Why car seats aren't required on airplanes
A sensible government policy
Government agencies agree. It would be safer for infants traveling on airplanes if they were in car seats, or as the government calls them, child restraint systems (CRS). This makes sense. Currently, children under two are allowed to sit on an adult's lap rather than in their own seat. Some countries require that children be buckled in with a special extended seatbelt, while in other countries, including the United States, the baby is simply held by the adult.
Although the risk is very low, every year several domestic flights encounter severe turbulence. Injuries to passengers, especially those who are standing or are not buckled in, happen. Every once in a while someone dies. There is no way an adult will always be able to hold on to a child should severe turbulence occur. Yet, the same agencies agree that children should not be required to be in car seats on a plane. This is surprising. Our government has increasingly become a nanny state. With the notable exception of marijuana, almost everything has become more regulated, less permissive. Wilderness areas are closed off, New York City tried to ban large sodas, and cigarettes are treated like deadly weapons. Perhaps the worst area of government overregulation is air travel. The government has fully embraced “security theater” over actual security. Taking off your shoes, restricting liquids, and not letting passengers bring on their Leathermans don’t really increase safety. Yet we allow babies to sit on planes with nothing more than a parent’s arms holding them down. Why?
First, the gains would be slim. The FAA claims that one child’s life would be saved every 10 years if children on planes were required to be in car seats. I don’t know where that number comes from; I suspect it is just a random estimate. I can’t find a single instance of a child on a US commercial flight dying because of extreme turbulence. Over a decade ago, a baby did go flying (pun intended) across a plane on a flight from Denver to Billings, but the child was unhurt. I asked ChatGPT, and it said, “There have been serious injuries and rare fatalities due to turbulence on U.S. flights, but as of now, there is no known case of a child being killed specifically due to turbulence on a U.S. flight. Most turbulence-related injuries involve unbelted passengers or flight attendants.” But still, there have surely been lap children who have been injured during turbulence, so there may be small gains from putting children in car seats while flying.
As the parent of a child under two, I have taken full advantage of the lap seat policy. My son has flown with my wife and me many times. Having to pay for only two seats, rather than three, has been a huge help. Especially when my son was an infant, it didn’t make any sense for him to be in a car seat. If he had had his own seat with a CRS instead of a lap he still would have spent most of the flight on a lap anyway. It’s not like a three-month-old can be left in a car seat for hours at a time.
So why is this allowed? Because requiring young children to have their own seat with a CRS while flying would cause far more deaths and injuries than it would prevent. If parents are forced to pay for a seat for a child, that makes flying significantly more expensive. For some families, that would mean canceling a trip entirely. But for many, it means substituting plane flights for road trips. And driving is far more dangerous than flying.
The recent crash of American Eagle Flight 5342 is a testament to how safe flying in the US has become. It was the first commercial flight to crash in over 15 years. In the intervening years, there has been the occasional freak accident that resulted in a few injuries or fatalities, but there hadn’t been a hull loss since Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed in February of 2009. Millions of flights have taken off and landed safely in between the two ill-fated journeys. Car travel, on the other hand, is still somewhat risky. Around 40,000 motorists die every year in America and far more are injured. If the government were to start requiring car seats for infants, some families would elect to drive rather than fly. And some of those children would die in car accidents. The FAA estimates that for every child saved by requiring car seats on planes, around 60 would die in car accidents. Thus, children under two are allowed to sit in laps.
Props to the FAA for this. The argument is irrefutable; it is safer for children to be on a lap on a plane than in a car seat in a vehicle. Yet there has been pushback. As recently as 2023, a flight attendants union has asked the FAA to require a “seat for every soul”. Fans of this Substack will recognize my distrust of unions, and this is a great example of why. Some flight attendants undoubtedly believe that all children should be in seats and that allowing lap infants is dangerous. The union heads, however, have been told the FAA’s rationale. They know that it is safer for children to be on a plane and in a lap than driving down the road. They also recognize, however, that requiring every child to have their own seat would sell more tickets. It would increase sales and possibly increase salaries for union members. Thus, the union supports reducing safety to increase their dues. Sigh.
Government safety standards are done best when the total consequences of a policy are well-understood. Often these consequences will be surprising. Safety standards can have secondary effects that make the world more dangerous, not more safe. Despite a counterintuitive finding, and despite industry pressure, the FAA has held firm. Babies can be on laps while flying. It might cause the occasional injury, but is ultimately safer for society.