I travelled with my 20 month old on a Qantas flight from Melbourne to London in September 2008. This was my first solo flight with a child, but I have flown long haul with other airlines with children.

Overall I was very disappointed with the service, as compared with my previous experiences travelling with children on Malaysian Airlines and Cathay Pacific.

In line with the policy of all the other airlines, as a child under 2 years my daughter was able to travel without an allocated seat. With this in mind I had hoped for a seat allocation which would take into account the difficulty of 2 people including one wriggling toddler sharing one seat, such as a bulk head seat where available. We missed out on this on all legs of our trip even though some of these seats were occupied by passengers apparently without any special needs. Despite booking in 6 hours early for the return trip I was allocated to a window seat and advised that it was not possible to change this when I realized what had happened. (Fortunately the other passengers in the row were kind enough to swap – probably realizing it was in their best interests to do this.)

With few exceptions, I found the air stewards unhelpful. Whilst in flight I was advised that if I had not requested a child’s meal when booking none would be available as it is considered a special dietary requirement. Apparently buying a child’s ticket is not clear enough!  Fortunately my daughter will eat anything so we shared, but on the return trip I phoned ahead to make the request, and was told the choice was for either a child’s meal or an adult one, but not both. Apparently parents are expected to provide food for their under 2s for the duration of the flight: the $700 I paid in total for my daughter to travel was insufficient to cover any food for a 24 hour trip.

The other airlines I have travelled with have offered packs with paper, crayons and other diversions for the young kids. Whilst most parents will have given some thought to how they are going to distract their little ones on long haul travel and have brought things along, the absence of anything like this on the Qantas flights was notable.

Overall I was very disappointed with the service I received from Qantas when travelling alone with a child. I would certainly recommend the other airlines I have used over the national carrier to parents travelling with young children.

 

My nine week old daughter and I flew from Perth to Singapore in March 2008. Qantas were fantastic, giving me a bassinet seat each way, and very helpful through the check in process (at both ends.)

In Perth I had to check in my pram, and they offered me a stroller to get bubs through customs and to the plane. Unfortunately she was a bit too small for it, so I put our bags in the stroller, pushed it and carried her. Worked out OK. The flight was pretty good, and the staff very helpful and willing to hold bub if I went to the toilet etc. Upon arrival as Singapore airport I had someone help me with me bags.

When leaving Singapore you can take your pram right up the plane, and they take it from you just as you are going through the gate. A lot easier! The staff were constantly asking me if I needed assistance, and were extremely attentive. The flight was once again very easy, but very full! Luckily they gave me the one spare seat, as there was a couple with another bub beside us, it was a bit squishy. On arrival in Perth I had to wait about 50 mins for the pram to come out, but once I had it they once again helped me with my bags.

Overall I was very pleased with the experience.

 

We flew to LA September 2007 Thomas was 2.5 years old and a bit (sorry its not a recent trip as I only found out this review thingy just today). Great services. Although to get to the Qantas Club Lounge in LAX was a bit of trip, but it wasnt Qantas's fault as at that time LAX was doing some renovation. But the Lounge wasnt too bad, no shower but lol...

Weve had a little drama with Qantas couple years ago on our flight back to Aus from UK's Heathrow. We couldnt upgrade our flights to business class because they said that it was fully booked, but when we got into our flight there were 4 empty seats in business class. 

So we wrote a complain to Qantas. Not long after this drama, when we booked our flight to Singapore they upgraded our flights to business class for free! 

Overall, great airline. Qantas is. Always happy with their services. They are even super nicer whenever we travel with DS. 

We support Australian Products thats why we always fly with Qantas!

 

 

We flew from Adelaide to Singapore when our little boy was 7 months old and then to the UK when he was 9 months old. We flew on 3 airlines - Qantas, BA and Virgin Atlantic. Qantas is the only airline that you don't have to take baby out of the basinette during turbulence as they have a baby seatbelt which must be considered safe enough. The basinettes are small but they are small on all the airlines from my experience. Our boy only just fits now - he is 8kg and around 72 cm and if much bigger wouldn't fit.

 Staff on Qantas were very good - it obviously depends on the flight as I had more help in economy than in business class on one sector, but I'm sure this was down to the staff - in business class the staff member clearly didn't have children and didn't really have much of an idea of how to react with kids. Overall, I think they were really good.

Flew Sydney to Jakarta with 17 month old.

Prior to the flight Qantas were very helpful in allocating us a bassinette seat. When we got to the airport we discussed seating with the checkin staff who said that as our DS was so big it'd be better to seat us across 3 seats (lucky for us the flight wasn't full) which was much better, especially as he didn't sleep till just before we landed so there's no way he would have used the bassinette. We really appreciated the extra space, especially as we didn't have to pay extra for the seat.

We were a bit over with our luggage weight but they turned a blind eye because of bub.They give 10kg baggage allowance for the infant, plus the stroller, which we were allowed to use in the airport and gate-check. That was a god-send.

We didn't expect that the stroller would be waiting for us at the door when we got off the plane! so we walked right past where it was and then we ended up having to wait for it to come back out after the luggage came out, but that was more our fault than theirs.

Toddler meals provided in flight were quite good (bangers and mash with vegies plus juice, fruit etc) and the Activity Pack for kids was a hit with my son, especially the Wiggles Doodle-Pro - I shouldn't have bothered buying one before we went!

Overall I was happy with the service Qantas provided - if not exactly ' warm and friendly' they were at least helpful and obliging and sympathetic towards travelling with kids - I would fly with them again with an infant any time. 

 

 

They were ok. Good in some areas but rubbish in others.

You get to board before economy - so you go up with the first and business class. But no one offered to help me when I travelled alone with my son. I had to struggle with son & bags etc. through the aisles. Nightmare!! I got to take the stroller to the gate but no one helped me collapse it they just told me where to leave it.

On the other side I had to get stroller from the luggage pick up so had to struggle all that way holding my son and hand luggage. Again, no assistance from the crew.

Foodwise, my son was given a cold tin of beef stew and a tin of custard for breakfast! So no thought into what they are offering children to eat. If you ask them to wash a bottle its just rinsed in hot water so keep that in mind if bottle feeding.

Bassinets are tiny and when my son was 5 months old he was too big for it already. He had to sleep on my lap.

Staff are friendly though - just not as helpful as I would have liked.

Awesome sevice, very helpful with bubs, seating etc. cant complain at all!

Great airline, specially when travelling with young ones. My 2year old was so pampered! Best we experienced!