Flying With Kids Through LAX: The Parking and Curbside Routine

Traveling alone, a transfer is a minor annoyance. Traveling with a four-year-old, a stroller, and a bag of snacks that must not be checked, a transfer is an event. Every piece of this plan exists to reduce how many of them you have.

Why the airport's shape is the whole problem

LAX has 161 gates in nine passenger terminals arranged in the shape of the letter U or a horseshoe^[1]. That shape is fine in a car and brutal on foot with children.

Getting dropped at the wrong end of the horseshoe means a walk along a busy departures roadway, past crosswalks full of cars jockeying for curb space, with whoever is smallest moving slowest. On a map it is a short distance. In practice it is the part of the trip people remember.

So the single highest-value decision in this entire article: get delivered to your airline's own door. Everything else is detail.

The order of operations

Families run into trouble when the loading order is improvised. Decide it at home.

At the house

Pack so the first bag out of the car is the one you need first. The stroller and the car seats, if you are bringing them, come out last and go in first. Snacks, documents, and the tablet live in one bag that nobody checks and one adult owns.

At the lot

Park, then do the sweep before anyone unbuckles: phones, chargers, water bottles, the stuffed animal that will be noticed somewhere over Nevada. Photograph the spot with the level and row in frame. Then load the shuttle.

Our drivers handle the bags at this point, which is the moment it matters most. You are counting children and they are counting suitcases.

On the shuttle

Ten to fifteen minutes to any terminal, with shuttles leaving every 10 minutes around the clock. Short enough that nobody needs to be entertained, long enough to get everyone's jacket on before the doors open.

At the curb

Bags come off at your airline's terminal. One adult owns the pile, one adult owns the people, and nobody carries both. This sounds obvious and is the step that goes wrong most often.

Call and confirm these before you book

Some things depend on the day, the vehicle, and how your family travels, so ask rather than assume. Worth a two-minute phone call:

• Car seats. Whether you can bring them on the shuttle, and how they are handled on board.
• Strollers. Whether yours rides folded or goes with the luggage.
• Larger families. If you are six or more with bags, it is worth flagging so nobody is left for the next van.
• Specific dates. Over a school holiday or a long weekend, confirm availability for your exact dates.

None of these are hard questions. They are just much better answered on a Tuesday afternoon than on the curb at dawn.

What actually happens at the checkpoint

The parking half ends at the curb, but the next twenty minutes are the part parents dread, so it is worth knowing the rules rather than guessing at them. TSA publishes them.

Shoes and jackets. Children 12 and under can leave their shoes, light jackets and headwear on during screening^[2]. For the body scanner, light jackets must be removed and placed on the X-ray belt^[2].

Carrying them through. Infants and small children may be carried through the metal detector^[2]. TSA also instructs travelers to remove infants and children from strollers and car seats and carry them in arms through the walk-through metal detector^[2].

Strollers and seats. Strollers, umbrella-strollers, baby carriers, car and booster seats and backpacks must be screened by X-ray^[2] and go on the belt.

Formula and milk. These are allowed in quantities over 3.4 oz (100 ml)^[2] and do not need to fit within a quart-sized bag^[2]. TSA asks that you inform the TSA officer at the start of screening if carrying these items in amounts over 3.4 oz^[2].

That last one surprises people every time, and knowing it in advance turns a tense moment into a sentence you say to an officer.

What changes by age

The plan is the same. The failure points move.

Infants. Everything is gear. The stroller goes through the X-ray, the baby goes through in your arms, the milk is declared. Your bottleneck is loading and unloading, which is exactly where a driver handling the suitcases helps most.

Toddlers to about six. The bottleneck is attention. Short transfers matter more than short distances, which is the argument for being dropped at your own terminal rather than walking the horseshoe.

Seven to twelve. They can carry their own small bag and follow instructions, so the trip gets markedly easier. Shoes stay on through screening until they turn 13.

Teenagers. Logistically adults, and they screen as adults. Now your only real problem is the number of charging cables left in the car.

The return is the harder direction

Departures have adrenaline. Arrivals have none, and that is where family trips fall apart.

You will land tired, possibly late, with kids who were charming four hours ago. Three things make that version survivable:

1. A shuttle that runs at the hour you actually land. Ours runs 24 hours a day, so a delayed flight arriving at 1am is routine rather than a problem to solve.
2. Knowing the pickup point before you land, so you are not reading signage one-handed.
3. The photo of where you parked, which is worth more at 1am than it seemed at 6am.

Our late-night arrival guide covers that half of the trip in detail.

What not to bother with

A few things parents worry about that turn out not to matter much:

• Being close to the terminal. The walk inside a terminal garage with a stroller erases the distance advantage quickly.
• Packing the car perfectly. You will repack at the curb. Plan for it instead of fighting it.
• The shuttle ride length. Ten to fifteen minutes is shorter than the walk you are replacing.

Cost, briefly

Family trips run long, and parking is billed per day while a ride is billed per trip. A 10-day trip at $16.95 is $169.50. The same trip at the posted $25 to $30 is $250 to $300.

Two ride fares might beat either number on a long trip, which is why the comparison is worth running. But rides also mean car seats you do not control, a vehicle sized for your family that may or may not arrive, and a pickup you cannot schedule in advance. For most families with young kids, the car in the lot is worth the difference. Our family cost breakdown runs the actual numbers.