Unaccompanied Minors- 7 Best guidelines before Airline Travel

Summer holidays and vacations season had started the trend of unaccompanied Minors known as UM in Airline lingo. Unaccompanied minors are young travelers, who take Airline Travel all alone without presence of the family member or guardian or trusted person.

All the airlines have different rules and regulations regarding the UM. Age is the biggest deciding factor to label the traveler as UM or not. Few airlines accept young passengers starting from age of 5 to 12 years as unaccompanied minors where as other airlines even considers 15 year old as an unaccompanied minor. Its always best to call the Airline to check the exact age for availing the UM service.

Today, I would reveal 7 best guideline for UM's before taking Airline Travel

1. Age limit : As I mentioned earlier,age plays an important role in availing the UM service. This differs from airline to airline .Hence make sure to call the Airline to check the exact UM age and the procedure around the same. Age can be from 05 years old to 12 years old or 05 years to 15 years
2. On-line Booking : Mostly all the major airlines doesn't allow UM to be booked on line as there are formalities that needs to be completed before availing the UM service.
3. Pre booking : UM can't be booked immediately. There has to be at least 48 -72 hours prior notice to book the UM on the airline travel. So if you are planning to avail this service then make sure that booking is done at least 72 hours before departure.
4. UM Service fee : UM service is not free of charge and often the parents have to pay full adult fare for the child plus service fee which can vary from USD 25 to USD 50 per sector. For example if the child is traveling fron London -New york- London then the service fee would be USd100 (USD50 per sector)
5. Forms and declaration : The parent or the guardian has to complete the formality of UM. They have to fill in all the details in the UM form that includes the urgent contact details of the parent, the full address of the parent, who is dropping the child at the airport and the full contact details and address of the guardian or the parent, who is coming to pick up the child from the airport at his final destination. He also has to declare the medical condition of the UM.
6. No UM service : During transit , If the stop is more than 24 hours then no UM service would be available as there is no provision to accommodate UM for such long period of time.
7. Onward carriers : UM service is not available on all the carriers so if you are taking 2 different planes then make sure that you check the UM service and procedures for both the airlines. Service fee and forms would be different for both the airline. Its very important to know if there is UM service agreement between both the airlines i.e. if the unaccompanied Minor is taking London Bangkok on British Airways (BA) and Bangkok to New york on Continental Airlines (CO) then its important to check if BA and CO has agreement and if BA crew would handover the child to CO staff at Bangkok airport?

I can understand that its quite difficult to let the 5 year old fly alone and needs lots of courage. Don't worry all the Airlines are providing the best service for the young solo passenger and in my next blog I would share few tips that would make the Unaccompanied Minor's airline travel comfortable and easy.