We always fly American Airlines, since it has a direct route from Mexico City to Chicago...and because we are working on earning free flights with mileage points.
But, we were a bit disgruntled with American on our flight to Chicago.
Annabelle is two and we have to pay for a seat for her, which is fine, because then she doesn't have to squirm on our laps for four hours.
A few days before the flight, I looked at www.aa.com to refresh my memory on their baggage policies and children's policies. I was glad to see that we could take Annabelle's car seat on the plane to use, since Interjet had made us check the car seat.
When we got to the airport and were checking in, the person helping us told us we had to check the car seat. That we were not allowed to bring it on board. We argued, saying we needed it. She said "use the seat belt". We told her that Annabelle was able to get out of the seat belt. Her response "tighten it". Clearly she was not a mother, as any mother would know that at about age 1, children figure out how to unhook the seat belt on an airplane. The woman was relentless and made us check the car seat.
Once we got onboard, we asked the flight attendants about the car seat. They were baffled and said we should have been able to bring it aboard. Upon leaving Chicago to return to Mexico, the check-in attendant allowed us to keep the car seat with us and had no idea why the attendant in Mexico forced us to check it.
Needless to say, the flight back to Mexico went a lot smoother than the flight to Chicago. On the way to Chicago, sans car seat, Annabelle refused to sit in her seat with her seat belt on. A problem when the pilot told us to expect turbulence for two of the four hours. When we tried to keep her contained on our laps, she screamed...something the other passengers loved, I'm sure.
With the car seat, on the way back to Mexico, Annabelle was contained, couldn't escape and seemed to accept the confines of her car seat. She watched a bit of the movie playing onboard, played with the iPad, looked at videos of herself on the iPhone and ate snacks. Unfortunately, she also kicked the seat in front of us a bit, but settled down pretty quickly after being yelled at and told not to kick.
The ideal flight would have been to have the car seat and sit in the first row, where she would not have been able to kick the seat in front of her. Or, to have the flight full minus at least one seat, so that no one was sitting in front of her.
Next time, American Airlines in Mexico tells us no to the car seat, we'll ask to speak to a supervisor. Not only is it easier for the parents and other passengers to have children confined, but it is a LOT safer, especially when there is turbulence.
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