We’d like to have the car seat for flying for a number of reasons. Firstly, she’s very small for her age (3rd percentile for weight, 2nd for height) and using a car seat will be much safer for her in the event of any turbulence, rough flights, etc.
Second, a car seat will be much more comfortable for her than the actual airplane seat (which is especially important if and when she chooses to sleep). I don’t think we’ve ever made a single flight where she hasn’t complained about how uncomfortable it was!
Also, as we need the car seat for when we rent a car at whatever destination we’re visiting (or traveling in family and friends cars), we have to take it with us. Given the general mistreatment of luggage we really don’t want to have to check the seat into the hold as we’ll have no clue if someone’s throwing it around or carelessly damaging it.
We’ll be flying much more from now on so having a seat for her is very important. When we looked at the options with her she preferred the Pinnacle and Frontier over the Rainier, but said she was okay with all three. Given the above advice, we’re looking into getting a specific “flying/travel seat” and if we do, then the aspects of using the seat for flying will be more important for us – the only thing she insists on is being able to see the TV screen!
We really appreciate any advice at all – thanks again.