Flying with babies/toddlers is expensive

11 Feb 2026 | #parenting

We had our first kid 2 years ago and the second baby was born recently. We went to Hungary in both of the last summers, and will be going this summer too. I wrote about our experience the first time, and I will now write about why flying with babies and toddlers gets pretty expensive.

Layovers

There is no direct flight from Tokio to Budapest, so the two options we have is to either fly to Vienna and take a train or car from there (3 hours) or fly with a layover. Common layover options are:

• Eastern Europe: Helsinki, Warsaw, Vienna, Istanbul - shortest travel time but less flight options
• Western Europe: Munich, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, London - longer travel but more options
• Middle East: Dubai, Doha - longer travel on both legs
• China

Going with a Chinese airline is usually the cheapest, but there is risk, as customer service seems to be worse than others (especially with the recent flight cancellations, there are stories of people trying to check in just to realize the first leg of their trip was cancelled without any notification). So we excluded these.

Middle East layover usually provides a good price, but the tricky part is that both flights are rather long which can make the second leg difficult with kids. But otherwise this could work.

Western Europe does make the first leg longer, but otherwise could work. This time somehow the connection times were pretty bad though, like it gave us less than 2 hours for a connection in Frankfurt, which would be tight even without kids (especially as the flight from Tokio arrives to the non-Schengen area, so there is passport check before the flight to Budapest).

Eastern Europe seem to offer the best combination of short travel time and smaller airports.

Layover time also matters: it shouldn’t be too short (as there might be unexpected diaper changes) but also not too long. If it’s longer (4-5 hours) then we found that going into an airport lounge can be a good solution. Last year we had a 5 hour layover in Helsinki and went into the Finnair Schengen Lounge (5,000 yen per adult, free for the 1 year old), and it was totally worth it. Between coffee and breakfast we would have spent this much anyway, and the lounge had comfortable sofas (our kid took a nap there), quiet space, stress-free food and drink selection.

Timing matters

Before kids I didn’t mind taking any flights as long as it didn’t leave early morning or arrive very late at night. With kids however I want them to sleep on the long flight, so it should leave in the evening. Luckily most search sites (both skyscanner and the airlines’ own websites) let me filter for these. But this still reduces the available options.

Baby bassinet: it’s free, but

Most airlines offer baby bassinets for kids under 11-14kg, and it’s super helpful. To reserve this, airlines usually ask to call their customer center after making a reservation. Most of them say that the baby bassinet is for free, however some will charge for the seat reservation (as baby bassinet can only be installed in the bulkhead row which offers bigger legroom making it a premium seat option). The issue is that almost none of the airlines publish if they charge for this. Here is our experience with the airlines we flew/talked to:

• ANA: added the seats for free for both parents
• Austrian: charged for the seat reservation (had to give them my credit card on the phone and they charged around 30,000 yen for two seats, return trip. This was in 2024)
• Finnair: they are actually the best in telling us how it works - they mark the seat on the seat map and you are required to book the seat during the booking. In 2026 this would cost 20,000 yen per seat per flight (Tokyo-Helsinki).
• JAL: this was the worse. We booked a trip with Finnair and the return Helsinki-Tokyo leg was operated by JAL. So Finnair told us to contact JAL for seat reservation and the baby bassinet. When we called JAL, they told us that they will only assign one seat for free next to the baby bassinet. If the other two of us also want to sit there, then we should talk to Finnair to change our ticket to the type that includes seat reservation, then call JAL again. But even then they will only let one more person sit next to the baby bassinet, the third person will have to sit on the other side of the aisle or the row behind. We asked if we could just pay for the seat reservation, but they said no, we have to talk to Finnair. Luckily Finnair offers free cancellation within the first 24 hours (regardless of ticket type), so we cancelled the whole reservation.
• LOT: this was the best. Based on this great blog post I called them before finalizing the reservation, and they could add the basinet and the nearby seats to the reservation. Moreover they gave us all 3 seats between the aisles for free. The Japanese number was busy, but I used Skype to call their Polish number where they helped me quickly in English. One thing to note: the agent wasn’t fully sure about the process, so it is possible that other agents might not give all 3 seats (the above linked blog post mentions only getting 2 seats for free).

So my ratings on this are:

• Best (free seats): LOT and ANA
• Medium (paid seats): Finnair, Austrian
• Worse (not letting us sit together or pay directly for seat reservation): JAL

Ticket price

Finally the main reason flying with kids is expensive: ticket prices. So under 2 years old (without a dedicated seat), their ticket is cheap (10-20% of a regular fare), but once they are above 2 (or if they want their own seat before) then their ticket jumps to 75% of an adult fare. Then from 12 years old they pay full price. Kids get their own luggage allowance though, and from 2 they have their own seat and get food too.

Going from being a couple to a family of 4 we pay close to double, between being more limited in the flight selection and the additional tickets. And it’s only expected to go further up once the second kid turns 2.