Anonymous wrote:

If they gate check my stuff, there is a loss- I don't have enough diapers, food, or entertainment to keep my kid from screaming and bothering you. Maybe on a short flight this isn't an issue, but a long flight I generally need most of my stuff.

I don't understand how this could be. I have a child who is not quite 3, and I have always been able to feed, entertain, and diaper him on flights to California with a diaper bag full of things that would never need to be gate checked. Yes, he gets antsy during the flight and we have to walk around, but having more stuff isn't going to change that.

Oh, I'm sorry -- apparently you think California is the furthest people fly?

Hate to break it to you, but some of us have international families and fly much, much longer flights. DD flew with us at 9 months on a 24-hr flight. The bottles, food, diapers, changes of clothes, blanket, and a few toys, etc alone took up a whole roller bag.

But you know, it's cute that you think a 6-hour flight is a "long flight." So adorably provincial.

Never take your time
If the flight attendant tells you that the plane is leaving and you need to get ready, you better get ready
You can be thrown off a flight if it is time to go and you are not seated with your seatbelt on

Otherwise I like the idea of mommy sitting and drinking wine and using the others as free child care.
I flew once and my man was so worried about flying with our toddler and happy to be sitting away from me. He ended up sitting near a woman whose baby cried. Mine fell asleep

I dislike these discussions because the problem is easily solved with pricing. More bags to check? More money. More carry on luggage? More money. I have no idea who uses up more overhead compartment space: business travelers or families. But it shouldn't matter who does IN GENERAL. It should matter who does for MY FLIGHT. If you have stuff, pay extra to carry it on the plane with you.

I also pretty much only fly Southwest domestically. Other passengers can sometimes be difficult about letting a family sit together, but the flight attendants are generally very good and helpful, and the policies are about as family-friendly as it gets these days.

I know some hate it, but we love Southwest. I just called to plan our upcoming visit to grandma and grandpa's house. It will be the first time that we are flying with our twins. The agent told me that Southwest still preboards families (after A-list passengers, but before general boarding). Although our twins count as lap-children (under 2 years of age) I plan to buy three seats so that we can sit together (you cannot have two lap children in one row because there are only four air masks available per row). The agent informed us that we can check any number of baby gear items in addition to our 2 regular checked bags per passenger. We can also gate-check a stroller. A nice perk is that the agent said that even if we had boarding pass C60 and did not preboard, that if we let the gate agents know, they would ensure that a row of three seats somewhere was reserved for us to ensure that our family would not be split up on the trip. Several other questions, but Southwest at least seems to be family friendly. We've always liked traveling Southwest, but now I like it even more.

I will say, however, that I'm absolutely thrilled with the new policy that won't let families sit together. Let someone else entertain my toddler on a cross-country flight. Mommy needs some wine and a nap.

+1. We had to pay $50 extra to sit together with our 2 year-old. Crazy!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We flew United recently with an infant, and the lack of priority boarding really wasn't that big of a deal. What was annoying was United's complete lack of customer service (our flight was delayed and they refused to answer any questions and had hardly anyone working the check in counter, and tried to make us check a small bag (we had already paid to heck our ormal size bags) even after we repeatedly explained that we'd be putting it under the seat in front of our daughter's seat. Then they overbooked the second leg of our connection and were unbelievably rude to the people trying to figure out if they had seats. these were people on the plane with duplicate boarding passes, so clearly a complete screwup on their part.

Sometimes planes are overbooked because there were substitutions for flights-mechanical issue so they use a different and smaller plane. Complaining about flight delays is silly since delays are due to weather [planes go through other areas than where you are], mechanical, crew illness, etc. The airline doesn't just decide Oh we'll just sit here since some people are at lunch or shopping...

1 bag and 1 personal item are 2 bags per passenger. UA does a decent job-flight delay of 1 h 20 m and had 15 between landing and door closing for next leg of journey-managed to get the checked bag off plane 1 onto plane 2. I have seen UA do the have to check a bag at the gate and I'm glad it does because waiting while people collect multiple objects etc to disembark is annoying. I also think FA should let off persons making connections first!

The problem wasn't the delay, the problem was they refused to answer any questions about what was going on. And the second flight wasn't just overbooked, they had actually issued multiple people duplicate boarding passes. As in, there were 2 people assigned to the same seat. When they were trying to straighten it out, the manager referred to the seatless people as "problems" yelled at one woman to just sit down in an empty seat, and stomped off the plane without ever apologizing, or even telling her that she actually had a seat.

I guess if people print their boarding passes /seat assignments and then the plane changes this can happen!!! Business travelers and other domestic travelers don't seem to have the volume of luggage as those families on international flights. UA doesn't charge for 1st checked IF but is $70 for the second bag. I've seen some giant oversized suitcases at Dulles. More stuff for one person than my kid takes to college and that includes the bedding. Business travel can be short term and have tight time frames.

TOTALLY agree with PPs -- I fly all the time, and virtually every businessMAN boards with a rollerbag, a HUGE computer case and often something else, all of which he proceeds to stuff into the overhead (God forbid he put something at his feet).

Then he gently lies his folded jacket on top and shuts the door, even if there's still plenty of room.

Families are not the problem.

Anonymous wrote:To the person who thinks families carry a lot of crap. I just came off a 12 hour international flight full of families. Full. Of. Families. There overhead bins were practically empty, I guess because there were no business travelers on this flight. Half way through the flight, we opted to stow our car seat in an overhead bin (yes, you can do that with a Combi Coccoro, at least on a large plane) and we had many empty overhead bins to choose from. This flight was from the Middle East and had children on every row. So while we may rravel with what seems like a lot of crap, we really don't take up more room than business travelers.

Agreed. Children/families seem to be teh scapegoat of general bad behavior. Business travelers do not like to check their stuff. At a minimum, they carry laptops and small rollerbags -- which they do not check in.

To the person who thinks families carry a lot of crap. I just came off a 12 hour international flight full of families. Full. Of. Families. There overhead bins were practically empty, I guess because there were no business travelers on this flight. Half way through the flight, we opted to stow our car seat in an overhead bin (yes, you can do that with a Combi Coccoro, at least on a large plane) and we had many empty overhead bins to choose from. This flight was from the Middle East and had children on every row. So while we may rravel with what seems like a lot of crap, we really don't take up more room than business travelers.

Anonymous wrote:I think the issue is more with overhead compartment space. As we all know, families carry a lot of crap.

I also agree with boarding towards the end (but not dead last) if you have mobile children. Why be confined to a plane with kids any longer than you have to? If there's no more space for your carry-on because you didn't get to pre-board, they'll gate check your stuff so there's no loss there.

ha! I just flew with my baby. We had a carry on for each of us and DC sat in her carseat in her own seat. All carry on were placed under out seats. We paid the 20 freaking dollars to check our one shared suitcase. And gate checked our stroller. We took up no space in the overhead compartment.It was all the cheap ass singles with their over filled rollerbagsholding up the flight because the stupid things wouldn't fit.

Oh, and the reason we wanted to keep our small bag was because it had changes of clothes for our infant who did, in fact, have a poop blowout on the plane. We took a total of 3 small bags for 3 passengers, all of which fit under the seat (even though when we got on the plane the bins were half empty).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We flew United recently with an infant, and the lack of priority boarding really wasn't that big of a deal. What was annoying was United's complete lack of customer service (our flight was delayed and they refused to answer any questions and had hardly anyone working the check in counter, and tried to make us check a small bag (we had already paid to heck our ormal size bags) even after we repeatedly explained that we'd be putting it under the seat in front of our daughter's seat. Then they overbooked the second leg of our connection and were unbelievably rude to the people trying to figure out if they had seats. these were people on the plane with duplicate boarding passes, so clearly a complete screwup on their part.

Sometimes planes are overbooked because there were substitutions for flights-mechanical issue so they use a different and smaller plane. Complaining about flight delays is silly since delays are due to weather [planes go through other areas than where you are], mechanical, crew illness, etc. The airline doesn't just decide Oh we'll just sit here since some people are at lunch or shopping...

1 bag and 1 personal item are 2 bags per passenger. UA does a decent job-flight delay of 1 h 20 m and had 15 between landing and door closing for next leg of journey-managed to get the checked bag off plane 1 onto plane 2. I have seen UA do the have to check a bag at the gate and I'm glad it does because waiting while people collect multiple objects etc to disembark is annoying. I also think FA should let off persons making connections first!

The problem wasn't the delay, the problem was they refused to answer any questions about what was going on. And the second flight wasn't just overbooked, they had actually issued multiple people duplicate boarding passes. As in, there were 2 people assigned to the same seat. When they were trying to straighten it out, the manager referred to the seatless people as "problems" yelled at one woman to just sit down in an empty seat, and stomped off the plane without ever apologizing, or even telling her that she actually had a seat.

I will say, however, that I'm absolutely thrilled with the new policy that won't let families sit together. Let someone else entertain my toddler on a cross-country flight. Mommy needs some wine and a nap.

Anonymous wrote:We flew United recently with an infant, and the lack of priority boarding really wasn't that big of a deal. What was annoying was United's complete lack of customer service (our flight was delayed and they refused to answer any questions and had hardly anyone working the check in counter, and tried to make us check a small bag (we had already paid to heck our ormal size bags) even after we repeatedly explained that we'd be putting it under the seat in front of our daughter's seat. Then they overbooked the second leg of our connection and were unbelievably rude to the people trying to figure out if they had seats. these were people on the plane with duplicate boarding passes, so clearly a complete screwup on their part.

Sometimes planes are overbooked because there were substitutions for flights-mechanical issue so they use a different and smaller plane. Complaining about flight delays is silly since delays are due to weather [planes go through other areas than where you are], mechanical, crew illness, etc. The airline doesn't just decide Oh we'll just sit here since some people are at lunch or shopping...

1 bag and 1 personal item are 2 bags per passenger. UA does a decent job-flight delay of 1 h 20 m and had 15 between landing and door closing for next leg of journey-managed to get the checked bag off plane 1 onto plane 2. I have seen UA do the have to check a bag at the gate and I'm glad it does because waiting while people collect multiple objects etc to disembark is annoying. I also think FA should let off persons making connections first!