[Jakarta]

Hey all we are traveling via LAX with a baby. We decided to push the boat out and book 3 premier economy seats.

Does anyone have any tips to make the LAX wait any less painful?

I remember doing this traip a few years back and remember LAX was horrible with lots of standing in corridors and then herded through customs. And that was without an infant.

Any advice?

[dusk]

get off the plane first or last - that way you have the best chance of spending less time queueing through customs, other than that we found it relatively painless - they have free hot/soft drinks and snacks in the lounge area and seats, so not too dreadful.

[Jakarta]

Maybe I had a particularly bad experience. I was left standing in a corridore for 30 mins waiting for a door to be opened for us to go to customs.

[Wooly_Cow]

In the times I have gone through LA recently famileis with children are led to the front of the queue and processed very quickly. In Prem Ecc. you get access to a seperate area but it's not much to get excited about - sofas, and free drinks and wifi.

[James 1077]

Are you flying on Air New Zealand with just the refuelling stop in LAX or are you changing planes?

If the former then it is better with kids as you get to queue jump and get into the waiting room earlier. Come off the plane last as there is no hurry to get to the room and you'll be brought to the front of the queue anyway.

Not much to do once there but at least you can give your baby some room on the floor to stretch out in and can stretch your legs yourself!

[YouMeAndThree]

I went through with 3 children and the air and ground crew were fantastic. Get off last and someone will take you straight to the front of the queue so you are not hanging about in the corridor (sorry to all those child-free travellers, but I'm sure you wouldn't want to swap situations :D). You will tend to be boarded first too. Keeping an eye on baby will keep you more occupied than when you travelled without one. Mind you there was just me keeping an eye on three, so I had little time to think about me and how long we'd been there. I didn't feel our stopover was that long tbh, it certainly didn't drag by.

[Gnomon]

We flew through LAX on NZ1 a few weeks ago with three young childern in prem Econ and we found it a good time to stretch, change clothes and all 3 kids enjoyed the stop as they could play and run around

David

[Jakarta]

thanks for all the helpful replies. We are keeping our fingers crossed!