USA - Special requirements for minors - US Dept of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs

Canada - Passports for Children - Passports Canada

Australia - Children’s Passports - Dept of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Passports

United Kingdom - Applying for a child passport - Home Office, UK Identity and Passport Service

Ireland - Passports for Children - Dept of Foreign Affairs

South Africa - Passports - South African Dept of Home Affairs

New Zealand - Passports for Children - Dept of Internal Affairs

From the World Health Organization - a guide for international travel health.

From the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (USA): vaccine recommendations for infants and children when travelling overseas. Note the information about yellow fever.

The CDC also provides useful travel health information for children and teenagers and includes a section on air travel, jet lag and sedation.

Apparently there is an urban legend that says that the “real” reason that airlines don’t allow women to fly in late pregnancy is because if a baby is born on the plane the airline will have to give them free air travel for life.

Sounds too good to be true. And it is. This legend is debunked on Snopes which is one of my favourite websites.

Here’s a nifty little web tool that allows you to map either the US states you have visited or the countries you have visited.Here are the results for me (both with and without the kids):

Note that I couldn’t choose Hong Kong by itself and so it shows the whole of China.

Here are the countries that Loll (aged almost 7) has visited:

And here are the countries that Zavvy (aged 20 mths) has visited:

Try it out!

• Airsafe - Air safety, accidents, resources
• Fear of Flying - list of sites and resources
• Fear of Flying Online Course (free)

This funny entry describes the experience of a passenger in seat 29e on a Continental Airlines flight. This seat was extremely close to the toilets and the passenger describes in great detail how disgusted he was by the smells etc.

For full effect - see the PDF of the original letter.

Letter to United

I’ve just finished reading a post over at a little pregnant, one of my favourite blogs. In the same vein as the letter about Seat 29E, blogger Julie writes to the head of United Airlines to discuss her experience of a recent flight on a 757, which has no change tables on board.

When asked where someone was supposed to change a baby if the need arose, the flight attendant suggested either changing the baby on a seat or on the floor of the galley. Now, given the looks from my fellow passengers during our recent vomit incident - I don’t think people in the surrounding seats would be all that happy with a stinky nappy/diaper change. And as for changing a baby in a galley - well, let’s just hope it’s not officially condoned.

Not that aircraft change tables (if, indeed they can be called that) are so great. In all of the aircraft that I have flown on the facilities are basic and inadquate. It’s as if the aircraft designers ran out of money and grabbed a flat piece of board and a couple of hinges with a latch and “presto!” there’s a “change table”. Airlines may rationalise that babies may be unlikely to need nappy changes on short haul flights (because, you know, babies are so predictable and all) but even the latest jumbos still have the same flimsy drop down shelves. And so changing a baby on a plane without needing to change your own clothes or drop your baby on the festy toilet floor is a skill, if not an artform.

I hope that the CEO of United (and any other airline flying 757s plus the designers of the new Airbus) gets to see the letter, either in the mail or by stumbling across it on the web. He might even like to get one of these shirts: