Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
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With 1 week's notice,
CTA Paratransit
offers door-to-door lift ser vices to and
from O'Hare for travelers with disabilities.
Visitors must be r egistered with a similar
program in their home city . For informa-
tion, call
&
312/432-7025
or TTY
312/917-1338.
Safe Seats for Kids
The practice of allowing children younger
than 2 to ride for free on a parent's lap may
be prohibited by the time you read this. At
press time the FAA was writing a rule that
would r equire all childr
child is allowed in each row, however, due
to the limited number of o xygen masks.
On flights o verseas a lap far e usually
costs 10% of the par ent's ticket price.
Children who meet the airline 's age limit
(which ranges from 11 to 15 years old) can
purchase international far es at 50% to
75% of the lo west coach far e in cer tain
markets. Some of the foreign carriers make
even greater allowances for children.
Children riding for free will usually not
be granted any baggage allowance.
All airlines offer child meals if requested
in advance. Ticketed babies can get “infant
meals” on America West, D elta, and US
Airways, and all major airlines ex cept
Alaska and S outhwest will warm bottles
on request.
en under 40
pounds to hav e their o wn tickets and be
secured in a child seat.
All the major American airlines ex cept
Delta now offer discounted infant tickets
for children 2 y ears of age or y ounger, to
make it more affordable for you to reserve
a separate adjacent seat for y our baby and
a restraining device.
(Most airlines require that an infant be
2 w eeks old to trav el—bring a bir th cer-
tificate. American and Continental only
require that the child be 7 days old. Alaska
lets babies fly as soon as they 're born.)
For no w, if a seat adjacent to y ours is
available, your lap child can sit ther e free
of charge. When you check in, ask if the
flight is cr owded. I f it isn 't, explain y our
situation to the agent and ask if y ou can
reserve two seats—or simply mo ve to two
empty adjacent seats once the plane is
boarded. You might want to shop ar ound
before y ou buy y our ticket and deliber-
ately book a flight that's not very busy. Ask
the reservationist which flights tend to be
most full and av oid those. Only one extra
Child Seats: They're a Must
According to
Consumer Reports Travel Let-
ter,
the N ational Transportation S afety
Board says that, since 1991, the deaths of
five childr en and injuries to four could
have been prevented had the children been
sitting in r estraint systems during their
flights. E ven in the ev ent of moderate
turbulence, childr en sitting on a par ent's
lap can be thr ust for ward and injur ed.
When y ou consider that a commer cial
aircraft hits a significant amount of turbu-
lence at least once a day on av erage, you'd
do well to think about investing in a safety
seat.
The F AA r ecommends that childr en
under 20 pounds ride in a r ear-facing
child-restraint system, and says childr en
who weigh 20 to 40 pounds should sit in
a for ward-facing child-r estraint system.
2
Fun Facts
O'Hare, Oh My
Chicago's O'Hare International Airport comes in second place (after Hartsfield-
Jackson Atlanta International Airport) as the busiest airport in the world. Approx-
imately 970,000 planes take off and land at O 'Hare each year, generating about
500,000 jobs for the region. O'Hare is completely self-supporting, requiring no
local taxpayer dollars to keep it going.
