TIL

The FAA recommends children (under 2) sit in their parents’ lap rather than in their own seat.

This recommendation was made based on a prediction unrelated to air travel safety itself. Instead, even though young children are indeed slightly safer when placed in a restraint (and in a separate seat) while flying, the net increase in price from mandating the purchase of an additional seat would divert a sufficient fraction of parents from flying to driving so as to cause a proportionately much larger number of deaths on the highway, given the safety of air travel!