New Rule Prohibiting Infants in Bulkhead Row/Seat Belt Air Bag Discussion Thread
 

I flew with the family on two trips recently, having booked my tickets last October. At the boarding gate we were redirected to the desk to have our seats reassigned. Alaska Air cited a new policy prohibiting infants in the bulkhead row. Has anybody heard of this? One worker told me it was an FAA rule.

It must be a new one, as we traveled last November on an 8 segment trip and had no such problems. I searched the Alaska Air website and found no information on it. And of course, Alaska Air let me select those seats originally when I booked the ticket with no problem.

Was this a lap child, or simply an infant in a seat? We flew in Row 6 CUN-SEA just a couple weeks ago with our baby and 3 year-old (but everyone had a seat and the baby was in her carseat). We always try for that row with the kids, I'd be sad to see a rule like that in place.

Starting with the latest delivery (N529AS), new aircraft are coming with air bags built into the seat belts in bulkhead rows only. I suspect that is the reasoning and since it is unknown which aircraft you will be flying on, I gather the rule was made to simplify things.

Correct, New policy for the new aircraft and FAA policy. Although there won't be any retro-fitting of air-belts on all previous aircraft, this is now an across the board policy for car-seats/lap infants. If you get to fly on 529, or future delivered aircraft, check out the thick blue seatbelts in rows 1 & 6.

On my last flight, a couple got moved out of the bulkhead seats because they were traveling with a small dog in a small carrier. I thought it was weird they got moved when the flight was underway. Makes me wonder where the dog was when we first took off!

Interesting video showin the seat belt air bags in action:
http://gizmodo.com/5390009/your-next...have-an-airbag

Any rules/regs on compatibility with seatbelt extenders? (That is going to create a world of controversy if they aren't, but somehow I suspect that they aren't.)

Seatbelt extensions are still allowed on these new seats. The airplanes that have the airbag belts have the compatable extensions onboard.

I ran into something similar, although a bit different, flying with my college age kids in F around Christmas. A couple in front of us had two lap infants so the cabin crew said they couldn't sit together (in case we had to deploy oxygen masks). One of my boys ended up swapping seats with one of the parents.

For as long as I have been in the industry, the rule has been no more than 1 infant in a set of seats due to the amount of emergency oxygen masks in the PSU. There is 1 extra mask in each PSU.

There are also some aircraft (i dont think any are in the alaska fleet), that only have extra masks for infants on alternating rows. I think it might be some of delta's 757? I cant really remember what aircraft i was on.

AS Seat belt w/ airbag, true?
 

Last night on the 8:15 pm LAX-SEA flight I was in 1C, the seat belt was unusually thick. The FA informed us that the seat belts had airbags in them.

Is this true? Anyone experienced this?

The seatbelt was not uncomfortable just looked funny.

Yep, true. I'm not finding the thread but we discussed it a couple of weeks ago.

Congrats - you were on one of AS's newest aircraft. Those are seat belts are in rows 1 and 6.

A simple search of this forum for the word "airbag" turns up this thread where it was discussed:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/alask...khead-row.html

Infants also cannot be within 1-2 rows of the exit row - not sure why - but I have seen families moved.

As for the airbag belts, it is just a matter of time until a toddler or some curious person triggers the device and it will be a lawyer's happy day. We'll see....