Our experience, or why we will never fly Qantas again

Our first baby flying experience was with Southwest. They were mildly surprised that the baby had a ticket, but were very helpful to us. The on-board staff knew the rules for car seats and politely reminded us about them when we pre-boarded. When we showed up late, they jumped us to the head of the remaining line and offered to help us trade seats to get the legally required window seat for the baby (we managed it without help, but they thanked us for doing so).

Thus, when it came time to fly to Australia, we were over-confident. We did check our assigned seats, discover that American had assigned us illegal seats, and get it fixed, and we did check the policies on all the airlines we were flying. But we ignored advice to print out the policies and regulations and carry them with us. Never again!

We got to LA just fine. Our first hint of trouble came when checking in for the Australia flight, as it took 2 staff members and about 5 minutes to get us all into our (pre-assigned) seats (little did we know that this would in fact be our shortest, fewest person check-in with Qantas). There was more trouble preboarding, as it took some time to find the labels to prove to Qantas that our seat was approved. We did OK with that, got on, and strapped the seat in. When the plane had fully boarded, staff came around to complain that our seat was "installed wrong" (i.e. rear-facing). We pointed out that Qantas' web site said it had to be installed according to manufacturer's directions even if rear-facing. They pointed out that the passenger in front of her couldn't recline. We pointed out that if they had seated us and our BABY instead of the teenagers in the bulkhead row, that wouldn't be a problem. They pointed out the other passenger would be uncomfortable. We pointed out our baby would be unsafe. They upgraded the other passenger to business class, so by our reckoning our baby gave her a net increase in comfort.

Brisbane to Melbourne was worse, requiring 15 minutes and 4 ground staff to get us into what turned out to be illegal seats behind the exit row. The in-flight staff were very sweet, although they did not notice the illegal seats and usefully told us that if the oxygen masks descended we should put the baby's on first (wrong). For the first time, we were told that Qantas policy calls for putting the car seat in the last row of the plane. This makes sense for Australian car seats, which require a top tether that is provided for in that row; unfortunately nobody we met at Qantas had any clue about the top tethers or the reason for the last row rule. Luckily, this was so apparently pointless and punitive that none of the agents we dealt with did it, one of the few ways that Qantas' inability to follow their own policies actually benefitted us.  Our US seat did not need the tether. For the only time, somebody looked it up in the crew manual and discovered that it suggests that if a baby is travelling with 2 parents, the 2nd parent can trade with the non-reclining seat. The non-reclining passenger on this flight was much less excited about it than Qantas crew and did not apparently mind at all.

We thought this would be the low point, but no! Melbourne to Brisbane was reasonably uneventful, aside from the fact that they failed to pre-board us despite another all-hands-on-deck warn-the-gate-about-the-crazy-people check-in. In Brisbane, Paul attempted to get things straightened out before we got on board. At this point, Qantas staff moved from merely implying that our desire for our baby to safely use her paid-for seat was inconsiderate and silly to being outright rude. The ground staff told him 1) that they had never heard of anybody taking a car seat on board except for capsules for newborns 2) that the bulkhead seats were all reserved already for unpaid babies 3) that when we got on board we'd just do as we were told and 4) that every seat on the plane was full, and it was in fact overbooked. As it turned out, there was a toddler in a car seat by the same manufacturer on our flight, and a family with a baby we talked to on board said they had been behind him in line and when they got to the counter, there were adults ticketed in the bulkhead row they got. We were already miserable when we pre-boarded in our middle of the airplane seats. Since we could, we decided to put the baby between us, in seat E. After the plane was fully boarded and getting ready to go, a flight attendant noticed she was rear-facing and started to argue with us. We trotted out all the usual arguments, and were told we should have gotten a seat that would hold a 7-kilo (15 lb) 5-month old forward-facing. (Try it if you like; they don't exist.) Eventually, in the interests of a peaceful, on-time departure, they agreed that she could stay rear-facing as long as the passenger in front of her didn't complain, and even (once we showed them the line in their own crew manual!) that we could offer to trade if he did. They then didn't mention it to him, so he had no idea why his seat could only recline a tiny amount, and he suffered in silence. On the other hand, this meant he kept trying to force his seat back, squishing the car seat, and he and the baby both looked uncomfortable.  6 hours into the flight, I realized that the seat in front of me had not reclined at all, and we stood up and looked. It was empty. We had all been tortured for 6 hours for NO REASON AT ALL. If Qantas' staff had spent even a tenth as much time on thinking about solving the problem as they did on badgering us about it, everybody would have been comfortable and safe. It turned out about half the rows in our section had empty seats.

So, to sum up, faced with a baby in a car seat, which their policy says is not a problem, Qantas staff were incapable of following applicable safety regulations or airline policy, and mostly ranged from unhelpful through incompetent to actually rude. They were mean to us and our baby, and when they tried to be helpful and competent, they were let down by other parts of the airline and by shoddy documentation at every turn. Just to add to our annoyance, they also mangled our luggage on the last leg of our flight, apparently dragging our baby hammock across the tarmac until it wore through the bag and several things inside.

By comparison, American seated us illegally (and was not surprised or thankful when we caught the error and asked to have it fixed a month before the flight), failed to pre-board us, and hassled us about having the seat rear-facing, and while we would choose another carrier if all other things were equal, we're still not that mad at them. They were kind of annoying, but not actively rude. If they're the cheapest carrier on a route, we'll fly American. We'll double-check the seat assignments and carry documentation, but we'll fly them. We'll be paying extra if necessary to avoid ever flying Qantas again. And we'll be taking Southwest whenever we can.