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Dan Eleff witnessed a confrontation on Monday between an American Airlines gate agent and a flight attendant at New York JFK. He was flying from New York to Cleveland on American flight 4366, a regional flight operated by Republic Airways.
The incident began when the gate agent forced a woman to gate-check her car seat. However, the flight attendant noticed that the car seat was approved for use on board and since the flight was half empty, she "stopped it from being gate-checked and brought the car seat back to the mother for the infant to use on the flight."
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recommends that all children have their own seats for safety reasons, with car seats being one option for small children. While requiring this could be more expensive and might encourage people to drive rather than fly, in this case, there seemed no reason not to allow it.
