Unaccompanied Minors boarding flights – Dos & Don’ts!

Air travel is exciting. However, it may sometimes send you in a tizzy. A feeling of nervousness might dawn upon you the moment when your minor child has to board flights, unaccompanied.

Imagne this. You contacted your travel agent to get airline tickets for cheap rates and moving to the airport to see off your unaccompanied child, who is going out to spend some time with grandparents residing in a quite distant place. You are a worried lot about how your minor child is going to board international airlines and travel by self to see his grandparents living in a foreign country.

So, here are some valuable tips you need to know regarding the Dos and Don’ts about unaccompanied minor child boarding flights at the airport.

When you are planning to travel and buy airline tickets for your journey, you will always want to get good airline discount on the tickets so that you are able to save big. Your minor child is also nagging you to send him/her to visit grandparents. But, what if you don’t have time and your child is required to travel by self.

What do you do then? You buy inexpensive flight tickets for your child and set off for the airport to see him/her off.

This is when you need to be aware of certain procedures put in place at the airports in case of unaccompanied minors boarding flights. There are several airports having a specific area for unaccompanied minors to check in. When you are at the airport, try looking out for signs indicating assistance for unaccompanied minors. However, if you are not able to locate this then ask the airline representative about this before you decide to join regular check-in queue.

When you are at the check-in with your child, the airline authorities will ask you to furnish details about unaccompanied minors by completing forms, which includes child’s identification, authorization by parent or guardian, flight itinerary, and details about the person meeting child at destination. There’s no scope for worry at all as the airlines keep effective track of minors traveling unaccompanied. For this, the airlines provide some sort of identification tag to the child so that the airline staff may easily identify him/her. The airlines take care of the unaccompanied minors too well. Even before other passengers board the flight, the unaccompanied minor is taken along with by the airline representative for security check-in and then escorted on board.

As a precautionary measure, the airlines also ask the accompanying adult to stay at the airport until the plane departs carrying the unaccompanied minor to his/her destination. The airline staff would then inform the accompanying adult about the plane departure so that he/she may get peace of mind.

The in-flight crew takes a good care of the unaccompanied minor on board the flight. After the unaccompanied minor reaches his/her destination, the in-flight crew hands over the child to the airport staff. The staff, finally, hands over the unaccompanied minor to the designated person after verifying his/her photo identification properly.