The FAA Banned Baby Carriers on Planes Without Testing the Obvious Alternative
Allow Carriers on Planes
The FAA's rule against using baby carriers during takeoff and landing stems from a 1994 study that tested car seats and belly belts but never compared carriers to the most common practice: holding a baby in your lap. The agency applied thoughtful substitution analysis when deciding not to ban lap infants, but failed to do the same here. A 2024 bill to fix this died in subcommittee.
The real problem is that they didn't test the most common alternative, holding the baby in your lap. So 'may put children in a potentially worse situation than the allowable alternatives' seems clearly wrong to me.
- areoform
There is a deeper issue, in a crash, a poorly secured rigid baby carrier seat becomes a potentially lethal projectile. Worst comes to worst, today, the projectile is an infant. An infant is substantially softer and less massive than a rigid seat containing an infant.
For soft babywearing carriers, the outlook is also grim. The kinematics of the baby, adult, carrier and airplane seat lead to crush injuries that are worse than the poorly restrained arm hold version.
Could there be a solution here that straps around a seat to give babies a safe seat?
Yes, but it wouldn't necessarily be easy to use or consumer friendly. The ideal solution would have the baby with their back facing front, and the attached carrier facing inwards towards the seat. It would have to be carefully specced and tested so no unverified, third-party seats... Logically extrapolated, in this scenario, the airline becomes responsible for the baby's wellbeing. And I don't think that's a good place for the airlines to be?
- MostlyStable
The decision to not require seats is one of the best regulatory decisions I have ever heard of, and I wish this kind of thought process was more present in all kinds of places. The funny thing is that, I bet if it were used more broadly, given the absolutely enormous safety advantage that flying has over basically any other mode of transportation, there would be a non trivial number of other flight safety regulations that would get reconsidered.
- gregwtmtno
I have a unique perspective on this as a former federal rulemaker. One thing you should know is that when it comes to rulemaking, the FAA isn't an ordinary rulemaker--they do the most of it and they're the best in the business. When I went to my intro to rule making classes, the FAA always rolled deep.
If you want a change and you want to make sure the right people see your request, I suggest you start here:
- silver92bullet
I think this is a way that airlines and the FFA could continue to grow in consideration. At some point the economics of flying with children starts to make less and less sense. I just flew with a toddler that was under 2 from the mainland US to Hawaii and back. The toddler is just under 2 so he was considered a lap child to fly free. However at 2 the child for most airlines graduates to a full price ticket. At that point it seems less and less likely for families to want to fly over driving. Then add more children you are spending something of a small fortune to fly anywhere. It seems like the airlines could capture more business if they could price into their model a discounted ticket for children older than 2 but under a certain age (ie. 13 or 10).
- tadzikpk
As a parent of 3 kids and an extensive baby-carrier user, I see your argument but I think you're lacking consideration of the failure modes.
Yes, almost every baby carrier would likely restrain the infant better than add-on infant belt if the adult lap belt rides up over the infant carrier, the infant's going to be crushed between the adult and the belt. Not a good outcome.
Thus you're likely going to need FAA-approved infant carriers, same way as you'd need FAA-approved car seats you can take on planes.
- ofek
Relatedly, I wish I could bring my electric wheelchair with me in the cabin. I went on a work trip to Paris in April and sitting in a regular seat was just as uncomfortable as I remember. Fortunately, halfway through the first flight one of the attendants noticed my caregiver frequently repositioning me and had the other person in our row move elsewhere so that I could lie down across two seats. American Airlines allowed me to do that on the return flight as well.
I was quite worried that my wheelchair would break in some way like I've experienced several times before but everything went quite smoothly! AI helped tremendously with planning, e.g. here's Claude: https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/6c977d23-1b7c-4a00-a7aa-d...
- molsongolden
Sort of tangential to the rulemaking discussion but I’ve had two flight attendants note that unbuckling the carrier during takeoff and landing is required due to the risk of breaking the child’s back.
If the adult is pitched forward with the child strapped to their chest (facing inward) then they risk bending the child’s spine backwards.
- hblanks
From sled tests done by Australia in 2022:
> A lap-belt restrained adult dummy in an aircraft seat, with an infant dummy in a carrier, was subjected to a 9G dynamic sled test. The severity of the pulse was based on the results of a static load test. The commercially available infant carriers tested were not able to restrain infants under crash situations.
https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/research-and-analysis-r...