Can I book a flight for a family travelling with a baby sitting on a parent's lap?

Yes, in most cases you can. When you send a flight search through the API you set how many adults, children and infants are travelling, and an infant without a seat is treated as its own passenger type. The fares that come back already take that infant into account, so the price you quote the family is the price you will be charged when you issue the ticket, and you are not left guessing what the airline will add later.

There are a few things the booking will ask you for. You need the infant's date of birth, because airlines work out the age on the date of travel rather than the date of booking. If the child passes the infant age limit before the return flight, the airline will usually want a child fare with its own seat for that part of the journey, and the system will tell you that at search time rather than at the airport. Each infant also has to be linked to the adult who is carrying them, and airlines normally expect one accompanying adult for each infant on the lap.

What the infant actually gets varies by airline and by supplier, so be honest with the family about that. Some fares include a small bag and let you request a bassinet, some charge for the infant at the airport, and bassinet seats are almost always a request rather than a confirmed booking. Low cost carriers often handle infants in their own way, and which suppliers you can reach depends on your plan.

Before you sell to a family, run a test search with an infant on the routes you sell most often and read the baggage and fare rules shown against that fare, then check with us which of the airlines in your plan support lap infants end to end.