eduboys

Hi,

Will be traveling with an infant from LCY -> FLR on Wednesday morning, and I'm trying to sort out my baggage, and was wondering if anyone had any practical experience and/or advice for someone traveling economy with the 1 checked bag allowance)

We have a stroller, car seat, 2 large suitcases, and an infant backpack child carrier (the large kind - little life, like a kelty), and 4 other carry ons.

So now for my questions:
1) Do I get another item to check in, or is the car seat considered baggage, and not a free allowance for my infant?
2) Anyone have any practical experience with the backpack child carrier? I can I bring it through security?
3) Is Air France a stickler about the 12kg carry on allowance, or is there some wiggle room there? i.e. do they actually weigh stuff
4) What is the charge to check a bag? On the website it is a bit confusing and says:Does this mean 55 euros or USD as per the *? Is this one way or round trip?

orbitmic

Do bear in mind that considering your route, you will be flying on very small regional planes with very limited overhead storage. Indeed, on the Avros, the whole middle part of the cabin (from, say, row 5 or 6 to row 11 or 12) will have extremely tiny overhead bins when you would barely be able to fit a computer and a jacket but certainly not a backpack or a cabin suitcase. In this sense, my recommendation would be that you try and keep as little cabin luggage as possible or you'll make your own experience very aggravating.

Stroller will be fine but I'm just not knowledgeable as to whether infants without a seat have a separate luggage allowance (other people with children will undoubtedly be able to answer that part). So again, I would check in as much as I can and try to take seats towards the back of the plane to be where the less small overhead bins are.

eduboys

I'm aware that i'm on a regional jet, and will most likely have to gate check my "Carry Ons". I am OK to gate check the suitcase, backpack, etc.

Thanks for the tip - I have never flown on this type of regional jet before.

brunos

It is hard to understand how a couple can physically travel with an infant plus so much baggage. It sounds almost like a joke.
The AF website is never very clear, but the basic idea on a European flight is that you are allowed per adult pax: 1 hold bags of no more than 23kgs and carryons (one big and one small) of no more than 12kgs. The baby seems to give you:
- 12 kgs of carryon
- 10 kgs of hold luggage
- one foldable stroller that must be checked in.
That's a lot of luggage. As the LCY-FLR is operated by an AR8 with very little storage space in cabin (and no that much hold space), they tend to be quite strict on luggage. BTW most of you carryons will probably need to go in the hold (although not counted as such).
If your luggage exceeds 23kgs, you will pay €55 (EUR not USD) per bag exceeding 23kg. The car seat and large backpack will have to be checked in and you should pay an extra €55 for each of them. But one of them would qualify for the free 10kg child allowance.
Of course, all fees are for one way.

AF tends to be nice to children, so you might try to negotiate. But UK tends to work by the book and that's an enormous amount of luggage. A very unpleasant way to travel.

orbitmic

As always, brunos makes two very good points here. The first is about your starting point - the UK tends to be quite 'rule oriented' moreover, you leave from LCY. LCY is a small airport that only has small planes (bar the exception of BA's airbus on the LCY-JFK flight) so staff are used to spotting anything looking 'too big' both at the check in counter and at security. What is more, historically (I don't know if it has changed recently), the cityjet team leaders at LCY used to be on the rigid side (I remember staff being very nice but having to go through fairly sophisticated justifications in cases of Irrops including when dealing with partner carriers, etc. Again, I'm talking of 2 - 3 years ago so the actual people may have changed in the meantime).

The second is that AF is a normally a very child-friendly airline, and I think that they are more likely to be helpful at check in than if you bring 'too much' at the gate. This might not only relate to the luggage you bring with you at check in but with, for instance, trying to give you a row with an extra empty seat for the baby (not normally entitled to it) if the flight has some space. Also, you are right that you will have to gate check some items, but that really means the items that are part of your allowance: what I mean by that is that because of the aircraft config, everyone with a legitimate cabin bag (and that will be a lot of people) will have to gate check it. On the avros, there is only one relatively small compartment which is kept for gate checked items, which are delivered at the bottom of the aircraft when you arrive, and it is separate from the main hold luggage compartments, so they can't afford to let you take more than your allowance (unless the flight is pretty empty) or all the gate checked items would be too much for that compartment.

Last but not least, if you feel that you have too much luggage to check, remember that AF allows you to pre-book excess luggage with a relatively significant discount (I think 30%). you can do it on MMB. Normally it is also available on OLCI but I believe that this is still not an option when you travel with an infant.

eduboys

Good point - I tried to pre-book excess, but for whatever reason, it wasn't available on MMB. I'll give them a call, as it sounds like there is no hope of getting the pack as a carry on.