Review: Flying with the GoTo Seat

Posted by Guest Bloggers on 9th April 2019 Additional Needs, Travel Tips

Review by Sophie Biddlecombe from the 4 Suitcases and a Wheelchair blog

As a family, we travelled to Italy last summer and booked our flights through EasyJet. This was our first flight with our daughter Millie, who has Quadriplegic Cerebral Palsy.

Initially, we thought we would need to take Millie’s big, bulky car seat on board the flight to enable her to travel.

After speaking to EasyJet’s Special Assistance however, we learned that they were happy for the GoTo seat to be used on the aircraft.

Now with the knowledge we could use Millie’s GoTo seat on board our flight, it suddenly made the whole experience feel less daunting and all the more accessible to us.

It certainly put our minds at rest that she would be secured safely and she would be comfortable in her own seat.

We now no longer faced the headache of trying to figure out how her car seat was going to fit.

EasyJet were not only very happy for us to use the GoTo seat, but they were also happy for us to take anything Millie needed to make our journey as comfortable as possible.

The GoTo seat is so light, once we had checked in we could easily rest the seat on the back of Millie’s wheelchair, to transport it to the aircraft.

We used an Ambulift to get us to the aircraft door where we left Millie’s wheelchair behind.

Needing to carry Millie and all our hand luggage, we were also easily able to manage the GoTo seat as, being so light it was easy to pop on to an arm, leaving a hand free for a bag!

Fixing the GoTo seat on Millie’s aircraft seat was so easy, it was really no different to attaching it to any other chair and believe me, we have tried chairs of all shapes and sizes!

The cabin crew were on hand to help us guide the straps through the seat and around the tray table behind.

Millie has low tone in her trunk, so her posture is not completely perfect in her GoTo seat but she loves her seat and was happy being in the familiarity of her own seat, whilst embarking on her brand new air travel adventure!

The GoTo seat enabled Millie to access and have a very normal family experience.

On our two-hour flight, Millie enjoyed peeking out the windows watching the clouds float by, munch away on snacks and watch her favourite television programmes on her tablet, just like her big brother, and any other three-year-old for that matter!

Flying to Italy was our first experience using the GoTo seat on board an aircraft but over the past two years, we have used the GoTo seat in everyday life.

In shopping trollies (if our much loved GoTo Shop trolley is not available), on swings, Go-carts, Little Tikes cars, trikes, and of course chairs of all shapes and sizes.

With the floor sitter attachment, Millie is often found in her GoTo seat in her bedroom playing, at friend’s houses, in the park for picnics, on the beach, on a tractor-trailer ride... you name it she has pretty much been there and done it!

It is also crucial equipment for everyday tasks such as hair drying!

The GoTo seat is so useful and keeps Millie as involved in everything as possible, we wouldn’t want to be without ours and can’t wait to take it on more travelling adventures.