I just got off the phone with qantas. We're flying to australia in less than 4 weeks' time. The reservation lady said that I had to submit all the car seat information for APPROVAL otherwise I wouldn't be able to use the car seat in DD's paid seat!! I've never heard of this, has anyone? DD will be 12 months old at time of travel. Then she proceeded to ask questions, like car seat model number, width of car seat, weight of baby, rear facing or forward facing, single release or not etc. She then asked for the approval number on the car seat for it to be used on air crafts. I couldn't find that and so I told her I would call back (and check with the board first!).

An issue came up when she found out that I was bringing a rear facing infant car seat (Evenflo discovery). She said that because the seat in front of the rear facing car seat would not be able to recline, my husband would have to sit in that seat (breaking up the 3 of us into 2 rows). Since I'm traveling back with DD myself, she said that we would have to sit in a row where there are no seats in front of DD's car seat. Since we already have seat assignments (3 in a row), I'm tempted to just ignore this whole approval thing and just chance it at the airport. What can they do anyway? Surely they wouldn't actually refuse us the use of the car seat? We can always change seats at that point......

Just wondering if anyone else has encountered this and any tips/suggestions? Is it possible that some aircrafts will actually have enough space to let the seat in front recline even with a rear facing car seat behind? I could bring a forward facing car seat, but the infant carrier would be much more convenient during our month long stay there. Plus since I am traveling back with DD myself, it would be easier to have the infant car seat fit on top of the stroller than carry a separate big convertible.

Thanks so much!