Please don’t put words in my mouth. I did not say they stayed to watch the plane take off. Just that the reports I heard from the local news stated they stayed half hour after the scheduled departure time to ensure the flight took off without incident.
How about singling out posters who implied the family blithely brought the child to the airport and left him there when the local reports stated that wasn’t the case?
FIVE??
I’m usually the cheerleader for free-range parenting, and I flew alone at 9. 5 sounds nuts to me. I’m not sure airlines should be offering that service.
The dirty truth about Unaccompanied Minor Service is that what you’re paying for is logistical transitioning, not babysitting. The airline doesn’t put an additional employee on the plane for dedicated supervision of the kid.
Once the kid is delivered to the correct plane, the kid gets seated next to a passenger (preferably a female passenger). The kid gets a seat assignment in the front section of the plane, or even gets upgraded to the premium cabin where the passenger-to-flight attendant ratio is much lower.
I once got a UAM kid (I’m guessing ~10 years old) placed next to me in business class on an international flight from Tokyo. The kid had an economy class ticket, but the FA moved him to business. The FA told me he was an UAM. I said I’d keep an eye on him. I didn’t notice the FA checking on him any more than usual.
The kid told me his parents were divorced: mom in Japan and dad in the US. The kid said he was travelling to Portland to stay with his dad for the summer. Then he told me about how his dad likes to smoke pot. I thought I was the one who needed supervised shielding from this kid.
My 22 year old is flying from NYC to Miami tonight to join us for a family celebration. Her flight was delayed for one hour. She was cranky and teary because she was tired. I just couldn’t imagine what a 5 yr old would be like if the flight was delays for hours. God forbid if there was an emergency who would be responsible for the child? A 10 year old would know his home address, telephone number and parents’ names, but not a 5 year old.
Parents who choose to live apart should make the effort of going to see their kids instead of making very young kids travel to where they are.
When people are deciding whether it is safe to have their age X child fly by themselves, ask yourself if you were the flight attendant to be responsible for your age X child, would you be able to serve food/drinks to 100+ people and still watch your age X child. If you couldn’t do it then what makes you think someone else could.
Airlines have a lot of protections because of international treaties. They don’t pay out a lot for service related wrongs, even for things like lost caskets, missed weddings, delayed planes. They’ll give free tickets, frequent flier miles, drink coupons but cash they do not give.
Since the correct passport went to the intended destination city, it seems the paperwork was handled correctly.
So who was the person who didn’t the match the name on the kid’s ID bracelet to the name on the boarding pass?
That’s odd as everyone I knew who flew as an accompanied minor under the late adolescent/early teen years(12-14) recalled that their parent/relative buying the ticket were also mandated to pay a fee for an airline employee to serve as an adult chaparone to accompany the unaccompanied minor from the moment the parent/relative hands off the child to the airline employee till the child and chaparone is met by/picked up by relatives at the destination.
Unless rules have changed in the last 15 or so years…all minors under 12-14 whose parents/relatives purchased a ticket for an unaccompanied flight must arrange for an airline employee to chaperone the minor from handoff at check-in/gate to destination.
My kids have flown many times as an UAM, and I’ve sat next to UAM many times.
Read the fine print. Where do the airlines state to have an airline employee 100% dedicated to sit next to the kid every second aboard the airplane? What typically happens is the kid gets seated in the first row in economy or in the premium cabin, where a flight attendant checks on them now & then, and where the kid is in frontal view of other passengers. Once aboard the plane, where’s the kid gonna go? It’s a 100 ft long cabin in a sealed aluminum tube.
Unless the parents purchased a premium cabin ticket, there isn’t much in the way of extra service that the kid gets onboard, other than deliberately not being seated next to male passengers (because of incidents with perverts). When a kid gets served a meal, the FA isn’t going to help the kid. I know, because I’ve ended up helping these kids open the wrappings on their meal trays.
If there’s a change of plane involved, an airline employee escorts the kid to the next sealed aluminum tube. If there’s a very long layover, the kid gets held in an airline employee-attended room on the ground (my kids have experienced these). When the sealed aluminum tube arrives at ultimate destination, an airline employee escorts the kid off the sealed aluminum tube and delivers kid to the designated parent/adult in the airport.
The service you’re paying for when you buy UAM service is logistical handovers-- something JetBlue failed miserably at…
cobrat, that has never happened. The $100 (in the olden days $50 or less)pays to have the minor passed off from one employee to another. Someone will walk the minor to the gate. A flight attendant takes the paperwork, gives it to a gate attendant at the next airport. If the minor is changing planes, sometimes they will take the to a waiting room, sometimes juse to the neXT gate.
I’ve seen hundreds of unaccompanied minors over the years. I’ve seen them moved from the front of the plane to a center seat in the back to make room for whining adults who didnt want the center seat. There was recently a story about a girl being molested by the passenger next to her. They are not treated like royalty. Delta makes everyone under 16 pay and often gives no service at all. My friend had to pay for her son, not her daughter, and daughter said no one even asked about her brother. Sports team kids have had to pay even thought their coaches were there and doing the chaperoning. Some airlines allowed kids as young as 12 to fly alone without the fee, and those are the ones we used because we felt the $100 wasn’t worth it as you got nothing for it. I just booked a direct flight and they were met by relatives at the other end.
If this progresses to a lawsuit, I predict they will throw a little money out to settle. Especially if it continues to get traction in the news. But I fully admit I don’t know a darn thing about airlines and their typical behavior in actual lawsuits (vs. just handling customer complaints).
“to serve as an adult chaperone to accompany the unaccompanied minor”
Chaperone is not the right word for what they do. The kid is on their own for the flight. Other passengers step in if the child becomes upset. I was next to a 12-ish UAM last month. She was talking to her mom on the phone before taxi, and I asked to speak to the mom so I could tell her I would help the child if necessary.
Bottom line, even though passengers do step up, I wouldn’t want to see a child fly alone unless they are able to advocate for themselves. Some kids can do that at 8, others at 10, 12, or later. But I’ve never met a 5-year-old I’d trust to handle a flight diversion.
DD had to fly as a UAM from Scotland to Boston (to get to Girl Scout camp) when she was 12 years old. The airline staff helped her through customs in Newark. Best $100 I ever spent!
Airlines and parents apparently are expecting this:
While a certain-aged child (10+?) would not need much supervision during a flight, a 5 year-old certainly could. It’s not right to expect passengers to step up and supervise the child. What if the child is an annoying seat-kicker? What if the child becomes airsick? Starts screaming?
There is a little too much of the “it takes a village” mentality.
My guess is the family here had no choice but to have this child fly as minor on the plane. If they had been able to fly with these kids, this would not have happened.
But notably…only one family is carrying on. There were TWO kids…two five year olds…who somehow got mixed up, and ended up in the wrong places. The airline discovered this error quickly and rectified it.
I think all the airlines will be more careful.
They already gave the families money and refunded the flight. Maybe I’d ask for a free companion ticket for future flights, assuming that these children may have to fly solo again. People just seem quick to sue.
We also don’t know if some lawyer got wind of the mix-up and contacted the mother. We’ve all assumed that she sought out the lawyer.
My UAM kid was seated next to an adult man on her most recent trip, despite there being plenty of empty seats. That $150 each way (thanks, Delta) doesn’t get you much at all.
She’s been flying alone (Southwest) since she was 12 and has navigated security alone. Baby Jail at the connecting airport was quite the indignity in her eyes!
“It’s not right to expect passengers to step up and supervise the child.”
Oh, I don’t think it’s right, it’s just reality. Most people are pretty nice, and we’d help a sick or screaming child who needed us. If we’re talking about me, then I’d ask for a voucher from the airline.
When my daughter was 8.5 she flew as UM on Singapore Air. When they picked her up she started crying. They treated her like royalty, showed her inside the cockpit and she got to sit in every class on both floors of 747. These classes had special names that she enthusiastically recited to us when she came back. These flights were the highlight of her summer. By the way, SA did not charge for this service.
It helps that they only had 2 fights per day out of JFK - one going west in the morning and one going east in the evening. Difficult to do a mix-up:)