Flying Cathay Pacific with a Baby – My Experience and Review
So, you’re gearing up for a trip with your little one and wondering how Cathay Pacific handles flying with babies? Let me walk you through it!
We recently flew from Bangkok to Los Angeles for a combined 15 hours with my 18 month old as a lap infant and overall, it was a great experience from booking to check in and the flights themselves.
When it comes to baby policies, bassinets, food, and booking, here’s everything to know about flying Cathay Pacific with a baby or toddler:
Booking on Cathay Pacific with a Baby
Cathay Pacific is welcoming to families traveling with infants, which they define as kiddos aged between 7 days and up to 24 months old. As is standard, you need to have a parent or guardian (who’s 18 or above) flying in the same cabin as the baby at all times.
When it comes to booking your tickets, there are two types for kids under 12: infant or child. With an infant ticket, there won’t be a booked seat for your baby, and the price is usually 10% of the adult fare. Child tickets are usually slightly reduced and will have your child in their own seat. Though you don’t have to put your infant under 2 in their own seat, there are some big pros to doing so on long journeys, like added safety and space. We usually opt to have my son as a lap infant on these super long flights in business class whenever possible, which we did on Cathay Pacific.
Adding a lap infant is easy to do during the booking process, though if you book with miles, you’ll have to call to add the lap infant and pay the taxes and fees.
Also, keep in mind that if you’re traveling with more than one infant, each parent or guardian can bring a max of two infants. One of the two should be at least 6 months old and riding in an FAA-approved infant car seat or CARES harness. They will distribute infant seat belts for infants in their parents’ lap.
Cathay Pacific allows children’s sleeping devices that do not affects the functionalities of a seat or cause any impact on other passengers’ comfort, such as a JETKIDS Bedbox, but the Fly LegsUp and Flyebaby hammock are not accepted.
Bassinets, Meals, and Breastfeeding on Cathay Pacific
According to Cathay Pacific’s website, “breastfeeding your baby is allowed during all phases of flight. If you wish to use electric breast pumps while on board, you can do so after the announcement that electronic devices could be switched on, and up until the seat belt sign is switched on before landing. The pumps must be stowed for take-off, taxiing and landing.
If you bring personal food items on board, please note that we cannot reheat or chill them due to hygiene reasons. You can request a container with hot water to warm your food items. Please pack food or expressed milk that require refrigeration in a cool bag or a vacuum flask. If you plan to bring dry ice (up to 2.5 kg /5.5 lb), please ensure it is suitably packed to allow CO2 gases to evaporate freely, and let us know during check-in.”
Baby meals
When it comes to baby meals, they’re easy to book in advance under ‘manage booking’, where you can select an infant meal for your baby or toddler. We received two pouches of puree for both our shorter and longer haul flight. It wasn’t quite as impressive as Japan Airlines‘ kids meals, but was still good. I was also able to ask the flight attendants to fill our baby bottle with oat milk, which I’ve also found on our beloved Singapore Airlines and Emirates (upper classes only), and have had no luck with on American, Delta, and United.
I always recommend bringing our own milk and snacks, but when we can, we dip into the airline’s offerings, too.
Bassinets
For bassinets, be sure to call ahead to book one for your baby. Keep in mind these are generally only available in the bulkhead seats and have a max carrying weight of 12 kg (26.5 lbs). I noticed that Cathay will reserve these seats for parents traveling with lap infants, which is great, but annoyingly, only the parent with the lap infant can actually book said seat, so if you want to travel together with another companion, they will not be able to book into the bassinet compatible seat next to you. I may have been able to clear this up had I called customer service, but as our son was too large to use the bassinet at the time of booking, I didn’t bother with it.
Note that lap infants and children cannot be seated in emergency exit rows.
Strollers and Baggage Allowance on Cathay Pacific
Cathay Pacific is a rare airline that gives lap infants baggage allowance, at a generous 10kg! Car seats and strollers can also be checked free of charge. We always check our car seat, but if you do this, be sure to put it in a carrying bag for protection and extra storage.
Infants are also allowed a diaper bag and stroller that can fit in the overhead bin as carry on luggage, or you can gate check the stroller or check it as hold luggage for free.
We almost always prefer to bring a small stroller that can fit in the bin, and switch between the Joolz Aer (bigger canopy and one handed fold) and Ergobaby Metro+ (smaller overall and full recline) when we travel.
Our Experience Flying with Cathay Pacific with our Toddler
We’ve been on over 100 flights now on dozens of airlines with my son across 11 countries and I have to say, Cathay Pacific is pretty good. They invite families with young children to board along with business class passengers (so we ended up in the same line regardless), and offer amenities like reserving bassinet seats for those with lap infants, baby meals, and infant baggage. Although we’ve seen this on the best international carriers, these are by no means standard amenities.
We were also given a cute little monster stuffed toy for Felix, which my partner Garrett announced as his favorite ever (with the Qatar airways globe/animal stuffy as a close second).
They have a nice selection of kid-friendly entertainment options as well, with an option to add parental controls.
Overall, the flight was easy and smooth. Check in was easy, boarding was easy, and getting water and oat milk as needed for his bottles was easy. The seats were comfortable, though not quite as large as Singapore Airlines’ business class, but still quite nice with plenty of space.
We’d happily fly Cathay Pacific again.
