Your experience with baby bassinet?

We will fly from Germany to New Zealand with our baby. She will be 6 months when we start our trip and 12 months on the return flight. We will very likely fly with either Air New Zealand, Lufthansa, Emirates or Korean Air. We want to get a baby bassinet for her but keep getting different information about if we can make a guaranteed reservation for one - we have asked our travel agent, we have called these airlines and we have heard stories from friends who booked a bassinet but then there were more babies than bassinets on board and they ended up with their baby on their lap.

What is your experience?
Which airline would you recommend for travelling with a baby?

Thanks for your help!

First, check the limit of the bassinet of the airline you'll be flying. So far, Lufthansa has the biggest I know of. It held my big one year old. Most bassinets only fit babies up to about 6 months.

Emirates is 11 kg;
http://www.emirates.com/english/plan_book/essential_information/travelling_with_infants.aspx
Air N.Z. 11.8 kilos and 8 months
http://www.airnewzealand.com/travelling-with-children
Korean Air 11 kilos
http://www.koreanair.com/local/kr/gd/eng/cs/sn/eng_cs_sn_if.jsp
Lufthansa 14 kilos
http://www.lufthansa.com/fr/en/Children-on-board

Some airlines reserve bulkhead seats for those with lap babies and they go in order of the age of the lap baby, the youngest goes first. Other airlines have different policies. United, which you're not flying, holds bulkhead seats for their frequent flyers. Annoying to be stuck in seats with rows in front with small children and see all adults sitting at the bulkheads. Some of those links explain the airline's system for who gets them. I don't know of any airline that will guarantee it.

Make sure it's a wall mounted bassinet and not some box they sometimes hand out. For an international flight, it usually is but double check your flight(s).

Usually though, we bought seats for all members of our family and used car seats on board. I used to be a Flight Attendant and saw all the yukky pictures... Using a car seat also means that you don't have to remove the baby from the bassinet in turbulence, when they need to be picked up and held. Babies shouldn't be left in bassinets during turbulence and most airlines require that they be picked up.

If you fly with a lap baby, be sure the baby is not attached to you in any way. This is dangerous for take-off and landing because you weigh more than the baby so they're safer loose in your lap. Some airlines require the use of double seat belts (sometimes called "belly belts") to protect other passengers, even if it's dangerous for the baby. If that bothers you, book with a company that doesn't require this but the chance of a crash is very low so most parents go with the cheapest company.

If you buy a ticket for your baby, or are allowed to use an empty seat, double check that your car seat will be accepted on your airline. Some have odd rules, like requiring the baby to face forward (no infant bucket-style seats allowed). Check that your car seat is air travel approved. Email the company if you have further questions (do NOT call, they can say anything, write and print it up in case you get a different story at the airport).

Lufthansa is good about foreign car seats and has the bigger bassinet so although I don't have experience on the other companies (with babies), I can recommend them. I never get good deals on their sites and found booking through a travel agent aligned with them to find the best prices. But do everything; check the consolidation sites, the airlines' own sites and email a few travel agents so double check you're getting the best deal.

Thanks so much, eclipsepearl, this helps a lot!! Julia

Hi,

My partner and I travelled with air New Zealand in December 2011, with our 7 month old son. From memory, I don't think there was too much trouble in securing the bassinet,however no guarantees where given. We where on a air new Zealand's new aircraft so that made things a little nicer but I have to say it was definitely my least enjoyable experience of the vacation. We flew from london to L.A. To Auckland. Good point was a quick turnaround in L.A which allowed us off the plane for a few hours for the wee man to have a bit of freedom.

Bad point, unless you have one of these children who can sleep for hours on end it will not be a pleasant flight. Our son was on the bottle by then but still had a bottle every 4 hours. As soon as you put him down in the bassinet he did not like it one bit, probably down to the fact that the flight attendants made us 'strap him into it' which effectively was a rather restrictive cover, covering 95% of the damn thing. Also when he was out of it and the fasten seatbelt sign was on we where asked to put the belly belt on him, which is basically a belt that loops through your own belt on to your child. Now it may have just been our child but he did not like it one bit, being confined to our seat in a hot environment was not his cup of tea! On top of this the flight attendants where pretty horrible and did all they could do to make things more uncomfortable for us, having said that we did have the nicest flight attendants from L.A to Auckland so I don't want to sound like I am bad mouthing air New Zealand staff.

The bassinet was handy for putting our food on when we were served our food as one of us had to hold the child while the other ate.

Not ideal but it beats the hell out of a three month boat trip! And totally worth it for the experience when you get there.

Advice would be go the other quicker way around and hopefully less turbulent. Find a quieter flight so you've got more room. Be prepared to hate the fact that you had a child! And please don't let it bother you what other people might be thinking when your child is crying/filling nappys/being sick/screaming etc etc

There is no real way around it really best to prepare yourself for the worst and enjoy the challenge

Good luck

We went Etihad, which is not one of your options, but think they are all much the same. We could only request a bassinet, it wasn't guaranteed, and we missed out on one of the legs. If there are more babies than bassinets then they give priority to the youngest babies. Our little girl is quite petite and at 9 months she was filling the bassinet, which is only 71cms long, I think you might struggle to get a 12 month old in. The airlines vary in terms of max weight for the bassinet but I think length wise they are much the same. As previous poster says when the fasten seat belt sign is on you can't use the bassinet, and the fasten seat belt sign was on for about 13 hours of our 15 hour Abu Dhabi to Sydney flight, so we couldn't use the bassinet anyway, in fact we didn't end up using it for more than about 4 hours in total over the 3 flights we had it for.

Also just to put a more positive spin on flying with a baby, I had been dreading the flight, but it was actually fine. I am sure it depends on the temperament of your child, but our little girl was pretty content to just sit and hang out with Mum and Dad for hours at a time. We did have one meltdown for about 5 mins when she was just totally over tired and desperate for sleep, and I felt like the whole plane was staring at me which wasn't fun, but the rest of it was fine.

@ Thedon1875 @lvuaja
Thanks for the details regarding the bassinett and the seat belt - I had no idea. Not sure at all how our little one will like that... She already sleeps very well at night but is quite active during the day, so we'll see how it goes when her "inner clock" gets all messed up. We'll have a stopover of 3-4 days half way to/from NZ, I hope this will make the trip a bit more relaxed.
Oh, I can imagine how dreadful it must have been when your little girl screamed and you could feel the angry looks of the other passengers in your back. Doesn't really help to stay calm and help your baby relax, does it?