Children under 2 years of age are currently allowed to travel in planes on the lap of an adult. However, it’s a practice the National Transportation Safety Board hopes the FAA will put an end to.
Yesterday, the NTSB sent a letter to the FAA asking the regulators to once again consider the need for each passenger on a plane to be secured in their own seat, regardless of age.
Citing a handful of aviation accidents where children were hurt or killed, including one where a small plane was overloaded with too many passengers because of children sitting on laps, the NTSB said — as the group’s name implies — that safety should be the highest priority:
The NTSB concludes that children under the age of 2 years should be afforded the same level of protection as all other persons aboard air carrier airplanes. Therefore, the NTSB recommends that the FAA… require each person who is less than 2 years of age to be restrained in a separate seat position by an appropriate child restraint system during takeoff, landing, and turbulence.
In 2005, the FAA said it supported the idea of child restraint systems in aircraft, but that, by requiring parents to purchase a separate ticket for every child under 2 years of age, many parents would opt for driving to their destination rather than flying. According to the FAA, this would cause an increase in the number of highway fatalities.
What do you think?
NTSB Safety Recommendation [PDF]
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Where is the third option of ‘let the damned airlines decide their own policy’. As usual, the debate is framed as if the big benevolent government should either FORCE companies to have a policy or BAN companies from having a policy. Let airlines decide for themselves and the consumers will let them know what they think with their $$$’s.
Because a child has no VOTING rights, and can not vote with THEIR dollars. A cheap ass bad parent who decides I know best for my child, but doesnt have a clue can cause their child to DIE. or possibly kill another with a projectile missle. Free market people are so boring, hasn’t the banking industry implosion shown you that less regulation is not good.
I’m not allowed to have my eight-pound laptop out during takeoff and landing. How come my seat mate can have an unrestrained 20 lb child sitting on her or his lap? That child becomes a lethal projectile in any severe turbulence or crash, severely injuring or killing not only the child, but others, as the child hurtles into your head and breaks your neck. You would not be allowed to carry a 20 lb bowling ball on your lap. The laws of physics don’t discriminate based on whether the 20 lb object is inanimate or a human being.
I do not want to be seated anywhere near a lap child and I expect the FAA to understand basic physics.
True, but babies are a lot squishier than laptops and bowling balls and do a lot less damage per pound than a hard object.
Anything that will discourage people from flying with their squalling, smelly brats is OK with me.
YES! Please make parents pay for their child so as to deter some of them from ever getting on the plane. I’ve only flown all of maybe 5 times (international around 13 hours each way), and all 5 times I had to endure the typical crying baby. Please make this happen!
But to be fair, the last time that happened, the parents did buy two seats for their babies between them so no one had to sit right next to a crying baby. So that was nice of them.
First, screw the cost. The kid would need it’s own seat over age 2, so why do parents think they get to pay less just cuz the child is smaller? Still a kid, still a person, still gonna have to pay for their expenses for 18+ years, parents can get over paying for plane tickets in their first 24 months.
Second, what parent actually argues “But, I’d have to pay more” when handed a study about how babies on laps are way more likely to be injured or killed during otherwise nonfatal accidents and turbulance? I’ve been on a plane that felt like it fell straight out of the sky. It was so bad, a flight attendant wound up across our laps. There weren’t any small kids on our flight (lucky us), but if this tossed an adult who is used to flying daily, what would happen to a baby being held by a parent caught off guard? Knowing this ahead of time, what parent would look at their kid and say, “Eh, the risk is worth saving myself some money”?
Third, and this cannot be overstated: These seats are tiny and I am not going to be happy being squeezed between two people as it is. Add a toddler to the lap of a seatmate and I may find myself in a surreal moment of wanting to punch a baby. In order to avoid this, I may just lash out at the parent holding it.
So, restate: Pay for the baby to have a real seat. The money is worth saving your kid from an accident and saving your nose from being broken after the kid starts drooling into my hair.
Parents claim they love their kids and they are all so precious too them, BUT, when it comes to spending money for their safety they complain.
There is no person here who can honestly claim the baby is better off in your lap than in an approved child seat. They are complaining about the cost, getting a discount, blah blah blah. REALLY? You have a child and you save a couple dollars, but turbulence happens and your kid DIES. You are probably the type of parent who holds your kid in their arms in the car too. You should have your children taken away for being a negligent parent. Children are not property, and have the same right to be protected as an adult.
The FAA is absolutely right on this. If you force parents to buy seats for their one-year-olds, many of those families will choose to drive instead. But, flying is far, far safer than driving. As a result, this idea which is intended to make those kids safer will actually far less safe.
When was the last time a kid was killed because they were sitting in their parent’s lap on an airplane? They’re killed on the highways all the time.
Those of us that have been stuck next to a screaming lap child on a long flight think that this is a fantastic idea.
I’m sorry, do all the commenters here have completely broken risk perception? Or did I miss the avalanche of deaths and injuries related to the existing lap baby policy?
Do you all understand what an infintesimal chance there is of a baby or another passenger coming to harm because said baby is on a lap instead of having his or her own seat? Why should we have restrictive and expensive policies based on tiny, tiny possibilities?
And how much time does a baby with her own seat actually spend in that seat, anyway? In my experience very very little.
I don’t care whether parents pay for the 2nd seat, or decided to put up with a child on their lap for the whole flight. What I do care about is parents who don’t pay for their kids on Southwest flights, plop their kids into the middle seat and cross their fingers for an empty flight.
I’ve been on so many flights where the flight attendants go on and on about how its a full flight, and every set will be taken. and these selfish parents keep fussing with their kids while there are paying passengers with no seats standing in the aisles. It slows down the boarding process while the flight attendants have to find each parent and make them put their child on their lap.
At least if this goes into effect it would cut down on Southwest boarding drama.
Regardless of what the law is, we will NEVER fly with a child in our lap. I live in Canada and there was a plane that was diverted here after facing huge turbulance. A number of people (I think 10ish) were seriously injured including broken bones and concussions. Those who were wearing seatbelts were fine. That was all the convincing that I needed. If we can not afford a seat for each of us, we will not fly, its as simple as that.
If I would never drive with my child in my lap, why would I fly?
I said “yes” but it wasn’t as a matter of safety.
Absolutely they should.
I have sat several times next to people with kids around 2 and it was the most uncomfortable and annoying set of rides in my flight-flying career
They are moving, they take up space, and they need to be taken care of
the airlines won’t let you use a regular car seat in a plane, and until they revamp car seat standards to be “plane safe” the point would be moot, since plane seats don’t include child restraints. Plus, what parent is gonna trust reusable airline issued child seats, with germs, bacteria etc if they went that route? kids share illnesses like chicken pox, colds, flu etc so easily amongst each other.
Of course, they should. We have always purchased another seat for our child when flying. It gave us extra room and baggage (before you had to pay per bag.) If I have to wear a seat belt in flight, so does my baby. She goes in it anytime the seat belt sign is illuminated. She has flown on more than 30 segments in five years.
However, the airlines do need better education about how the car seats work. My daughter was less than 12 months, but too big for her infant seat. We had a lightweight, FAA approved car seat. I installed it rear facing (just as I had on the trip up to Boston on the same airline without incident.) A flight attendant passed several times, but started in about it being incorrect minutes before push back. I told her that I installed it correctly. The instructions were with me. I also told her that babies should be rear facing til 12 months, also in the instructions that were with me. She insisted it had to be forward facing. (There were labels on the frame on both sides. The side facing the aisle had the foward facing instructions in large letters, so she said that I was wrong and that the seat was a forward facing seat only.) I calmly restated my position, offering the manual which she wouldn’t take. Finally, she got a manager who asked me, “Are you refusing to comply with the safety instructions of a flight attendant?” Knowing that I was about to get kicked off the flight/fined, etc., I put my child’s safety last and reinstalled the seat forward facing. When we got home, we phoned JetBlue. They agreed that we were correct, and that the staff handled the situation poorly.
We use the CARES restraint now. http://www.kidsflysafe.com/ A few FAs have tried to tell me that I can’t use it, but I have the FAA statements that specifically mention the device with me.