do you feel guilty... rf on an overnight flight?

[JdrKuhnert]

What about asking for the bulkhead when you check in? Those seats are often blocked by the airline, but can be assigned when checking in. I did this on my last few flights and it made a huge difference. At least with the bulkhead, you don't have to worry about reclining seats or kids kicking the person in front.

[egoldber]

how about the shorter, daytime flights of about 5+ hours? should i be making changes there too?

Well, that's trickier. As a PP mentioned, when FF, my younger DD WILL kick the seat in front of her. When I have no options (that is I am flying with her by myself) I give the person in front of her the option of not reclinging or being kicked. Or I warn them they may want to move if there are other open seats on the aircraft.

But since you are flying with a family group, I'm not sure what the issue is? Just rearrange seats amongst your family to optimize the situation. Just make sure that your group is not in or too close to an exit row, then you have limited options.

One option is to ask for the bulkhead, but personally I really dislike the bulkhead when flying with children. I've been on too many delayed flights and not having access to our carry-on (all carryon must be in the overhead bin with bulkhead seats) would be dreadful.

[vonfirmath]

That argument is illogical -- the person in front of the child ALSO paid for their seat and should be able to use their seat reclined if they want.

But if they recline, they are taking up part of MY space. And not every seat on the plane reclines, and they don't have you pay less just cause your seat does not recline. You are paying to get from point A to point B. Not to recline your seat.

[egoldber]

Personally, I think the difference is that on overnight flights, people expect to be able to sleep for a few hours and reclining is a big part of that. On a daytime flight, I have no issue with telling people to suck it up. But I do think that an overnight is different and I would make different choices to be courteous to the people around my family.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Personally, I think the difference is that on overnight flights, people expect to be able to sleep for a few hours and reclining is a big part of that. On a daytime flight, I have no issue with telling people to suck it up. But I do think that an overnight is different and I would make different choices to be courteous to the people around my family.

I would still put baby behind family. It just really makes things much easier, if you ask me. I don't see a downside to doing it that way.

I had been worried about my then 16m old kicking the chair in front of him when I ff'ed him on a flight this spring but his legs weren't long enough. Worked great. Had it been an issue I would have rf'ed him though after a disastrous flight with ds1 re. kicking the chair in front of him.

Beth

[stillplayswithbarbies]

That argument is illogical -- the person in front of the child ALSO paid for their seat and should be able to use their seat reclined if they want.

My logic is that it is the rules of the airline that caused the person to be unable to recline, therefore it is the problem of the airline. The flight attendant has the obligation to deal with it somehow if that person is unhappy.

I paid for my child's ticket. I am following the rules (by using the carseat according to the manual and in the same way I use it in a car). I have no guilt if the person in front of it can't recline. The rules don't say anything about not being allowed to RF if it causes another person to be unable to recline.

[lorinick]

That argument is illogical -- the person in front of the child ALSO paid for their seat and should be able to use their seat reclined if they want.

Why would you want to put the person out that is seating in front of you? That's what's wrong with the world today.

[g-mama]

I would be pissed if I could not recline the seat that I paid for.

I see babies all the time on airplanes that don't even have their own plane seat. It's not an airline law that they have their own seat, period. So how could it be an airline law that they have to be RF? It seems to make perfect sense that they just need (for safety, not to be legal) to be strapped into something stable. The plane is not going to be rear-ended by another plane like in a car.

[pb&j]

My logic is that it is the rules of the airline that caused the person to be unable to recline, therefore it is the problem of the airline. The flight attendant has the obligation to deal with it somehow if that person is unhappy.

I paid for my child's ticket. I am following the rules (by using the carseat according to the manual and in the same way I use it in a car). I have no guilt if the person in front of it can't recline. The rules don't say anything about not being allowed to RF if it causes another person to be unable to recline.

Yes, but, it is also following the rules to use the car seat FF.

As a former airline pilot, I can confidently say there is, IMO, extremely marginal, if any, benefit to having a child RF on an airplane, as the physics of airplane crashes are different than the physics of car crashes. Airplane crashes and sudden decelerations are quite rare; turbulence is much more common and is my main concern. The important thing is just to have them harnessed at all. You could harness them upside down on the bottom of the overhead bin and it would be about as safe as having them RF. So, in the absence of any evidence that RFing is safer, I'd do the considerate thing and FF.

Flight attendants' primary jobs are to ensure your safety, not to mediate disputes between seat neighbors. So I wouldn't be confident that I could successfully pass the buck on this one. Nor would I want to start off my redeye flight by pissing off my flight attendant *and* my seat neighbor.

[arivecchi]

As a former airline pilot, I can confidently say there is, IMO, extremely marginal, if any, benefit to having a child RF on an airplane, as the physics of airplane crashes are different than the physics of car crashes. Airplane crashes and sudden decelerations are quite rare; turbulence is much more common and is my main concern.

Would you have an infant under 1 yr FF (he will be in a convertible seat)? I would actually like to have my DC FF so as to not deal with the passenger in front of us. I would have thought that the RF thing would not really apply at all in an airplane.