Kids flying solo
Advertiser Staff and News Services
Ten-year-old Geneva Pous, pigtailed and smiling, looked perfectly prepared for her flight from Kansas City, Mo., to Austin, Texas.
At the Vanguard Airlines gate, she pulled her red carry-on and shouldered a sizable denim purse, which held her coloring book "and all sorts of stuff," Geneva said.
"I'll miss you," Geneva's mother, Lisa Pous of St. Joseph, Mo., said as they hugged at the gate. "Be good." Geneva was on her way to Austin to visit her father and other relatives.
Geneva is among the growing number of "unaccompanied minors," as the airlines call them, who travel alone to visit relatives.
But as more kids travel this way, and as planes become more crowded in general, some people are wondering just how safe children are when they fly alone.
This summer, America West airline placed four children on the wrong flights in three separate instances. The incidents led the airline to make stricter rules for children flying alone, and the new rules will take effect this month.
Experts say young people usually can travel alone safely.
"When you hear of only one or two such incidents, that is a pretty good safety rate," said Terry Trippler, a Minneapolis-based airline expert for OneTravel.com, a travel Web site. "But when it is your child, it's pretty upsetting."
Geneva has been flying alone for two years. Before that, her aunt, a flight attendant, flew with her many times. Geneva had experienced only one minor mishap in the past two years.
The number of children flying alone is thought to be increasing for many reasons. As in Geneva's case, her parents live in different states, and in other cases, grandparents live far from their grandchildren. Sometimes parents who don't have the time or money for vacation travel themselves will send their children to visit relatives.
Nobody knows exactly how many children fly alone each year. A 1998 magazine article estimated the number at 7 million.
Dean Headley, associate professor of marketing at Wichita State University and co-author of the annual Airline Quality Rating report, said parents should take responsibility for knowing what the airlines will provide — and more important, not provide — for a minor traveling alone.
"Oftentimes parents just buy the ticket, take their child to the airport and then they don't have a clue of what happens next," Headley said. "It is scary that they don't understand what to expect."
For example, make sure you and your parents know ahead of time whether an attendant will be just seating you, or will actually be checking on you repeatedly during your flight. If the flight doesn't provide a meal, take along snacks.
Also, make sure you know all the critical information you need, such as the information for any plane-to-plane changes you might have to make, the name and phone of the person who is supposed to pick you up, and where you are supposed to meet.
Some airlines charge no extra fees for children traveling alone, while others charge as much as $60 each way to provide an escort for a child. Airlines require that children be met at the gate and signed for by a designated person.
Vanguard Airlines spokesman Alan Carr said his company's rules require a parent to stay with the child until an attendant helps the child board the plane. And the parent must remain at the airport until the flight takes off. The child can be released only to the party designated on the paperwork, he said.
"We only allow unaccompanied minors on direct flights," Carr said. "That eliminates confusion with connections."
Parents and children both are encouraged to express any concerns they have to airline employees when checking in.
That is what Brian Thompson did for his son, Conlin, who recently visited Conlin's sister in Florida. Conlin is 14 and has been flying alone since he was 10, Thompson said.
His father reminded airline staff that Conlin is just 14. "The only thing I'm concerned about this time is that my son's as big as I am," said Thompson, of Kansas City. "He looks like he's 18 or so, and I'm concerned people might not help him much."
