Should infants sit in safety seats for air travel?

1. The facts: Infants are the only items on an aircraft that need not be battened down (secured) for takeoff, turbulence and landing. In case of severe turbulence and survivable crashes, an unrestrained 20-pound (9 kilos) infant sitting on your lap instantaneously becomes a 300-pound weight (136 kilos) that you cannot restrain. Infants have hit the aircraft ceiling or been propelled several rows forward, resulting in serious injuries and deaths.

2. You, the parent, must decide whether or not to use a safety seat (child restraint system, CRS.) Few parents do, mainly because airline travel is so safe. US regulations – and those of most other countries – allow infants less than two years of age to be held on an adult’s lap. Millions of young children travel by air annually, though the precise number is unknown. Estimates done some years ago, suggest that, in survivable accidents, if every child sat in a CRS it would prevent one serious accident or death every four years or so. One passenger death, an adult in 2018, was the first fatality on a US airline in nine years.

3. Using CRSs can be expensive. CRSs generally require purchasing an extra airline seat. The cost of such a seat ranges from free (increasingly rare) to full fare, with most such seats costing about half the full fare. Costs vary with airlines, empty seats available, and class of travel. Special rates for an extra seat to accommodate a CRS are rarely advertised; ask to receive a reduced-rate ticket.

4. CRSs have practical limitations. Until recently, a financial limitation was the cost of buying a CRS appropriate for air travel; most car seats did not fit into airline seats. Now, with rare exceptions, car seats meet the requirements. Check your car seat model with your airline. Also check model and rules with airline(s) if you visit other countries; rules may differ markedly.

5. CRS are cumbersome. Carrying a seat, the infant, and items needed by infants is at best a difficult task, a task almost impossible if only one adult is traveling. Moreover, even if you bring a CRS, during the flight, you still spend time holding your infant on your lap or walking the aisles, reducing the effective time the seat is protective. Especially on long flights, infants need to be fed, changed and comforted, tasks difficult to perform in the CRS.

6. Forcing all parents to use CRSs may be counterproductive. According to some experts, the cost of purchasing a seat for a CRS convinces many families who are planning short flights, to drive rather than fly. Road travel is more dangerous than air travel and would increase the number of injuries/deaths. However, such reasoning may be flawed. Driving statistics include all drivers – impaired and reckless ones, for example. Likely, most parents driving children are safer drivers.

7. Partial alternatives to CRSs are available. U.S. authorities have approved Child Aviation Restraint Systems (CARES), but only for children weighing between 22 and 44 pounds (10 to 20 kilos), generally children between one and four years of age. CARES do require purchasing airline seats but eliminates the use of a CRS. CARES consists of a harness worn by the child. The harness attaches to the airplane seat belt and has a strap that goes around the back of the airplane seat. The harness is lightweight and fits easily into a diaper bag.

8. Another partial alternative to CRSs are infants restraining vests. Such vests have straps that attach to the adult’s seat belt, allowing infants to sit on an adult’s lap, making extra airline seats unnecessary. These vests are lightweight and fit into a small pouch. However, vests cannot be used during takeoff or landing. Moreover, the permissibility of both vests and CARES varies from country to country. Check with your airline; most have websites with detailed information regarding infant safety considerations. CARES and vests can be purchased online.

9. CRSs may protect infants from several extremely rare types of mishaps. Unsecured lap infants are injured when adults fall asleep and the infants slides off the lap. And infants are suffocated when an adult falls asleep with their chest atop the infant. Even rarer, several lap infants have died in what may have been cases of SIDS (Sudden infant death syndrome.) However, the incidence of the combined number of these events probably approaches the one in a million frequency.

10. Are CRSs really necessary? Only a government-approved CRS offers infants maximum protection. The use of CRSs is strongly recommended by the American Academy of Pediatric, Centers for Disease Control, National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration. Moreover, these groups are petitioning government regulatory agencies to make the use of CRSs mandatory.

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