flying with westjet

Has anyone here flown with westjet? How are they with kids and carseats?

I just found out one of my best friends is engaged and I will be the Maid of Honour She lives in Alberta, about an hour flight away. The wedding isnt until spring 2012, but there will be an engagement party this spring and she said she will pay for 1/2 of my plane fare.

So now I'm going into planning mode and trying to get it all straight in my head even though the trip is 6 months away.

I think the obvious choice of seat to take is the scenera. Will I be able to install it on the plane RF? Or would you just intall it FF since dd will be a few days shy of 2 by then. Or is it really that bad to have her travel as a lap baby for such a short flight? The idea of having her loose makes me a little uneasy, but it would save me over $300.

We've flown a LOT with WJ over the years. They've been pretty good about kids and carseats (we've had 1 or 2 issues in 100+ flights.) We made good use of their 'Infant Standby' policy, but now that they've changed their ticketing system, that policy seems to have changed (it was never an awesome idea anyway, since you're not guaranteed a seat.)

You could probably install a Scenera RF (we had a Titan RF once.) It will leave the passenger ahead unable to recline at all.

HTH some.

Our best experiences flying with small kids and a carseat has been on Westjet; actually. Usually we flew with a Marathon, but this summer I took our Scenera and it fit well on the seat. My install was much better FFing, but I usually have poor luck with the Scenera RFing.

Neatfreak said:

My install was much better FFing, but I usually have poor luck with the Scenera RFing.

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Thanks, I was wondering about that. I may just put her FF on the plane.

My only problem with WJ has been them not allowing me to use 2 carseats when travelling alone with two children under 40 pounds. They insisted that only one carseat could be used, at the window seat, with me in the middle and the toddler beside me at the aisle. They provided blankets for her to sit on, trying to make the belt fit, which was a joke. As it seems that you're only travelling with one child, this problem won't apply to you.

A suggestion is to try to make sure that one of the flight attendants sees the stickers on the carseat *before* you install it. It seems that they generally ask after I have it installed, and somehow the stickers are always on the wall side and unaccessable.

Maybe it's different for a 1 hour flight; all mine are 2- 4 1/2 hours, but I won't do lap baby anymore. I did a few times, the last with a 14 month old, that was tight enough. I can't imagine doing it with a nearly 2 year old - it might be allowed, but certainly can't be comfortable. With the 'baby' in your lap, it's nearly impossible to reach anything in the bag at your feet, put the tray down to play on, do anything. Just for comfort, let alone safety, I totally recommend having a 2nd seat (and carseat - even if the child is already 2 and technically allowed to fly without a carseat, WJ seatbelts *do not* fit small children!!)

Enjoy the trip!

Erica

weird - I've flown WJ alone with 2 kids in car seats a few times now (and many more times with DH). The always make me sit in the middle of them but as long as the one on the isle if FF and I could get by they said it was fine. I usually get lots of "you look like you know what you're doing" comments and they just leave me alone

How exciting! I flew recently with westjet and they were great about the car seat. Many of the flight attendants were very pleased to see that we had brought it on board for her. My DD is 11 months and still fits in her SR32, so that is what we took. The person in front could not recline, but no one complained.

I was actually most concerned about the BC to Calgary portion of our flights (we connected in Calgary to go to a smaller airport in Ontario) because of the risk of turbulence over the Rockies. I know there is a risk of turbulence all the time, yet the relatively recent story (January 2008) of the plane that experienced a sudden drop in altitude over the Rockies on it's way to Toronto has really stuck in my mind.