he was around 12 months. He slept much better!

British Airway told us they did not care about FAA approval (as that is an American Entity), but they inspected our seat and found it OK (it was a Britax). It had to do with the strap material, and they told us the FAA has approved some whatever British equivalent did not.

For this conversation, it was clear that if the senior attendant had not approved it, they would have taken it to the front to put it in the hold.

For various brands and models of car seats, it is worth noting that almost all manufacturers are subject to slightly different laws in different regions, so no model is sold in both the US and EU, for instance. (But you can see they are similar). That means that German company cannot possibly list all manufacturers/models, I would think.

Whenever we have flown, we have been at the gate early, and used the option for early boarding for passengers with small kids. This leaves us ample time to install the car seat, chat with flight attendants about it and so forth.

For your particular situation, we have successfully flown with our oldest in just the airplane seat using a CARES harness from 2 and up. At those times we have gotten a car seat bag and simply checked the seat before hand. Sometimes you have to pick up/ check in at the oversize luggage counter, but we have never had to pay, or even had any raised eyebrows.

Adding: Go to the gate EARLY and make it fix so that one the adults sit with one child, and the other adult with the other. They should not have a family of four in 1+3. Lufthansa has been awesome for us with kids, they had little coloring books for them and everything. Remember to select a 'toddler meal' in the online tool, if you want one.

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As the PDF you linked states on the bottom, all FAA approved seats are allowed as long as they can be fixed with the safety belt.

Besides the children's seats listed, seats labelled with "FAA" or "CAA approved car type seats" are also permitted, provided that they can be fixed correctly to the passenger seat.

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We recently did a long series of flights from Asia through Europe and Africa. Each airline had different specs they looked for with our car seat.

KLM's main concern was that the harness was a five point (5 straps to a central buckle) and with metal buckles. This was apparently an EU rule so likely Luftansa has the same. The FAA Airplane Icon on the car seat was not enough by itself.

Air France only gave it a cursory glance (but it had a KLM cabin baggage tag by that point).

BA and SAA were OK once we showed them the FAA Airplane Icon. But on BA's 737s we had to check the car seat because the armrests were not retractable and the base would not fit in between the fixed armrests.

None of the airlines charged us for checking our stroller nor the car seat (when necessary) even though we were traveling with our full allotment of checked bags.

All in we flew: A320, A380, 777 & 737 aircraft

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