Flying and Child Safety Seats

There is a thread currently going on at Flyertalk, my favorite website, about whether or not to mandate child safety seats for small children, who currently travel in their parent’s lap. The reasoning is that in any heavy turbulence, a parent may not be able to hold the child, thus putting that child in danger. I think this type of legislation would be a bad idea.

First is the obvious, people are not prevented from placing their child in a car seat, they are choosing not to do so because of the extra cost. Revealed preference clearly shows us that such a rule would decrease welfare, not increase. There is no obvious externality here, and if the child is injured, other passengers would largely be unaffected. I am well aware that a child cannot advocate for itself, but society has long established that this advocacy then falls to the parent.

The second reason is that such a rule would raise the cost of traveling for those who do not have children so that it can force those that do have them to act in a way they do not want to act. Why would it raise the cost for the non-parents? The reason has to do with the fact that, in general, parents flying with kids are more price elastic. In this case, the airline would be smart to pass some of the increased cost onto a more inelastic population (those without kids). This form of cross-subsidization would raise the cost for those without children.

Finally, increasing the cost of flying for those with kids could result in more, not fewer, child injuries and fatalities. By requiring children to have seats, many parents will choose to drive instead of fly, as this could be a less costly substitute. Driving is far, far, far more dangerous than flying, and removing those children from their parent’s lap and placing them in cars puts them at much greater risk of death.