flight and car seats

We plan our first vacation. We just don't wanna drive all the way down to florida from ohio with the twins.we can take our jeep double strollers on the air plane but how about carseats?have you ever shipped carseats? What was your experience?thanks

 

Whenever I flew with my babes (not the twins but the older ones) if I didn't buy a seat and strap them into the plane seat itself with their own car seat the airline always checked their car seat for free. I did find it much easier to pay for an extra seat tho (and sometimes if the flight is empty and you haven't bought an extra ticket they will let you use an empty seat with the car seat). I found it soooo much less stressful to have the kids strapped in - they are used to it, are safer and you have hands free then. Also when the seat belt sign is on for turbulence they make you hold them in the 'crash' position against your chest - the entire time the light is on (at least in my experience and I've flown about 15 trips total with the older kids if not more)

 

I have heard you should never check a car seat when flying because of the way it is treated while in cargo. I will try to find the link where I read this and come back with some info. But I just remember after reading it I thought I would never check the seat but carry it on instead.

 

Okay I looked and the info I got was just an opinion based on those specials that they have seen about how luggage is treated by airlines. They can be pretty rough with luggage. Just think about them throwing around your car seats. Those things are too expensive to me to risk checking them.

 

not sure if they handle the gate checked luggage any better or not... but you could check them at the gate where you get the stroller checked.

if you're really worried about damaging expensive carseats, then you could always buy some cheap ones and use those for the trip... and not worry about them getting damaged... and not worry about shipping etc. get either used cheap ones or just plain cheapie ones at the store...