I’m looking at flights within the UK next March and our son will be 22months, as he’s under 2 we should have him sat on our laps, but this will cost £22 and he won’t have a cabin baggage allowance. The flights currently only cost £28, so I’m tempted to just book him a seat and claim he’ll be 2 so he gets a cabin baggage allowance and more comfort. As it’s a domestic flight he won’t need his passport so no-one can prove his age, will I have any problems if I do this? Thanks

I’d just book him a seat but not lie about his age.

You might need him on your lap for take off and landing though.

Not a whole lot of leg room for a toddler too, I’d book a seat. Also check if they need any ID, even though it’s domestic.

Will he not still need ID?

Needs to be on lap when the seatbelt signs are on, tell the lady counting passengers on the plane that you have a sub2 in a seat as Easyjet got very confused about missing passengers before take-off.

On a long haul flight I remember the stewardess insisting I remove sleeping baby from basinet in the middle of the night due to a teeny weeny bit of turbulence.
(obvs. I want to keep kiddie safe – just unconvinced being strapped onto a flailing adult really is best – you would think you would squash them)

Doh1Nut +1 –

Also unsure of the relative merits of basically a 5 point harness in the basinet compared to a lapbelt strapped to an adult. I know the basinet isn’t fully tied into the airframe but I wasn’t convinced the lapbelt would do anything other than crush all the internal organs in the event of a crash.

I’m fairly,sure you,will have to put his d.o.b. into the booking page on the website. At which point it should not allow you to book him a seat.

You need ID for all Easyjet flights

I know the basinet isn’t fully tied into the airframe but I wasn’t convinced the lapbelt would do anything other than crush all the internal organs in the event of a crash.

Does it really matter when they’ll be picking you up with a mop anyway?

Removal of the bassinet is more about removing a potential obstruction.

As I understand it the primary purpose of seat belt and oxygen mask is to prevent or reduce embarrassing panic prior to the crash not to significantly reduce causalities in the crash .

You still need photo ID for a domestic flight. That doesn’t mean it has to be a passport, but I’m guessing your sub 2 year old doesn’t drive yet? Basically I can’t see how you can avoid telling them how old he is.

I once booked a seat for my then sub 2 year old on a Ryanair flight. On arrival at the airport I was told I had to change the booking to an infant – got a partial refund from Ryanair 😯
I can’t remember the reason, but I remember it making some sense at the time. Possibly due to insurance or flight taxes.

will he not still need I’d?

The easy jet website states: “Children under the age of 16 travelling on domestic flights in the UK, France, Spain and Portugal are not required to provide identification if accompanied by an adult who can vouch for the child’s identity.“

I didn’t think about the D.O.B. Being required at booking. There is an option to book a seat for a child less than 2, but I can’t do it online and I want to use nectar points to pay for the flight, plus they want the child in a car seat or using a CARES harness which has to be bought separately and looks to cost £50-60!

There have been cases (very rare) of people not being strapped in seriously injured and even killed from being thrown out of their seats in very bad turbulence. Having flown extensively throughout my life, I’ve only experienced really serious turbulence one time and it was pretty scary. Not the usual bumpy coffee spilling stuff, but coffee suddenly flying off the table and slamming into the roof and anybody not strapped in pretty much doing the same. Seatbelts can be of use on rare occasions in a plane, but I wouldn’t worry too much about them.

JEngledow – i can send you one to borrow if you want as long as you send it back.

We had same issue, we flew back from NZ and my daughter (20 mths) had a seat all the way back. The domestic leg was a nightmare as they refused to believe we had bought a seat. It was _exactly_ what we needed after 32 hours …. Surely you can buy a seat for whatever you want, like your prize viola.

EDIT: the excellent part, and this was Virgin, was them allocating her a seat in a totally different part of the plane to us then refusing to help move her. So we took her on plonked her down, belted her up and walked away. The look on the womans face sat next to her was priceless. She didn’t care, she was happy sitting there on her own. for 9 hours. In premium economy. Honestly, it was great. Her mum and I got really plastered while she screamed all the way home*

* of course not.

like your prize viola

I takes mine everywhere I do

easyJet are terrible at accommodating small children. My two year old niece was asleep on her mums lap when it was time to land. She didn’t want to go in her own seat with her seatbelt on. The wicked stewardesses were totally inflexible and insisted that she had to, and according to my outraged sister-in-law made no effort to entertain, engage with or humour my niece into doing as she was required to do, leaving it all to my sister-in-law to deal with the child by herself. Such was the evil of the crew that they even got the captain to make a spiteful announcement on the tannoy requesting parents control their children for the safety of all on board.

You’ll appreciate how I sympathised with my sister-in-law’s outrage. 🙂

Hand luggage

leaving it all to my sister-in-law to deal with the child by herself.

A parent dealing with their child? Oh teh horror! 😯