Flying Air France with 5 Month Old - First Flight - Tips?

We're traveling to Beirut via Paris with our 5 month old soon. It'll be his first flight and I have a bunch of questions that I hope someone else has already encountered and can answer.

We weren't able to book a separate seat for our son and only were able to reserve "bassinet" seats for some portions of the flight. We have a Graco infant seat, the kind that snaps into a stroller. We are hoping to bring the stroller (with the car seat snapped in) to the plane, then fold up the stroller frame and store it inside the plane. Will they let us bring the infant car seat on board with us as my son's carry on? If not, what do they do with it? Our stroller is useless without it so if airline policy is to check it along with other luggage we'll have to bjorn him around the airport.

Any advice?

Thanks!

Flew Ryan Air on Friday with a 19 week old. Obviously different airlines have different policies but RA are usually the strictest so the following is a good baseline:

We bought a lightweight maclaren stroller because we thought that the our Mammas & Pappas would be counted as hand luggage and it would have taken up all our allowance. In the end, they didn't count the stroller either as carry on or as luggage so we could have brought our big one.

RA do not allow car seats as carry on. They go in the hold. So do all prams. The system is that you keep the pram until you board the plane. As you are boarding, you give it to someone who transfers the pram (and the plug-in car seat in your case) to the hold. When you get off, the pram is waiting for you.

That way, you do check the pram in but you have it all the time you are in the airport. No need for a BB. Transfers shouldn't pose a problem.

AF may be different, it's worth a phone call, but I don't think you'll be stuck with carrying the little one in a BB in between checking in and collecting you luggae from the carousel at the other end.

See this thread

link

another link