Infants On US Domestic Flights

[NoName]

Does anyone have any info on costs of taking infants on US domestic flights? Do airlines over there charge for infants? Will there be any issues/costs in checking in a pram? Which airlines would people recommend when travelling with an infant?

 

[NoName]

Should add specifically between LAX-LAS & LAS-SFO.

 

[Scarlett]

Does anyone have any info on costs of taking infants on US domestic flights? Do airlines over there charge for infants? Will there be any issues/costs in checking in a pram? Which airlines would people recommend when travelling with an infant?

We were flying AA as part of RTW tickets and had some interesting experiences on LOTFAP flights:
- There was no extra cost for a child under 2 on the ticket and that included the pricing of the AA flights so you should be ok there.
- Pram and Car seat were both free as well and this does appear to be the standard, however, check the coditions of whichever airline your going to book with.
- Most of the other airlines we flew with during the trip were very good with our infant, but AA were probably the worst. Nothing bad, just didn't go that little bit extra to help us out when virtually every other airline did. By that I mean things like altering meal times so one adult can eat whilst the other does the kid-wrangling. Or even just the cabin crew providing an extra hand for a couple of seconds at some stage during the flight.
- AA managed to lose at least one article of our luggage (including infant car seat enr MCO when we were collecting a hire car in that city) on a couple of flights. They also managed to NOT send our stroller on a flight DFW-YVR with us when we gate checked it!

- The final point was an interesting one and had to do with FAA regulations supposedly: there is no child safety lap belt provided. The idea, as I had it explained to me by a couple of FA's, was that an infant belt just meant that the infant would be 'squashed' by the adult they were strapped to, if anything happended. Given that the alternative is for the infant to become a free roaming missile in the event of an accident I think I'd still prefer to have the belt on. The 'no-belt' rule only seemed to be in the USA, not on QF, BA, RJ, AY or CX. (or SA)