2 carseats next to each other on plane?

LilypadMom

Senior Community Member
A mom on another board I am on recently flew with her two sons. We had discussed carseat safety on the planes before they left and she purchased 2 sceneras for them to use for travel (she didn't want to carry her heavy seats through the airport or worry about them not fitting next to each other in the airplane seat).

She recently returned and emailed me this (posted with her permission).
i just wanted to give you a little update of car seats on the plane. the boys were loving it...BUT mid flight the head attendant decided to tell us that the boys couldn't sit next to each other in the seats. we had jack next to the window, frank in the middle and me on the aisle. well, they said the boys couldn't be next to each other because if there was an emergency i couldn't get both boys out in time. so according to the head attendant the car seat could ONLY be next to a window. when i questioned what i would do if i were flying alone with the boys, she gave me a pretty snotty 'well how old is he?' when i told her 3.5 she said he doesn't need that seat anyway. um...ok. so flying home we gate checked the car seats. it turned out ok because we had a dvd player but i would have rather had the boys in their seats. we flew airtran. would you know where to look for information on where car seats should be on the plane or if you really can put them next to one another? just in case. i think it might be based on the airline, but i would like to find out. the attendant who was working our section seemed to disagree with the head attendant but since she was the head attendant we had to do what she said. so it seems they weren't on the same page. it was a bit frustrating.

but, for the time there wasn't chaos it worked out wonderfully!

I sent her links to
http://www.faa.gov/other_visit/aviation_..../info0900 2.pdf and http://www.airweb.faa.gov/Regulatory_and....5723b007841e7/ $FILE/AC%20120-87A.pdf (section 18 and 19) before she left, but she forgot to print them to take with her. We are both wondering if there are any other documents out there that specifically talk about whether 2 seats can be placed next to each other.

Thanks!
 
ADS

MomToEliEm

Moderator
Those two documents (well the copied links are truncated so I can't go to them, but they look like the ones that I frequently post for taking along on airplanes) should be enough. They have a section in it about traveling as a family unit which does allow multiple seats in a row.

I have been confronted in the past about not having two seats in the row. Once, I didn't have the documents so I just had to keep asking to speak to someone other then the one flight attendant who wasn't informed. Another time, I had the documents and once the flight attendant read through the documents, I was allowed to fly with both my kids in their carseats.

For those looking for the full links to the documents, here they are:
Official FAA guidelines on carseats on planes
New FAA clarification memo on carseats on planes
 

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