Airport transfer with child seat

To book an airport transfer with child seat, give each child's age and weight at booking and we assign a vehicle carrying the right seat. Licensed vehicles are exempt from child seat rules in several countries we work in. We do not use that exemption: it is a legal convenience, not a safety finding.

Which seat your child needs

Two approval standards are in circulation, both of them UN regulations recognised across Europe and the UK. R44/04 classifies by weight. R129, marketed as i-Size, classifies by height, requires ISOFIX mounting, is tested for side impact, and mandates rear-facing travel until at least 15 months. A seat carrying either label is valid; i-Size is the newer and more protective of the two.

Two rules override everything in that table. A rear-facing seat must never go in a front seat with an active airbag — the airbag deploys into the back of the child's head. And a child stays in a booster until the adult belt sits across the collarbone and low on the hips rather than the neck and stomach, which is usually later than the legal threshold allows.

What the law says in each country we operate in

The rule for private cars is strict everywhere. The position for licensed vehicles is not, and it differs more than most families expect.

Two points are worth carrying into any booking. The person penalised is the driver, not the passenger, which is why a driver may decline to carry a child they cannot restrain properly. And an exemption changes only whether a child seat is legally required; it never makes travelling without a child seat safe.

Why we do not rely on the exemption

An exemption is a legal position. It has no effect on physics.

A crash produces identical forces inside a licensed vehicle and a private one. In a 50 km/h impact an unrestrained child is thrown forward with a force many times their body weight — far beyond what any adult can hold, which is why carrying a child on your lap is not a restraint at any speed. The UK's Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents advises against relying on the taxi exemption for exactly this reason, and the exemption itself exists because a driver cannot be expected to stock a seat for every possible child, not because anybody assessed it as safe.

France illustrates the wider problem. The text of Article R412-2 was written around vehicle categories that predate the modern VTC, and French operators and advisers currently disagree in print about whether it still covers private hire. We are not going to resolve that argument, and we are certainly not going to seat a child on the strength of it. Where a seat is requested, a seat is fitted.

How to book an airport transfer with child seat

When you book the transfer, give each child's age and weight, not just the number of children. Weight determines the seat; age alone does not, and a four-year-old can need either a harness seat or a booster depending on build.

• Book the seat with the transfer, not afterwards. The vehicle is assigned on the basis of what the booking says. A seat cannot be produced at the meeting point.
• Say how many seats and of which kind. Two toddlers and a baby is a different vehicle from one booster.
• Tell us if you are bringing your own. It saves us fitting one you will not use, and it lets the driver allow time to install it properly.
• Check the return leg separately. Families book the outbound carefully and leave the return to be sorted out later, then find the requirement did not carry across.

If your plans change, amend the booking rather than telling the driver on the day.

Travelling with a pushchair or pram

A folded pushchair travels in the luggage compartment and counts against the luggage allowance, which is where family bookings most often go wrong. A large travel system with a carrycot and chassis takes roughly the space of a full-size suitcase, and a family of four with two cases and a travel system does not fit a sedan.

Tell us the pushchair when you book and treat it as a piece of luggage in your count. If you are close to the limit, compare the vehicle classes before choosing — the difference in cost between a sedan and a minivan is usually smaller than the cost of a second vehicle at the airport.

What we cannot do

• Fit a seat we were not told about. Seats are allocated to vehicles before the driver leaves for the pickup.
• Fit a rear-facing seat in a front passenger seat where the airbag cannot be deactivated.
• Guarantee every seat type in every market at every hour. Where a specific configuration is not available, we say so at booking rather than at the kerb.
• Accept a seat with no valid approval label. If you bring your own, it needs a current R44/04 or R129 mark. Seats approved only to US, Canadian, Australian or other non-UN standards do not meet the European requirement, however new they are.

Larger groups, extra luggage and oversized items are covered on group transfers.