If I were you, I would contact AA about the holding of service and different treatment (not the safety seat, as these can not be used on the A330 series aircraft), offering your ticket numbers, flight information, a summary of facts and your concerns over your future bookings. You may gain some compensation, but IMO and more importantly, these FAs should receive proper training (and they should receive some "attitude readjustment", but no telling to what extent they might).
Use the online form
here:
Or, write
Sean Bentel
Vice President, Customer and Relations
4333 Amon Carter Blvd
Fort Worth, TX 76155
Rest assured this attitude is pretty rare in my experience (and I've been flying AA since the 1940s). I'm pretty sure you won't see this apparent negative attitude and service discrimination because of your being a parent on your future flights (and such discriminatory service practices are undoubtedly not allowed by AA).
American's infant and safety restraint policy may be read
here. Approved seats are allowed to be used on AA. While I do seem to recollect there may be an aircraft type where approved infant seats may not be used, given the instructions you describe I'm not sure it's the A330.
LATER: approved child safety seats CAN NOT be used on the following AA aircraft:
- Airbus A330-200 or A330-300
- Boeing 777-300ER ("77W")
- Boeing 777-200ER ("772") with refurbished cabins and all aisle access Business seats (16 of 47 refurbished to date)
- Boeing 787-8 and 787-9 (added)
See
this page. Under "Safety seat requirements" swipe or click on "View seat width dimensions". Business seats not certified for safety seats show thusly:
Swipe or click on manufacturer, e.g. Airbus
A330-200 Business class 20*/ 20.5" Main Cabin 238 / 16.3 - 17.8"
*Not forward facing seats and not authorized for child restraint systems