Hi All.
We just got home from our 10 day mini-vacation and I wanted to share our experience flying with a Britax Marathon on Delta 4 times. (2 legs getting there, two home) We traveled with our 3yr old daughter, our 6 year old son and our 12 year old daughter. (Our two eldest stayed home) I want to start by saying how extremely impressed I was by the Delta staff. They could not have been more helpful! I didn't meet with a single attendant who didn't bend over backward to help us.
So to start, we bought (and loved) the Go Go Kidz Travelmate to attach to our Marathon and I am SOOO glad we did! As our luck always runs, our connecting gates were as far as humanly possible from each other and it was nice to be able to push Diana through the airport, we also attached our handbags, backpacks and whatnot to the handle and it made it a breeze! Oh, In the Knoxville airport security requested we remove it so they could scan both items separately, but coming home the SLC airport ran them through together. (The version we have has a quick release system, so removing and re attaching was done in a matter of seconds.) Here's a bad picture of the Marathon with the Travelmate attached.
Our first leg of the trip was from Knoxville, TN to Atlanta, GA on a small Embraer-175 (holds about 100 people I would say). Although we'd heard that some airports have done away with the pre-boarding for families, Knoxville still allows it and they let board a good 10 minutes before they began general boarding. We had originally planned to gate-check her Marathon, but as we were leaving it next to the designated area by the door of the plane, It was the male flight attendant who convinced us to bring it on board AND he installed it for us! We had a small issue with Diana not wanting a window seat (her least favorite seat, but he talked to her and said that if she was willing to sit in the seat the he would bring her a special treat. To install the seat he started by removing the black plastic protector that sits in the "well" of the car seat and then installed it using the regular lap belt. He did NOT use a seatbelt extender. Diana got right in and I was SOO grateful he recommended we bring it on board as Diana would not have been able to see out the window if she'd been sitting in the seat with the regular belt on. I was relieved to see also, that she had plenty of leg room. The flight was only an hour and she did wonderfully. While she had a small drink on the plane, she did not need any snacks.
The second longer leg was from Atlanta, GA to Salt Lake City, UT on a Boeing 737-800. This leg was just over 4 hours. We brought her marathon on board and once again we were assisted in installing it by another friendly attendant. (we didn't need an extender here either). She allowed Diana to sit in the middle seat this time as the entire row was occupied by our family. Diana had even more room on this flight. I loved how high she was able to sit and see around. Diana loved having her own little television set! We were able to order individual movies for each of the kids to watch! (They run about $6 per movie and you can don't need a special adapter to use your own earphones) Diana watched Hotel for Dogs and loved it! We'd already had our dinner in the Atlanta airport so our small snacks of Chex mix and gummy fruits were plenty to keep them satisfied until we landed in SLC.
Hope the pics help anyone getting ready to travel if you're concerned about how your car seat will fit! If you have any questions, feel free to ask!
We just got home from our 10 day mini-vacation and I wanted to share our experience flying with a Britax Marathon on Delta 4 times. (2 legs getting there, two home) We traveled with our 3yr old daughter, our 6 year old son and our 12 year old daughter. (Our two eldest stayed home) I want to start by saying how extremely impressed I was by the Delta staff. They could not have been more helpful! I didn't meet with a single attendant who didn't bend over backward to help us.
So to start, we bought (and loved) the Go Go Kidz Travelmate to attach to our Marathon and I am SOOO glad we did! As our luck always runs, our connecting gates were as far as humanly possible from each other and it was nice to be able to push Diana through the airport, we also attached our handbags, backpacks and whatnot to the handle and it made it a breeze! Oh, In the Knoxville airport security requested we remove it so they could scan both items separately, but coming home the SLC airport ran them through together. (The version we have has a quick release system, so removing and re attaching was done in a matter of seconds.) Here's a bad picture of the Marathon with the Travelmate attached.
Our first leg of the trip was from Knoxville, TN to Atlanta, GA on a small Embraer-175 (holds about 100 people I would say). Although we'd heard that some airports have done away with the pre-boarding for families, Knoxville still allows it and they let board a good 10 minutes before they began general boarding. We had originally planned to gate-check her Marathon, but as we were leaving it next to the designated area by the door of the plane, It was the male flight attendant who convinced us to bring it on board AND he installed it for us! We had a small issue with Diana not wanting a window seat (her least favorite seat, but he talked to her and said that if she was willing to sit in the seat the he would bring her a special treat. To install the seat he started by removing the black plastic protector that sits in the "well" of the car seat and then installed it using the regular lap belt. He did NOT use a seatbelt extender. Diana got right in and I was SOO grateful he recommended we bring it on board as Diana would not have been able to see out the window if she'd been sitting in the seat with the regular belt on. I was relieved to see also, that she had plenty of leg room. The flight was only an hour and she did wonderfully. While she had a small drink on the plane, she did not need any snacks.
The second longer leg was from Atlanta, GA to Salt Lake City, UT on a Boeing 737-800. This leg was just over 4 hours. We brought her marathon on board and once again we were assisted in installing it by another friendly attendant. (we didn't need an extender here either). She allowed Diana to sit in the middle seat this time as the entire row was occupied by our family. Diana had even more room on this flight. I loved how high she was able to sit and see around. Diana loved having her own little television set! We were able to order individual movies for each of the kids to watch! (They run about $6 per movie and you can don't need a special adapter to use your own earphones) Diana watched Hotel for Dogs and loved it! We'd already had our dinner in the Atlanta airport so our small snacks of Chex mix and gummy fruits were plenty to keep them satisfied until we landed in SLC.
Hope the pics help anyone getting ready to travel if you're concerned about how your car seat will fit! If you have any questions, feel free to ask!
