Cosco Scenera Next Review: Our $60 Flying Seat

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We bought our Cosco Scenera Next for one reason: we were flying to Vietnam with a baby, and our everyday convertible seat was way too heavy to drag halfway around the world. That nice robust seat is still sitting in a storage unit in South Carolina. For the trip I wanted my daughter to have her own seat on the plane without wrecking my back getting it there, so I bought the cheapest, lightest FAA-approved seat I could find. Here is my honest, first-hand Cosco Scenera Next review after actually flying with it. (I did not buy mine on Amazon, but it is the same seat… you can check the current price here.)

Why we bought the cheap, light one

Our everyday seat is safe and comfortable and completely impractical for air travel, because it weighs a ton. Buying a dedicated travel seat that cost about $60 meant I could give my daughter her own seat on a long-haul without hauling the heavy one through four airports. And her having a seat mattered: on an overnight long-haul with little kids, they actually need to sleep, or the whole thing is miserable for everyone. Getting an airline to put a baby in her own purchased seat was not always simple (Korean Air, in particular, is not a fan of it), but it was worth sorting out.

The specs that matter for flying

This is a bare-bones cosco travel car seat, and for flying that is a feature, not a bug.

• Weight: about 7 pounds. Light enough to carry one-handed through the airport.
• Price: around $60. One of the cheapest FAA-approved seats you can buy.
• FAA approved: yes, with the sticker on the side.
• Rear-facing: 5 to 40 pounds. Forward-facing: 22 to 40 pounds.
• Width: about 17 inches, so it fits a standard economy seat.

We only ever used it rear-facing. My daughter was about 15 months old when we flew with it.

Installing it on the plane

Install is genuinely easy: you thread the airplane lap belt through the belt path underneath and tighten it down. One honest heads-up… the buckle sits underneath the seat fabric, and it is bulky, so it probably is not the most comfortable thing to sit on. My daughter was little enough that it did not seem to bother her, and she slept in it just fine, but a bigger kid might notice.

The FAA sticker is the whole game (read this one)

Every single airline we flew insisted on seeing the FAA approval sticker, every time. It lives on the side of the seat, on the plastic shell, and it is genuinely annoying to show once the seat is already installed, because you basically have to uninstall it to flip it around. So here is my number one tip: show the crew the sticker the second you board, before you install anything. On one flight we barely made, where they were literally holding the gate and we were running down the jetway, they still stopped to check the sticker. And if you are on an overseas carrier like the Asian airlines we flew, the crew often does not recognize a US seat, so they pull out a whole binder of guidelines and cross-check it, which takes a ridiculously long time. Board early and have that sticker facing out.

About the recline

Installed rear-facing, the seat takes up enough space that the person in the seat in front of you cannot fully recline. On our flights the crew just quietly sorted it out with the passenger in front, so I never had to have that awkward conversation myself. Worth knowing so it does not catch you off guard.

The honest cons

• It is light but bulky. That bulk is ultimately why we stopped traveling with it.
• The buckle under the fabric is not plush, and rear-facing eats the recline in front of you.
• We stopped carrying it partway through our trip. We took it to Vietnam, and somewhere between there and Bali we realized the cars we were getting into had no way to secure it. A lot of vehicles in that part of the world do not even have seatbelts to thread it through, so a car seat you cannot install is just taking up a backpack.
• The bag got heavy. On a long trip we kept stuffing other things into the car seat bag, and because a bagged seat rides so far off your back, the extra weight made it brutal to carry. That is a we-overpacked problem, not the seat’s fault.

Nothing ever wore out on it, and I never had to clean the cover. For $60, it did exactly the job I bought it for.

Who the Cosco Scenera Next is for

Buy the Cosco Scenera Next if you are flying, you want your child in their own seat, and you do not want to spend a fortune or beat up your good seat. It is the budget flyer’s seat, full stop. If you want something that folds tiny and lasts into the taller-kid years, look at the premium WAYB Pico instead, and see the whole field in our best travel car seat guide. Whatever seat you bring, protect it in a car seat travel bag.

FAQ

Is the Cosco Scenera Next FAA approved for flying?
Yes. Every seat has the FAA approval sticker on the side. Show it to the crew the moment you board, because they will ask, and it is a pain to show once the seat is installed.

Did your child sleep in it on the plane?
Yes. It does not look especially cushy, but my daughter slept in it on a long-haul to Vietnam without any issue.

Will it mess up the recline for the person in front?
Rear-facing, yes, it limits their recline. On our flights the crew handled it with the passenger in front, so we did not have to.

Is it worth buying just for travel?
For around $60, yes. It is light, FAA approved, and it did its one job. Just know it is basic and bulky.

The verdict

The Cosco Scenera Next is not fancy and it does not look comfortable, but it is light, cheap, FAA approved, and it did the one thing I needed: it got my daughter safely buckled in her own seat on a long-haul to Vietnam, and she slept the whole way. We eventually stopped traveling with it, not because it failed, but because the cars we were using could not secure it. If you are flying and you want a no-fuss seat you will not cry over, this is the one. Just show that FAA sticker the second you board.