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Family travel preparations

In this page, you can find useful information and links about our meal service including pre-order meals, seats, baggage regulations, children travelling alone and required travel documents.

Pre-order meals for kids

Depending on your destination and travel class, our onboard meal service concept varies. To ease your travel experience and to make sure your child gets the tastiest meal on board, you can pre-order a meal in advance. Depending on your destination, our pre-order selection ranges from delicious sandwiches to dedicated Kid’s meals and a savoury Burger Feast meal. You can pre-order meals in Manage booking or in the Finnair App.

Pre-order meals

Booking seats

We always make sure that children sit next to one of their parents during the flight. However, we can’t guarantee that the whole family is seated next to each other. If you want to ensure seats next to each other for all family members, we recommend you select and purchase your seats in advance in Manage booking or in the Finnair App.

All Finnair intercontinental flights have some baby bassinets on them. In order to use a baby bassinet, please reserve a seat suitable for a bassinet via Manage booking or in the Finnair App. If you have bought your flights or holiday package from a tour operator, you can still purchase your seat in Manage booking or in the Finnair App.

You may bring your own child seat or child car seat with you if your child is under 7 years old and you have reserved him or her a seat on board. Please read the safety requirements below.

Please note that if you want your 0–2-year-old child to travel on a separate seat and have more space on board for your family, you can book a ticket for an infant through our customer care.

Travelling in our renewed Business Class on long-haul flights

Please note that the new Business Class seats in our A350 and A330 aircraft do not support using a child seat. All children over 2 years of age must use regular safety belts and be able to sit in the seat on their own during take-off and landing. Due to the shell design of the Air Lounge seat, it is not possible to reach the child from another seat when the seat belt sign is on.

If a child is unable to sit in their seat and use the safety belt properly, our cabin crew may need to move the child and their parent to another travel class during take-off and landing, if there are seats available, to ensure everyone’s safety.

Our new Premium Economy Class is also a good choice when travelling with small children on long-haul flights.

Please check that your child seat is approved for ‘use in aircraft.’ There will be a label or text on the child seat, and the manufacturer’s manual will contain instructions for installing it on an aircraft seat. This can be different than the installation in your car. Please take the manufacturer’s instructions with you, so the cabin crew can check the correct installation method. 

It is good to acknowledge that we cannot guarantee that your child seat will be compatible with the aircraft seat. In our widebody aircraft, most of the Business Class seats are equipped with an airbag seatbelt and therefore child seats cannot be used on those seats. If your child seat does not fit into the aircraft seat or it cannot be safely secured, we will place it in an overhead locker or the hold of the aircraft.

Window passenger seat is the preferred location for a child seat, but other locations may be possible if the child seat does not obstruct access to the aisle.

Your child seat or child car seat must be a certified child restraint device, and it must be approved for transport use in one of the following ways:

  • Child seats approved for use in aircraft according to the European Technical Standard Order ETSO-C100c on Aviation Child Safety Device (ACSD).
  • Child seats approved by EASA through a Type Certificate or Supplemental Type Certificate.
  • Child seats approved for use in motor vehicles on the basis of the technical standard:
    • UN Standard ECE R44-04 (or 03), or ECE R129 bearing the respective ‘ECE R’ label. The child seat must be also approved for use in aircraft on the basis of the technical standard: 
    • German ‘Qualification Procedure for Child Restraint Systems for Use in Aircraft’ (TÜV/958-01/2001) bearing the label ‘For Use in Aircraft’;
    • OR
    • Other technical standard acceptable to the competent authority. The child seat should hold a qualification sign that it can be used in aircraft. 
  • Child seats approved for use in motor vehicles and aircraft according to Canadian CMVSS 213/213.1 bearing the respective label.
  • Child seats approved for use in motor vehicles and aircraft according to US FMVSS No 213 and bearing one or two labels displaying the following two sentences:
    • ‘THIS CHILD RESTRAINT SYSTEM CONFORMS TO ALL APPLICABLE FEDERAL MOTOR VEHICLE SAFETY STANDARDS’.
    • in red letters ‘THIS RESTRAINT IS CERTIFIED FOR USE IN MOTOR VEHICLES AND AIRCRAFT’; 
  • Child seats approved for use in motor vehicles and aircraft according to Australia/New Zealand’s technical standard AS/NZS 1754:2013 bearing the green part on the label displaying ‘For Use in Aircraft’. 
  • Child seats manufactured and tested according to other technical standards equivalent to those listed above. The devices should be marked with an associated qualification sign, which shows the name of the qualification organization and a specific identification number related to the associated qualification project. The qualifying organization should be a competent and independent organization that is acceptable to the competent authority.
Book seats

Allowed baggage and buying extra baggage

Sometimes extra baggage may be needed when travelling with a family. You can purchase extra baggage in advance in Manage booking or in the Finnair App.

Checked baggage

Children’s tickets include the same baggage allowance for checked baggage as adults in the same travel class. Infants (0–2 years old) have no carry-on allowance but can have one piece of checked baggage when travelling with the Classic or Flex ticket type. Please note the Superlight and Light ticket type has no checked baggage allowance. Regardless of travel class, checked baggage for infants has a maximum weight of 23kg (50lb).  In addition, children and infants are always allowed to have a foldable pushchair and safety seat, even when travelling with an Economy Superlight and Light ticket that does not include checked baggage.

Larger pushchairs are carried as checked baggage free of charge. If your pushchair can be disassembled, you should separate it into two parts. Please pack each part in plastic bags or some other form of protection. There are thin plastic bags to protect your baby’s pushchair available at the check-in desk at Helsinki Airport.

Carry-on baggage

The carry-on baggage allowance is the same for children’s tickets as it is for adults’ tickets. However, infants without a reserved seat do not have their own carry-on baggage allowance, except for a foldable pushchair and a safety seat. You may also bring enough baby milk and baby food into the cabin for the whole journey.

A foldable pushchair can be brought into the cabin if it doesn’t exceed the size and weight limits for carry-on baggage. It is then considered as part of the carry-on allowance. In this case, the pushchair is counted as one carry-on bag and in addition to it, you may bring a small bag (handbag or small laptop bag) into the cabin, which should be placed under the seat in front of you. In case your ticket type is Superlight, you need to purchase a carry-on bag for the pushchair. However, for infants, it is free of charge to bring the pushchair regardless of your ticket type.

Purchase extra baggage

Children travelling alone

Finnair offers a guidance service for children travelling alone. If you cannot accompany your child on board the flight, we make sure to take care of him or her all the way from the departure airport to the destination airport. The guidance service for children travelling alone is mandatory for 5–11-year-old children and also available for 12–17-year-old adolescents travelling alone on Finnair flights.

Travel documents

Depending on the destination, all travellers including children and infants, need either a passport or other type of identification for their journey. Other required travel documents vary depending on the destination country. If your child is travelling alone or in the company of only one parent or guardian, some countries may require a travel consent from parents or guardians. Read more about travel documents and see an example of a consent letter (PDF).

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