Photo Credit: T. Schlangen 2018
If we took a holiday
Took some time to celebrate
Just one day out of life
It would be
It would be so nice
Everybody spread the word
We're gonna have a celebration
All across the world
In every nation
It's time for the good times
Forget about the bad times
One day to come together
To release the pressure
We need a holiday
If we took a holiday
Took some time to celebrate
Just one day out of life
It would be
It's summer vacation time! Time for excursions to the beach, amusement parks, national parks, historic sites and to see family. While some will be taking road trips, many others will be flying. If you're traveling with a child under the age of two on an airplane, chances are that the child will be sitting on your lap unless you purchase a ticket for your child. Or at least that's the way it should work. In an incident last summer, a flight attendant insisted that the mother of a toddler hold her child even though she had purchased a ticket for the child. Just in the last couple days, another mother and child have been in the news as a flight attendant with the same airline insisted that a mother traveling with her 8-month-old daughter place the car seat so that the child was facing forward, which is not recommended for children weighing less than 35 pounds.
Child's Seat Given to Adult Passenger
In the first incident, a woman traveling with her two-year-old son was flying from Hawaii to Boston. They boarded a plane for the last leg in Houston and found their seats. According to the mother, a flight attendant came to check if the child was present before a standby passenger showed up with a ticket corresponding to the toddler's seat number. When the mother alerted a flight attendant, she was told that the flight was full. The mother said that she continued the flight with her son on her lap, because she was afraid of a physical confrontation (as was depicted by the infamous video showing a doctor being dragged down the aisle of a plane) if she spoke up further.
The airline indicated that it had "inaccurately scanned the boarding pass of [the child]. As a result, [his] seat appeared to be not checked in, and [United] released his seat to another customer and [the mother] held her son for the flight."
Forbes Magazine reported that, according to an FAA spokesperson, "the FAA will work with [the airline] to investigate the facts of the event and determine if a violation occurred." That's the rub--Federal Aviation Regulations specify that during the takeoff, in flight, and upon landing, there must be available to each passenger who has reached his or her second birthday an approved seat or berth and an approved safety belt. In this case, the child was 27 months old (according to his mother, and there's no reason to doubt that she knows her son's age). Consequently, if a 27-month-old child was not properly restrained in his own seat, the airline could be subject to a significant fine.
Beyond the regulations, however, there is a basic safety issue at work. Although the regulations permit children under two-years-old to fly on a parent's lap, the FAA acknowledges that the safest place for your child on an airplane is in a government-approved child safety restraint system (CRS) or device (i.e., a car seat). The agency explains that a parent's arms aren't capable of holding a child securely, especially during unexpected turbulence.
Improperly Installed Car Seat
Just as in a car, the CRS must be properly installed. In the most recent incident making the news, a mother flying home to California from Denver with her 8-month-old daughter, reports that she was told by an airline employee to install her daughter's CRS so that her daughter was facing forward. The mother said she had researched everything, and she knew that the CRS should be facing backward. A baby's neck isn't strong enough to withstand the force of bumps or jolts. That's the reason that CRSs should face backward in cars, too.
The mother initially placed the seat facing backward, as suggested for children under two. However, an airline employee told her the plane would not take off until she turned the CRS around. The mother says she felt like she was pressured to turn the seat facing forward, because she knew they would be kicked off the plane if she didn't comply. When the plane encountered turbulence, the mother said she held her child's head back to the car seat to protect her.
About 20 minutes before landing, the mother said that a flight attendant reviewed the policy and let her fix the seat. The airline has acknowledged the mistake and apologized.
FAA Recommendations vs. Regulations
In 1989, a United Airlines jet crashed in Sioux City, Iowa. One of the flight attendants from that flight wants the FAA to require all children to be belted into seats on commercial airliners. She recalls telling the parents of the four lap babies to put them on the floor and hold them. Afterwards, she encountered one of the mothers who said, "you told me to put my baby on the floor and he would be ok, and now he's gone." More than 25 years later, she continues to lobby for children under the age of two to be belted into a CRS.
Still, the agency is not likely to change its regulations anytime soon. In August 2005, the FAA announced that it would not mandate the use of child safety seats on airplanes because of the increased safety risk to families. Huh??? The agency said its analysis showed that, if forced to purchase an extra airline ticket, families might choose to drive, a statistically more dangerous way to travel. Statistically, the risk of fatalities and injuries is significantly greater on highways, it said.
In May 2012, in preparation for the summer travel season, the FAA launched an education campaign to help parents make informed choices about their child's safety when they fly. They developed a new website that included tips and a video demonstration on how to properly install a child safety seat on an airplane.
Do an internet search, and it's easy to find incidents where children have been saved by being in a CRS and incidents where a parent was unable to hold onto his or her child. Tests have been conducted to demonstrate the inability of parents to hold onto children. It's sobering, particularly when you don't have the money to pay for an extra ticket. It's been more than 19 years since I had a child under the age of two. I wasn't aware of the dangers when my first daughter was under two, but with my younger daughter, I would check to see if there were empty seats on the flight and ask if we could use the car seat. After all, we needed to travel with the car seat anyway. A couple times, I was able to do it. And, if not, I could gate-check the car seat.
For more information, see the car seat blog: Airplanes, Carseats, and Kids—What You Need to Know Pt. 1 and Airplanes, Carseats, and Kids—What You Need to Know Pt. 2.
The safest way to fly with a child is to purchase a seat for them, regardless of age. I remember being glad when each of my children hit their second birthday because I no longer had wrestle with the question of whether to purchase a ticket or gamble with their safety.
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