Airplane Travel With Lap Babies - Who Cares?

I know that parents care deeply for their children.  But air travel can be expensive, and when calculating costs of purchasing a seat for their babies versus the risks of holding their babies in their laps, many many many parents do choose to take the chance that their flight will be an uneventful flight.  After all, it's LEGAL, isn't it?

Yes, it's legal, but it's not recommended.  Not by the airlines themselves.  Not even by the airlines' regulatory agency.

There are two agencies involved in this issue.  One is the FAA, the Federal Aviation Authority.  The other is the NTSB, the National Transportation Safety Board.

So, in answer to the title of this post, who cares about lap babies? The NTSB does, and they don't want the practice to be permitted. The FAA? Well, they only care when you care.

Let's compare the priorities of the two agencies: 

• The FAA regulates air transportation.  That includes flight routes, air traffic control, licensing pilots, setting equipment inspection standards and quality controls.  (The FAA also regulates the growing field of commercial space travel -- when Richard Branson is developing Virgin Atlantic space travel, or SpaceX launches a rocket, they have to work with the FAA.)   Sounds to me like they have a very "top down" mission, i.e., air transportation from the perspective of geography, equipment, pilots, mechanics.
• The NTSB's, on the other hand, investigates crashes -- auto, train, bus, air.  Their priorities are gathering data on damage and injuries, analyzing it, and applying that knowledge to the protection and safety of travelers.  Their mission seems more "from the ground up" than "from the top down." Passengers figure very prominently.

In short:  FAA, macro: systems, equipment, regulations, focused on the whole, keeping it functioning as a system.  NTSB, micro: looking out for the individual, keeping each individual safe.

The FAA recommends that babies under 2 years old have their own seats, but they don't REQUIRE it.  This fine distinction between recommending and requiring is the thin sliver of hope parents cling to when choosing to fly with lap babies.

• (The FAA does have definite requirements about the EQUIPMENT involved when babies travel in airplanes, as any parent who's every had to fight for their right to install their child's car seat in one of their planes. Perhaps it is the car seat's potential to interfere with equipment and procedures that concerns them more.  Another possible example of "the whole" versus "the individual.")

The NTSB strongly recommends that parents purchase individual seats for their children, and practically implores the FAA to make it a requirement.  To make it illegal for babies to travel in their parents' laps in an airplane, just like is in a car.  As NTSB Accident Investigator Nora Marsh says in this video:  "The laws of physics don't change when you get on an airplane, so why wouldn't you want your child to have the same level of protection as they had in the car?"

CBS, NHTSA: Babies Should Have Own Seats on Airplanes

As we head into the summer travel season, NHTSA issued an advisory for parents to buy their babies their own seats on planes.  There several sobering moments in this story that aired recently on CBS' Early Show, but I gasped when a mother recounted losing hold of her 2 year old during a turbulent flight, and watched his body slam into the overhead cargo compartment.  Thankfully the child did not suffer any permanent injuries.

Earlier this year, I compared holding a baby on your lap in an airplane to holding a baby in your lap on a roller coaster.  Airplanes travel faster and higher than roller coasters, so what's crazy at 700 feet shouldn't even be allowed at 3,000 feet.  And if babies are required to be in approved restraints when riding on the ground, shouldn't they be even more protected in the air?

For parents who do choose to buy seats for their children under the age of 2 (individual seats are required for anyone older), but want to lighten their loads:  infant seats can be installed without their bases, and children 22-44 pounds can use the CARES Kids Fly Safe Travel Harness, which costs less than $75 and can fit in a tote bag.

Ride a roller coaster with your baby on your lap?

Just imagine:  you're plunging downward with incredible speed, swerving in one direction, then another.  Some people love that feeling on a roller coaster, and get a happy rush of adrenaline -- but if you're on a plane, it's the last thing you want. 

The tallest, fastest roller coaster in the world is Kingda Ka, located at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey, USA. Its top speed is 128 miles per hour (206 km/h) and it drops from a peak of of 456 feet (139 meters).  Even your average, run of the mill roller coaster travels between 70-100 mph.  To ensure the safety of its riders, hydraulically-powered steel harnesses brace over the shoulders and around the hips.  Eyeglasses and other loose objects must be removed before the ride begins, so that they do not injure their owners or other passengers should they come loose.

So, would you ride a roller coaster with a baby on your lap? Of course not.  You wouldn't even have a choice: If you tried to ride a roller coaster with an infant, you'd probably be arrested.

Now let's talk about airplanes.  The average commercial airplane travels between 160-180 mph at takeoff, and between 400 and 550 mph at cruising altitude, which is usually 30,000 feet. 

Take a moment to compare:

1. The fastest roller coaster in the world goes 128 mph, while the average commercial airplane travels faster than that on takeoff, and about triple that speed once it's in the air.
2. Riders of the tallest roller coaster in the world fall from a height of 456 feet.  Passengers in a commercial airplane are 30,000 feet above the ground.

So it's obvious that airplanes travel higher and faster than roller coasters, and that riding a roller coaster with a baby in your lap is an unwise and probably unlawful idea.

And yet, when planning a trip, parents wonder, "Is it safe to hold my baby on my lap during a flight? Do I have to buy a seat for him? She's so little, can't I hold her on my lap?" How sure are you that you could keep hold of your baby in heavy turbulence or a crash landing, at 300 miles per hour?  Heck, if I trip while walking down the street, whatever I have in my hands goes flying.  Crash tests conducted at slow-poke speeds of 30 mph have metal crumpling and bodies flying through windshields.

Airlines don't require that children under 2 years have their own seats, but remember that crazy, illegal notion of holding your baby on a roller coaster? 128 mph vs 170 mph.  Five hundred feet vs thirty thousand feet.  Even if it were allowed, I wouldn't do it.

Millions of people fly every single day.  Statistics indicate that air travel is the safest form of transportation, so maybe it's just one plane a year that has to ditch in the Hudson River, skids off the runway, has serious, head-knocking-on-the-overhead-bin-cancel-the-beverage-service turbulence, or inhales a flock of Canadian geese into its engines.  What are the chances that YOUR plane is going to be THAT plane?  Who can tell?

Cost is obviously an issue (especially for families with two or more children) but if at all possible, please purchase a seat for your baby and use an FAA approved child restraint.  Your baby is one in a million, but you don't want her to be THAT one.