Flying with baby capsules

[drsmithy]

There's a few older posts on similar topics, but not quite answering the same question.

My wife and I have recently had two new additions to the family, and while we're fairly seasoned travellers we've never flown with babies before. They will be approx. five months old at the time.

The trip is BNE-CBR and I've scored some J reward seats (Virgin) so we should have a reasonable amount of space in the cabin for our first learning experience.

However, we'll need a car on the other and and I was wondering about booking baby capsules, particularly ones like ours that clip into base units. Do people just clip the capsule into the base, tuck in the loose straps, fold down the canopy and carry handle and cross your fingers, or do you stick them in a garbage bag or something similar to try and prevent loose bits from getting caught on things as they go through baggage ? Will they have to be checked as oversize or will they go in with our regular bags ?

Obviously we can just hire capsules with the rental car and not worry about it at all, but it's pretty handy to have ones that just clip in and out of the pram and there's presumably not going to be any commitment by the rental car company to brand and model of baby capsule.

Would be interested to hear people's experiences and suggestions.

 

[rmckay01]

Have done this recently BNE-ADL, flying both Qantas & Virgin. Qantas provided a large plastic bag for our capsule to go in, Virgin didn't (we kept the Qantas bag & put the capsule base in that when we flew Virgin). For the Qantas flight we clipped the capsule into the base & bagged that as one piece. Our folded pram base went in separately, both checked in at oversize luggage. For the Virgin flight we were allowed to take our pram to the gate so checked the capsule base alone (in the plastic bag) & the capsule & pram base were gate checked. No issues on either flight, everything arrived in once piece & was on the luggage carousel first. I'd recommend bagging them, and also label them with your name & phone number just in case they get lost along the way

 

[drsmithy]

Just thought I'd report back for anyone that finds this thread.


Last weekend we flew BNE-CBR then CBR-BNE in VA J. Were were able to take our two capsules + bases and enormous pram (in a carry case) without issue. We did end up checking the pram with the rest of our luggage rather than trying to get it through security because a) the kids are still pretty small and easy to carry and b) we were worried about it being damaged when it was gate checked.


No bags for the capsules were offered by Virgin at check-in (I did ask), we ended up putting them inside garbage bags. Unfortunately I couldn't find any bags big enough to take the capsule+base clipped together, so we ended up with four bags. These all made it through fairly unscathed, with just a few small holes/tears in each.


The kids have levelled up to regular car seats as of this week, so in the future we'll probably use something like this when we're not taking them onboard with us (our seats are airline certified, so good for those longer flights).


As an aside, the service at check-in and particularly onboard was exceptional. Though admittedly we were two of the four people in J on both flights so they weren't exactly rushed and what my wife and I have come to refer to as "the twin effect" was in full force. But it did inspire me to write a complimentary email to Virgin, which is something I very rarely do.

I do feel like there could be more information on the websites of the airlines and airports about what to expect when you're going in with young children, however.