12 Airport Tips for Kids to Make Travel Easier

Is there anything more stressful and difficult than travel days with kids in tow? It doesn’t have to be this way though, just a few simple airport tips for kids can make your travel days easier and smoother.  

Navigating the airport can be fun, it’s the start of your holiday and the whole family is excited to get going. However, while an airport is a place of adventure for kids, for adults it can be a painful experience with long queues, it’s always busy, you’re in a rush, and everything is so expensive. 

If you’ve ever tried juggling bags, boarding passes, and a couple of bored kids while rushing through security, you know airports can often be overwhelming for parents and kids!

Luckily there are some airport tips to make travel easier, helping you to keep the kids entertained, be prepared for anything, and avoid breaking the bank before your holiday has even started. 

What’s in this post?

In this post we cover our top 12 tips to flying with kids based on flying short and long haul with our own two children. 

We also answer some common questions about flying with kids including how to keep kids comfortable and entertained on a long flight, and if you’ll be allocated a kids and adult seat together.

If there’s something on this list you’re particularly interested in you can skip straight there by clicking on that section in the contents below. If not, then scroll down to read all of our top airport tips for kids. 

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1. Arrive at the airport three hours before departure

Don’t be those people that run to the gate 20 minutes before final boarding. I’ve done that before I had kids, I can’t imagine the level of stress trying to get two kids somewhere fast – why do that to yourself! It’s so much less stressful when you’re travelling to prepare a bit ahead of time to make sure you have plenty of time before departure.

Our rule of thumb is to arrive 3 hours ahead of your flight time, this leaves plenty of time to find the bag drop, get through security, grab some food and drink, and find your gate. 

This is especially important if you’re flying out of a big airport where you need to walk for 20 minutes just to get to the departure lounge from your gate. 

2. Check in online ahead of time

Airports are one of the worst places for queues but you can cut the queueing time down when you’re flying with kids by checking in online before you leave. 

You’ll still have to drop your bags off if you’ve got checked luggage but the queue for that is usually way shorter. Plus, if there’s more than one adult in your party then one can queue with the baggage while the other one entertains the kids and gets some of their energy out before the flight. 

3. Find a quiet space to burn off some energy

Prepare your kids for a long flight of mostly sitting still or waiting in queues when you get to passport control by letting them run wild in the airport. 

I don’t mean let go of their hand and hope to see them in an hour or two! 

Instead, find a quiet space in the departures lounge and let them run, bounce or dance for 30 minutes. Even in the busiest of airports we’ve managed to find a closed gate or two to give them plenty of space without disturbing anyone else.

4. Take advantage of free refills with an empty bottle

Food and drink at the airport is expensive! You can save some money by bringing snacks from home but with the security regulations in place around liquids you can’t bring any drinks in with you. 

One way to get around having to pay loads for drinks in the airport is to bring an empty bottle from home and fill it up using the water fountain. Most, if not all of the airports we’ve travelled through have had free drinking water and if not, buying a couple of big bottles of water will work out better value for money than buying four small bottles.

5. Do a click and collect an order

There are certain shops that allow you to do a click and collect order to the airport store – Boots airport click and collect is a great one that stocks most of the stuff you don’t want to waste room packing but also don’t want to spend tons of money buying when you arrive at your destination. 

It’s really easy and works just like a normal click and collect, make sure you select the airside collection when buying your products on their website. As you collect it in the departure lounge once you’ve gone through security you can carry it on the plane without paying any additional fees. 

We went to Spain when Jacob was 6 months old and this saved us so much room in our cases not having to pack all of the formula and nappies we needed. 

6. Pack your carry on wisely

Space is limited in every part of your airport journey so it makes your travel so much easier to have a well organised carry on. 

Consider what you’re packing in your bag and make sure you have plenty of activities to keep the kids entertained. Make sure you have what you need for your journey as you don’t want to be swapping things between your checked bag and carry on at the airport.

Also make sure your bag is well organised so that you can get to everything, you don’t want to have to get everything out of your bag to try and find that one small item you need – even more so if you’re trying to go through your bag on the plane!

If you have a pocket in your bag try to store your passport and boarding pass in there as you’ll need to show them a few times throughout your journey and it’ll be easier if you don’t need to dig to the bottom of your bag while stopping a young child from making a run for it. 

7. Check the incoming flight status

Unless you’re the first flight out there’s a chance that your flight will be delayed and that this delay is unlikely to only affect your leg of the journey. 

This means you can check the status on incoming flights from the destination you’re travelling to for an idea as to if your flight may be delayed. 

Don’t just rely on this information though. You should still aim to get to the airport for the right time and rely on updates and information from your airline, but this information can help you plan and prepare. 

8. Book an airport hotel

As soon as you hit one bit of traffic your travel to the airport just got way more stressful. Booking a hotel near the airport gives you time to get up later, get ready in peace and get to the airport with less chance of running into any traffic issues or delays. 

Some hotels have airport parking and shuttles to the airport, with some even connected to the airport by a walkway making it even easier to arrive there before your flight.

We often book a hotel for the night before, particularly if we have an early morning flight, the airport is more than 2 hours away, or our flight is an important or expensive one we really can’t miss.

If you’re flying out of Heathrow I highly recommend the Premier Inn Hotel at Heathrow Airport Terminal 4. It’s easy to get to via tube from London, the hotel is modern and comfortable, and it’s connected to Heathrow by a walkway so you can take a slow stroll to the airport in the morning. We paid an extra £5 per room to get a view of the runway and it didn’t disappoint, the boys loved sitting and watching the planes take off. 

9. Find the play area

You might think that airports are anything but family friendly – expensive food and drink, long queues and loads of people! 

However, many airports are more kid friendly than you realise, with many having either a play area or a section for families. 

For some reason they don’t really advertise this in a lot of airports. We travel quite often and didn’t know about it until I stumbled across a post about airports with playgrounds. 

10. Upgrade to meet and greet parking

Parking can often be a pain, especially if you end up at the other end of a large car park trying to drag your suitcase across gravel to get the airport shuttle that’ll still take 15 minutes to get you there. It doesn’t paint the picture of a calm, exciting start to your holiday does it! 

Meet and greet parking is a simple way to make the first part of your airport journey easier and less stressful. You’ll be grateful when you arrive back from your vacation too, after a long and exhausting day of traveling and you can walk out of the airport doors and straight into your car. 

11. Prioritise a restroom break

Why do kids have this ability to always be bursting for a wee at the absolute most inconvenient times, even if you’ve just asked them if they need to go and the answer was no!

With the queues and waits in airports it can be easy to get caught up in a position where you can’t take them to the toilet.

Also consider this at the other end of your airport journey too and take them to the toilet towards the end of the flight so that they don’t have to stand in passport control queues complaining about needing to use the restroom. 

We now just say we’re going to the toilet and make sure they at least try to go before we may be in a position where getting to a toilet isn’t so easy. 

12. Pack a few surprises 

I know what you’re thinking – you already have to take so many things with you when you’re travelling with kids!

But packing a few surprises is just bringing a few extra things that they don’t know about. It doesn’t even need to be new toys or activities, it can just be something you have that they haven’t looked at in a while. This is especially helpful if you’re travelling on a long haul flight with kids as you’ll have a lot of time to find something to keep them entertained!

These surprises came in really helpful to keep our then four year old entertained when we flew to New 🗽 York. We thought we had enough activities because we bought tons of different things but we ran through all of the activities we bought for him in just a few hours so those extra couple of things helped fill time in the second half of the trip. 

Summary : airport tips for travel with kids

For kids the airport is an adventure and this excitement can often translate into energetic outbursts and noise, but navigating airports with kids doesn’t have to be a hassle. With these 12 simple and practical airport tips you can take some of the stress and effort out of travelling with kids. 

Based on my experience of flying with two very energetic boys, these are the top three tips that make the most difference in our travel, 

1. Book an airport hotel to save yourself the early start, rushing around and general stress of the last minute dash to the airport.
2. Finding the play area or a quiet area for them to run around does wonders to get rid of some of their energy and really helps them settle for the flight. 
3. Arrive at the airport with plenty of time to spare, we always plan for three hours to be safe. It means we can take our time getting through bag drop off, security, and have time to grab a coffee before boarding. 

From check-in to waiting at the gate, a little preparation goes a long way in keeping things calm and organised – making travel days much more manageable!

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