My son is now 21 months old, and he has flown over 50,000 miles (all over the US, in including Florida, Vegas, even Hawaii) most of em on free tix using miles or free r/t from bumps, so he hasn't quite made silver yet, but should hit it before the end of the year. We have ALWAYS had a seat for him - no question. I have had a few flights in the past where we had god awful turbulence, and I question my ability to hold onto him. IT'S NOT WORTH YOUR NEWBORNS SAFETY TO HOLD THEM. If you can afford to charter a jet, you can afford to buy him/her a seat.

Now that I'm off my high horse, flying with an infant is fun but can be a lot of extra work. Be prepared with extra everything!! You may not use it, but the time when they poop through 2 outfits, it's nice to have a thrird to change into.

Anyways, we always took bulkhead when available, as my wife thought she would have extra privacy for breast-feeding our son. The lack of under-seat storage space was a draw-back, but most of the time the FA's were great, helping to re-heat food, bring down bags when needed, etc.

Be prepared that travling with your newborn can be a very stressful experience. Ours never slept well on the plane, and cried a bit.

Biggest advice I can give is that on take-off and landing, have a bottle ready. While sucking on a pacifer helps, the swallowing motion of feeding is much better at "popping" their ears. Also, if you are going to gate check the stroller (highly recommended, because if you are not used to carrying around an infant, they get heavy quickly. Try carrying around an 8 lb bowling ball all day, and you will see).

When going through security, some airports ahve Wheelchair and Stroller lanes (Vegas is great for this) where you basically walk to the beginning of the security line and cut through - but some airport's don't have this luxury, so make sure you plan on giving yourself extra time to get through security if they don't. Many of the larger strollers don't fit through some of the x-ray machines, and TSA can sometimes takes quite a while examining them. Also, it takes a few minutes to put the stroller back together and get the infant buckled down after passing though the checkpoint.

Good luck and congrats.