This forum is primarily about choosing the right seat and installing it correctly, but sometimes questions come up about non-US airlines and their carseat policies. Air France has sometimes been mentioned as a particular "offender" in terms of being difficult to work with. So I thought I would share our recent experience using a Roundabout 40, rear-facing, for a 10-month old child.
Going over, we got the seat installed and then were approached by a senior flight attendant who said that using the seat was "impossible," for unspecified reasons. A small group of flight attendants all gathered around and tut-tutted, and also pointed out that the person in front of my daughter wouldn't be able to recline. They wanted us to hold her and/or use a belly belt instead.
I told the senior FA that the seat was approved for air travel and showed her the Britax owner's manual. She then said that Air France still doesn't allow it. So I showed her a printout of the Air France policy from their website, which explicitly allows approved carseats (RF or FF).
We both kept our voices down and tried to be civil, but it was certainly a frank exchange of views. She took the documentation from me and disappeared, saying she'd check her operations manual. A few minutes later she returned and -- to her immense credit -- said that I was correct. I thanked her for taking the time to check, and that was the end of it.
Returning home westbound, the FA saw our seat installed and just smiled and noted that we were all set.
For anyone else traveling Air France, I guess the lesson learned is that while the airline's own policy is pretty good, not all FAs are trained on it, and you need to be prepared to hold your ground and show every piece of documentation. There is no chance that we would have been allowed to use the seat if we hadn't done so. My wife also suspects that our views would not have prevailed if I had used English rather than French for our discussion with the FA.
For what it's worth, they seemed to be particularly swayed by the diagram in the Britax manual that showed a RF aircraft installation as well as by the fact that my daughter had a paid seat.
The one grey area is whether a US-approved (rather than European) carseat meets Air France's requirements. Their online policy doesn't say one way or the other, and I was bracing myself for this, but it never came up.
Going over, we got the seat installed and then were approached by a senior flight attendant who said that using the seat was "impossible," for unspecified reasons. A small group of flight attendants all gathered around and tut-tutted, and also pointed out that the person in front of my daughter wouldn't be able to recline. They wanted us to hold her and/or use a belly belt instead.
I told the senior FA that the seat was approved for air travel and showed her the Britax owner's manual. She then said that Air France still doesn't allow it. So I showed her a printout of the Air France policy from their website, which explicitly allows approved carseats (RF or FF).
We both kept our voices down and tried to be civil, but it was certainly a frank exchange of views. She took the documentation from me and disappeared, saying she'd check her operations manual. A few minutes later she returned and -- to her immense credit -- said that I was correct. I thanked her for taking the time to check, and that was the end of it.
Returning home westbound, the FA saw our seat installed and just smiled and noted that we were all set.
For anyone else traveling Air France, I guess the lesson learned is that while the airline's own policy is pretty good, not all FAs are trained on it, and you need to be prepared to hold your ground and show every piece of documentation. There is no chance that we would have been allowed to use the seat if we hadn't done so. My wife also suspects that our views would not have prevailed if I had used English rather than French for our discussion with the FA.
For what it's worth, they seemed to be particularly swayed by the diagram in the Britax manual that showed a RF aircraft installation as well as by the fact that my daughter had a paid seat.
The one grey area is whether a US-approved (rather than European) carseat meets Air France's requirements. Their online policy doesn't say one way or the other, and I was bracing myself for this, but it never came up.