Bringing carseat on flight
I'm going to be flying with my 2 and 3 year old children (and my wife) on a Lufthansa flight from US to Germany, and we'll need carseats when we arrive. We'd like to bring our carseats with us, but are unsure about the regulations.
We have Evenflo Symphony DLX (similar to this model). They're not on Lufthansa's list of approved seats, and I don't think they have the FAA sticker (at least I haven't found it), but they are listed as approved by the FAA in the manual.
It seems to me that in theory Lufthansa should allow us to take the seat on board and either use it with the child in it, or store it in the cargo hold (checked at gate). Is that likely to be in practice true? If not, we may be taking enough luggage that one or both carseats would be over our free allowance, and thus $100 each way - more than the cost of a new carseat over there.
We're in a middle-back row in the middle aisle of an A340-600 (well, three of the four of us are, assuming they fix the 3 year old's seat that is seventeen rows forward of us), so it's unclear if the carseat will really fit in any of the seats as well. We'd like to use the carseat in flight if they'll let us and it will fit, but I don't imagine they'll let us test it out ahead of time?
Has anyone had experience with a similar situation? What can I do to maximize my chances of the air crew allowing us to take the carseat on board and/or not charging us for it in storage? If it's relevant, we will not have a stroller with us; both of our children are sufficiently mobile to not require it.
Best Answer
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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Answer 2
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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