Advice on airport check in with young children

[Bikinikitty]

Hello Fflyers,

My family (2adults, 2 children. age 5 and 1.5), will be flying PER SFO in a couple of weeks. Flying CX departing Perth at 23:55 (ouch)

Got a questions about check in at Perth Airport.
If I were to pre check all of us in online, do you know if I could drop our bags at the airport WITHOUT the kids being present? I would have all our documents to present to check-in staff. Or do the kids and 2nd adult have to be present? Passports and tickets get checked at immigration, so wondering if this is enough for CX staff to let me check us all in.

Because our flight is so late, I am trying to let the kids sleep as long as possible at home before dragging them to the airport. Would be so great if I could just have all our boarding passes so we can bypass the check in line with two tired kids and head straight through to immigration.

Another option is to check in very early, dropping our bags, then heading back home to put kids to sleep for a few hours (we live only 10 min from the airport). I am aware that CX opens check in 3 hours before departure, and if they are stick on this, that wouldn't really work as it means keeping the kids up late, then only have a couple hours window to get them to have some rest and back to the airport, so defeats the purpose.
Keeping the kids awake until we depart won't work as the little one goes feral if she is up more than an hour past her bedtime of 7pm.:evil::shock:

Any other suggestions or words of wisdom?

Cheers!

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Can you find out who the ground handler is eg Menzies Aviation & ring them up to find out what times they are on duty at PER Airport? Chances are that they will be there during the day to do checkin for other airlines that depart in daylight hours.

I'd call them and ask to speak to their supervisor or who ever will be doing the CX checkin and see if it's possible to come out during the day when they can sight the passports (& whether they even need to with online checkin) and maybe reprint the boarding passes on CX ticket stock if you've done online checkin. hey probably won't be able to take your bags at that point but ask anyway.

How many suitcases, prams etc will you be wanting to checkin? If you go out to the airport early I guess they may be able to just check those items under your name if they aren't prepared to add the bags against all the pax if they're not there at the time. Find out what the earliest time is they will accept the bags so you can arrive before there's a big queue.

Just make contact with the ground handler and explain the situation you are trying to avoid (standing in a checkin queue with a screaming overtired baby) and ask them what would be the best way to manage it so you can arrive at the airport later with your wife and kids and head directly through immigration to the departure gate.

 

[Bikinikitty]

Thank you Oz. I hadn't thought of contacting the ground handler, so I will try that option as see where it leads me. And I am the wife

PS. Sorry for the lack of spaces and paragraphs in my above post, it makes it difficult to read! not sure why it's done that?

EDIT: PPS: Just fixed it

 

[ozbeachbabe]

And I am the wife

I should've had a closer look at your username shouldn't I?

 

[Bikinikitty]

Updating on @ozbeachbabe suggestion.

Called TOLL baggage, who handles CX luggage. Long story short, NO.

They will not allow any bags to be checked outside of the normal airlines time scheduled, in the case of CX, 3 hours prior to departure.

Looks like we are dealing with two tired little kiddies in the middle of the night!