And some car seats are too wide to fit in an airline seat. If parents must pay fares for young children and buy special child seats for airplanes, safety experts fear some families who otherwise would have flown will drive instead, putting kids at greater risk. Vehicle accidents are the leading killer of children younger than 14. The National Transportation Safety Board says that since 1989, at least three unrestrained children under 2 have died in plane crashes in which some passengers survived. Safety experts foresee a day when child seats might snap into fittings on airline seats the way car seats soon will snap into new cars.
Airlines provide life vests for every passenger.
The Fort Lauderdale company makes air-safety equipment for airlines and has designed a new child seat. Airlines agree on the need for universal seats, but want families to have to bring them aboard. They dread the prospect of having to buy, clean, inspect, maintain and be liable for thousands of seats wherever and whenever they're needed. Parents and kids would be familiar with their own seats, he says, and that would free airlines from the logistical headache of supplying them. Airlines also don't want flight crews taking on more work fastening child seats.