Flying with Car Seats and Boosters

If you can fly with a thousand kids and a thousand car seats (or, you know, however many kids you have), you can do anything!

Not gonna lie - flying with car seats is the most annoying part of traveling with kids.

Flying with kids who are young enough to need a car seat at your destination can be such a headache! 

I’m not going to lie; whenever possible, we plan trips to rely entirely on public transit for exactly this reason. 

But, sometimes flying with car seats is unavoidable. 

The one thing we really try to avoid with young kids is relying on taxis/ride shares. If we’re flying with car seats, it’s because we’re going to put them in a rental car at our destination, and they’re going to live there until we come back to the airport to go home.

In the US, you are allowed to have your kid ride in the 5 point harness seat (as long as it’s FAA approved; check the sticker on the seat) on the airplane. And, that’s the safest way for them to fly. Turbulence can be really severe, and small bodies can easily slip out of airplane seatbelts that aren’t designed for them.

Internationally, you’ll have to look up the rules for the airline you’re flying. Some airlines/counties do not allow kids to ride in car seats on planes. So, you definitely need to look into the rules for the specific airlines that you’ll be flying.

We always try to avoid checking luggage, so we have bent over backwards to find ways to bring car seats and boosters with us on the airplane. If you are going to check a car seat, make sure to use a box or padded bag that will protect it while in the luggage hold. The people who load and unload luggage are not very gentle, and a car seat could easily get damaged without proper protection. 

The most annoying type of child restraint to bring on a plane is a high back booster. Kids can’t sit in them on the plane, and they’re generally too big/the wrong shape to go in the overhead bin. 

We solved this problem by buying a Peg Perego Viaggio Flex 120 booster. We bought this when my middle kid was ready to move to a high back booster, anyway. So, it was her regular, everyday booster. This booster was super helpful for us, because it’s also really narrow, and we have three kids across the back seat of our car. It’s insanely expensive to buy for use as just a travel booster, but it made sense for us since we also needed a new, everyday booster. 

The Viaggio Flex 120 folds down pretty small, and you can buy a carry bag for it. I successfully brought it as a carry-on item on a Southwest flight and put it in the overhead bin. It’s technically 1” longer than their stated carry-on size, but no one asked me to put it in the sizer, and it fit just fine in the overhead bin. 

Now that my youngest is one of my kids still in a child restraint in the car, we bought a Ride Safer Vest. It packs down small enough to carry around in a backpack all day, and it repositions the seatbelt to fit a small body. We first used it with him when he had just turned 5 years old. And even at that age, I would not have trusted him to be mature enough to use it without an adult sitting right next to him. So, even though it’s marketed for kids younger than 5, I wouldn’t choose to use it younger than that. But, it’s a really great alternative to packing a high back booster.

If you’re considering a Ride Safer Vest, make sure you look up whether or not it’s legal where you’re traveling. It is certified to U.S. FMVSS 213 standards, so you can definitely use it in the US. I know that it has not been certified in Europe. For other countries, you’ll have to research before you travel. Many countries will allow visitors to use child restraints that are certified in their home countries while traveling as a tourist. We used it in Peru, because they only require car seats up to age 3, so my son didn’t require anything specific, anyway. 

If your kid is in just a backless booster, things become a little bit easier. Many backless boosters will be small enough to carry on the plane with you and will fit in the overhead bin or under the seat. My kids’ Cosco Rise LX seats have fit under almost every plane seat we’ve tried. 

If you’re going to be traveling around using taxis/ride shares, you might want to consider a Bubble Bum booster. They’re inflatable boosters that can pack small enough to put in a backpack when you’re not using them. They are certified to EU ECE R44.04 and the US FMVSS 213 standards. (Fun fact: these are the old EU certification standards. You can still use them in Europe, but you can’t buy them in Europe. You can, however, buy them in the US, the UK, and other places that haven’t updated to the new EU certification standards.

And then, once you know what car seats/boosters you’re bringing on the plane with you, you need to figure out how you’re getting all of this crap to the gate.

The stroller. Bring a stroller. If for nothing else, use the stroller to push the car seat(s) through the airport. Then, gate check the stroller. That’s the only advice I have!

What about you? What have you done when traveling with kids who still need a car seat or booster?