The holidays bring an increase in children flying by themselves — to see the other parent in case of divorce, to visit grandparents, to return home from boarding-school vacations.
No one has a total of such children; a year-round average that is often heard is one child per flight, meaning 22,000 on domestic flights a day, which the Air Transport Association says is surely too high, although it maintains no counts on this issue.
As one snapshot, Trans World Airlines says it carries 200 to 900 “unescorted minors” a day as domestic passengers in school-holiday periods, but only 30 to 45 a day otherwise. One weekday in October, said Julia Bishop, a TWA spokeswoman, the airline carried 47.
Whether it’s one of 47 or one of 22,000, each trip represents at least one child 5 to 11 years old and one guardian, and no adult takes a child to an airport in these circumstances without feeling anxiety, however well concealed.
Letters to this department show that there is adequate reason for worry: Things do go wrong, and this is more likely to happen at times of heavy travel.
Here is a review of precautions to take and of airline rules on carrying children alone. One change is on the way: three airlines have doubled their price, to $60, for “escorting” a child through a trip that involves a connection.
The fee is charged each way on a round trip. If history is an indicator, all the lines will soon follow suit and raise this fee.
Avoiding problems begins with the itinerary. If at all possible, put a child on a non-stop flight. A “direct” flight is usually defined as involving a stop along the way but no change of plane; I have frequently had to change planes on such flights.
The least desirable choice is a connecting flight, with a change of plane or, worse, a change of airline at a huge airport like Los Angeles or Dallas-Ft. Worth. Many problems arise with the handoff and the issue of who is to notify the parent if a flight is canceled and plans are changed.
Some airlines will permit a child to be booked on a trip that puts him or her on the last evening flight out of a connecting airport — a situation more common on eastbound flights, where the clock is against the traveler.
However, even if it is allowed, the last flight should be avoided because bad weather in winter is more likely to cause missed connections, which may mean the child must stay overnight in a connecting city.
Even if the flight is early, airlines may refuse to board a child for the first leg if the weather looks threatening in the connecting city. This makes sense: Imagine a child in a shut-down airport with filled-up hotels.
For this reason, there should be backup strategies and easy ways for the adults to get in touch with one another if an alternative plan must be used.
Airlines ask the sending adult not to leave the airport until the flight has actually taken off. Sometimes the plane door is shut, the airplane moves into position and only then is the flight aborted.
The child comes back into the airport and the adult is gone but cannot be reached at home yet for a decision on what to do.
The airlines require adults seeing off a child to fill out forms for the child that include the phone number for those seeing the child off and for those who are to meet the child on arrival.
An office phone number is of no use on a weekend, and airline people say that sometimes they dial a dead-end voice-mail number on a Saturday morning.
People who shift children by air regularly might invest in a beeper or cell phone. These numbers should then be given on all the forms.
The airlines all ask that adults sending a child off get to the airport early to put everything in order. Spokesmen for the lines say that a typed sheet of supplemental phone numbers or instructions, particularly medical instructions, can be added to the envelope that accompanies the child.
And the same information, especially phone numbers, can be entered into the line’s computerized “passenger name record,” or PNR, if time allows, and this can then be called up by the airline’s agents whenever needed.
In other words, parents are not turning the child over to a baby-sitting service. “Parents need to take some initiative,” said Anthony T. Molinaro, spokesman for United Airlines.
Children younger than 5 are not accepted for unaccompanied travel on United States airlines. American, Continental, Delta, TWA, United and US Airways accept children 5 to 7 only for one-plane flights, that is, non-stop or “direct” flights. Northwest will accept a child 5 to 7 for connecting flights too.
Children 8 years and older are accepted for connecting flights to the same airline, and sometimes to another airline, but each leg must be marked “OK” on the ticket, meaning the seat is confirmed.
Tickets for the whole trip should be obtained at once, and not patched together. A 12-year-old child’s trip last summer from New York to camp in Ontario, Calif., with a connection at Los Angeles from American to United (and then the reverse) became a harrowing experience of missed connections for the child and agonizing communications for the parents for many reasons; one was the existence of two ticket records on the two airlines.
Unaccompanied children pay full fare. In addition, escort fees (non-taxable) must be paid. For children making connections, this fee is now $60 at Continental, Delta and Northwest. At this writing, American, TWA, United and US Airways are still charging $30 for connections. The airlines all charge $30 for a child 5 to 11 boarding a non-stop or one-plane flight.
The escort does not travel with the child; he or she may take children aboard and introduce them to the flight attendants and, at the other end, another escort will meet the children aboard the plane and release them, with identification that matches the name record, to the people meeting them.
Children 12 and over may travel unaccompanied, and no fees are required for them. However, parents may pay the fee and request escort services.
In any case, in the event of canceled connecting flights, unescorted children 12 and older should be told not to leave the airport in search of lodging, but to enlist the aid of the airline, because many motels reject teenagers’ registrations, even if they have credit cards.
