March 7th, 2010

parents magazine in spanish
I was travelling from Spain to Germany by plane, and observed the strangest thing:?

On board the plane there were 4 spanish boys aged 11 – 14 years old. This one guy sat by me, thats how come I got curious. It turned out these four boys were travelling alone. No parents, no travelling-alone information to air-hostess. She asked the boy if he was comfortable travelling alone (yes) – if somebody was meeting him (no) – if he was really travelling without parents (yes) and so on. He spoke english really well and seemed very nice and confident. Nicely dressed, reading his magazine.

The question is, what is legal here? Who is in responsible for these kids if anything should happen? The person letting the boys check in, the passport control?, the plane company? I sure know that if this was my 11 year old – he’d never be allowed to travel abroad without me and what if they did and parents didn’t know???
The air hostess was really confused. She did not have information on these boys travelling alone at all.

Children 8 through 14 years of age must travel with another passenger at least 15 years of age or they will be considered Unaccompanied Minors.

Unaccompanied Minors in this age range are permitted to make connections to other flights only when allowed by the Unaccompanied Minor rules of the connecting carrier (including American) and when confirmed to the destination.

However, Unaccompanied Minors in this age range will not be accepted for co-terminal connecting itineraries (such as changing from New York LaGuardia to New York Kennedy) because an unaccompanied child under 15 years may not use ground transportation unescorted.

Bilingual Kids from Parents

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