CARES harness

Happy 4th of July! I don't really have a patriotic post for this because we were flying that day.

Our kids fly a lot. Since we always need their car seats at our destination, we have always just used them on the planes. This has made the kids more comfortable. However, those seats are heavy. They are great for the kids, but they are kind of a pain for us. Once they were big enough to use the CARES harness we decided to give them a try.

The CARES harness hooks over the back of the seat making it a 4 point harness and helps hold them in more safely. Though, you do still have to make sure they don't unbuckle the bottom and take it off. Amazingly, they can still sleep while wearing it. It is light, portable and simple to install. I highly recommend using them if you don't need a car seat at your destination.

I'm sure you noticed the one thing I added in the last paragraph. We will take these and use them anytime we are flying somewhere we don't need car seats. However, on this trip we had checked the car seats for the flights home and let the kids use these. It was international (Canada to USA) and we had a connecting flight. We had to do customs between the two flights, so we had to get the seat in between to move them. At that point the car seats were fine. We were able to see them and check and there were no issues. We happily checked them back in for the second flight.

By the time we made it home one of the seats was broken. A large chunk of the corner had come off. You know the corner that give the seat it's stability when it's installed? The one that would dig into the seat? This was not a cheap plastic car seat. This was a steal framed seat. (For those outside the U.S., not all of the approved seats here are steal framed.) We spent a ton on these seats because they met my many requirements - they are not only approved for use in the U.S., they are approved by the FAA for plane travel, and they are approved in other countries (Canada, most of Europe) where we travel. Canada and Europe both have much higher standards for car seat safety.

So at the airport at home we had to try tracking down someone to file a damage report. We found tons of people from American Airlines, but we flew on Canada Air. They had apparently left the airport already. It took more than an hour, with us paging people in the airport as well as being on the phone with customer service in Canada before we were able to file a report. In the end, we did get a settlement check from them. Canada Air is one of the few airlines that will pay for damage to a car seat. For most airlines if you check a car seat you agree they are not responsible for any damage and they will not pay. The entire process took more than a month and tons of inconvenience.

So, I would highly recommend the CARES harness if you don't need to travel with a car seat. We have used them since this trip and will continue to do so anytime we are traveling somewhere we only need public transportation. The only down side is checking the car seat, which certainly isn't CARES fault.