Travelling on Cathay Pacific (bad experience!)

[nanzbier]

I just flew from LAX-HKG two days ago. I had a "heated debate" with the stewardess on Cathay Pacific. My daughter is 2 years old and they said that she absolutely must sit in her own seat during take off and landing otherwise they cannot take off or land. I have no problem putting her in her own seat and if she cries she cries....but the problem is she can easily wiggle her way out of the seat because the seatbelt doesn't go that tight. So I can't really restrain her because she just wiggles out and wants to be held. I asked if I can hold her and put an infant seatbelt on her and they refused to saying that she was already over 2 years old. I asked what difference does it make as long as she can fit into the infant seatbelt...why not use it? It's better than her squirming out of her seat. IT seemed a bit ridiculous to me...I even asked for handcuffs to restrain her...but of course I was being sarcastic. During take off, I ended up ignoring them and put her in my lap. During landing, they allowed her to use the infant seatbelt. My question is, what would you do? How do you keep your child restrained in their own seat? It's not like a car seat where you can restrain them. Any ideas? I took Eva Airlines going over to LAX and they had no problems at all with me holding her.

Any input would be appreciated!

 

[SimJo]

I would have done exactly what you did. Its not the age, but the size of the child that is important.

 

[Sleuth]

When we have a seat for the baby, we bring a car seat.
If we don't have a seat, we just hold him.
But he is under 2 years old. Something magical evidentially happens at 2 and I think he has to have a seat. But, like SimJo said, they should do it by weight and weight and not by age.

 

[turtle]

The air stewardess was trying to do her job, but the airlines just have not thought about 'live worms' sitting in their seats!

My 2 yr old daughter cannot sit still for more than 3 minutes. For this reason, we have bought a 'sit n stroll' airline seat that also becomes a pram so it great for use in airports. Have a look at www.sitnstroll.com, they are not very good looking, but are like a big comfy arm chair with a 5 point harness.

My daughter LOVES it, she sleeps really well in it and with the harness it means that she just cannot get out of the seatbelt. Weight limit is something like 16-18kg so we will be using it for a long time yet to come... Hope this helps!

 

[LittleLams]

Yes, CX is very strict with the rule that children over 2 have to sit in their seats and not very adults. Also had a similar experience when my daughter just turned 2. For take off and landing they insisted that she sit in her seat or in the stewardess' own words "the plane will have to circle and not land until my daughter sits in her own seat". Daughter was screaming her head off the whole time and I thought that the whole situation was ridiculous. Her crying triggered my 4 month old daughter to cry as well so on descent, the passengers were treated to my two children crying their lungs off. Of course, once we landed, we got dirty looks from the passengers but I blame it on the airline's strict policy. That plane journey was the worst one we had ever been on....

 

[arleneli]

I had similar experience with CX. We flew few times, some crew ignored me (maybe pretending didnt see me) holding my daughter on my lap AFTER i showed them some effort putting her to the seat which didnt work. Then I tried to bring some special snacks that I only took out during take off and landing. It actually works. At least for the first 10 minutes she sits there chewing her food. It actually helps her ears too.
Giving the children presure to sit and restrain sit belt will actually makes them scared and then trying to break out.

 

[karishmaria]

hey turtle... that sit n strol sure looks gr8... thanx for that info.but isnt the stroller seat lower than the traditiona strolers.. imean when the baby is in it, is he not seated very low?
does it fold like other strollers for storage ease?
is it suitabe for new borns? does the seat recline fully?

 

[miaka]

where do you get the sit n stroll? i might need it next summer.

 

[capital]

I had the same concerns as we flew when my son was just three. He did sit still, but the seat belt is so riduculously loose that there is no way he would ever stay in the belt in a crash. Does anyone have info on those airline flight vests and what carriers allow their use. Our car seat is too wide to fit in the airplane seat.

 

[Matty]

She was just doing her job.
I've found that they will insist on following the rules unless it's obvious it won't work for your child.
If the hostie won't listen to reason, (on any airline) ask to see the Iinflight services manager, unless she is a complete cow, she will accept sensible reasoning from a parent, and will usually be a parent who has had to go through it.

This week I flew CX to Sydney, and although I was lucky to have 2 empty seats beside me, my 11mth old kept trying to fling himself on the floor in his sleep, so the option was to hold him allnight, or ask them to allow me to put a bassinet on the seat.
The bulkhead seats were all taken.
He is technically too old for the bassinet, and it is totally against the rules to use one unsecured, but they could see the onlly other option was to let him fling himself on the floor.

It came down to the ISM taking responsibility if anything went wrong.