I would be very surprised if airlines didn’t have a policy about minors - which would include your hypothetical five-year-old - flying alone. I think it’s been pretty well established that they do - Hawaiian Airlines’ has a policy for kids under 12.
Now, why is it “impractical” to check with every parent? If the child doesn’t have some kind of permission slip, he or she doesn’t board the plane. Why would this be a problem?
If I were an airline executive, I would be more fearful of some parent giving me holy hell because I allowed little Timmy on a plane when he had no permission from his parents to do so than I would of losing a fare. (Incidentally, don’t kids fly at a cheaper rate than adults, anyway?)
Because it’s assumed the ticket is the “permission slip”. Airlines have enough to worry about without babysitting everybody. Shoot, why be mad at them? Why not go after the Taxi-driver? Maybe minors should require permission slips to get into cabs. What if the cab crashes and the parents don’t know little Timmy is in the car because he’s a run-away?
I don’t really equate a ride in a taxi with flying in a plane, especially (as in this instance) one that travels a considerable distance.
The two modes of transportation are not comparable in this case. As stated before, some airlines - if not all - have policies regarding minors. As far as I know, no taxi services do.
Um, how old does this thirteen year old look? I guess I’m old, because young males who are able to shave look anywhere from their late teens to late twenties to me. I say the fault is with the kid, not the airline.
Besides which, unless we’re asking for a full-blown legal contract as a “permission slip” why do we think a kid who commits credit card fraud isn’t going to forge a permission slip?
First, the story in the OP was posted on the 19th. The policy says that it was updated on teh 20th. I would assume that the policy was updated because of this kid’s antics.
I fly a lot, and I really don’t care that they don’t check IDs on kids. I understand that a terrorist kid could get on the flight, but if a kid under 12 can buy a flight, check in, get throught security (I have to take off my shoes, the metal detectors are so sensative) and still find a way to take the plane down… well, that would suck, but it’s not high on my list of worries right now. I probably have a higher chance of being killed by a rabid Loop pigeon.
Permission slips? What would that have? Some signature that can’t be confirmed? I think their new policy of making an adult accompany the child will help, but I think it’s more to cover their own ass.
Really, this is not the fault of the airline. He could have just as easily boarded a bus, hitch-hiked, taken his bike somewhere. Some blame can go to the easy use of credit cards on the internet, but I think most of the blame goes to a mother who can’t control a 13-year old child, or to a 13-year old child who doesn’t see anything wrong with credit card fraud.
Don’t get me wrong, the child is mainly to blame here. It just seems to me that with better precautions, perhaps the airline would have caught this in the first place.
It looks to me like the oldest they ever define a “child” is twelve. They do say twelve year olds have to be accompanied by someone who is at least sixteen, which implies that the sixteen year old can fly alone without restriction. So I gather that their definition of a “child” (noteably not a “minor”) ends at twelve. If you start pushing the restrictions up too far, you end up with absurd situations like a seventeen year old college student who needs her mom to come with her to the airport when she visits Hawaii for spring break.
And kids do have plenty of legit reasons to fly unattended. For many kids of divorce, their summer vacations or winter holidays begin with a long flight to the other parent’s house. I see no reason to make their parents jump through any more hoops than neccesary to get their kid from one place to the other.
The kid is clearly in the wrong. Airports are airports. Their job is not to watch after wayward children. They have abosolutely no obligation to watch your kid any farther than looking after her physical safety and take reasonable precautions against fraud. In this case they did that just fine.
I worded that poorly. Obviously, people do put five year olds on planes unaccompanied. If they didn’t the airlines wouldn’t have a policy about five year olds flying alone- you don’t need a policy for something that never happens. It would be more common for parents to allow an adolescent to fly alone than it would be to allow a five year old to fly alone
I don’t know. But according to the article, the airlines say it is.
I agree that if the airline checked to be sure the child was supposed to be flying, the kid wouldn’t have gotten to Maui. But that doesn’t make it the airline’s responsibility to check.
A permission slip won’t do , because there’s no way to verify the parent’s signature. A determined kid could probably get around anything short of requiring a kid to fly with thier parent. Can’t fly alone under 16 without a parent bringing you to the airport? Buy an extra ticket for an older friend to come along (you’re using your parent’s credit card without permission, so what’s an extra ticket?). Or lie about your age. 18 wouldn’t work because of the ID requirement, but 16 or 17 would.
Yes, and according to the article, the policies generally allow those betwen 12 and 17 to fly alone.
Their job is also to cover their own asses. You know how teachers won’t let a child go on a field trip without a note from mommy? One reason is that no note would open the teacher and the school to all kinds of liability issues. Same thing with the airlines. What if the child’s not supposed to be on that flight? What if an adult friend bought him a ticket? What if a child molester said, “Come with me to Cancun and I’ll give you all the candy you want”?
The burden is on the child, no question about it. I just think the airline would be wise to check when kids are flying alone, for this very reason - less potential hassle later.
Let’s look at it another way, too. What if the kid caused major trouble - i.e., was a brat - on the plane? Yes, the parent is responsible for the child (and the child for himself). But can you imagine if the airline then billed the parent for damage that the child caused en route? She’d be pissed enough that they let him fly without her explicit instruction - now she has to pay extra? (She should, of course, because she is responsible for her child. I’m just saying it would be a major headache for the airline, one that might be avoided.)
A signature seems to work just dandy for credit cards. In theory, aren’t they supposed to check the signature on the invoice with that on the back of the card? In this case, wouldn’t they match the signature on the permission slip with the signature on the back of the card?
(I’m assuming, of course, that airlines require you to present the card with which the ticket was purchased. This makes good business sense to me.)
Big difference- the school is responsible for my child when he’s there. Their are any number of things that a parent might not want a child to do- ride a bus, see a PG13 movie, go to an amusement park. If a school or daycare center or summer camp takes a child entrusted to them on one of those activities without parental permisssion, they may have liability issues. But the bus company or movie theatre or amusement park doesn’t, because the parents didn’t arrange for those places to care for their child.
Perhaps not. And of course, if the kid were really sly, he could fake a signed note and show the CC he used to buy the ticket.
I’m not saying it’s foolproof, but it seems folly to not check on whether a child has permission to be on a plane or not. Simply buying a ticket shouldn’t be enough.
The airline is responsible for your child’s safety during a flight, just as the school is responsible for the child during an out-of-school event (or even an in-school one, really). If a child gets out of control - running up and down the aisles, to take an extreme example - the airline must do something to get him to stop. If they don’t, they are risking the safety of the other passengers. This, of course, applies to adults as well, but if in this hypothetical situation there are actual legal charges pending - say the child caused physical damage to the plane or injured staff - then the parents would be liable for it. If you as a parent found out that your child was on a flight without your knowledge and caused damage, would you think you were liable? Of course not - you’d probably sue the airline. So checking the validity of whether a child has parental permission to board a plane is in the best interest of the airline.
Just because the parent would sue the airline doesn’t mean the parent would be right to, or would win.
And yes, if I had a child who without my knowledge bought a ticket, borded a plane, and wreaked havoc, it would still be my responsibility—it was my child.
Which is going to cause more passenger complaints and potential lawsuits: requiring all children ages 13-17 to come to the airport with a parent or verifiable permission, with said children being bumped from flights if parental consent can’t be verified; or letting older minors fly unattended with only the normal security checks involved?
I don’t know the answer, but I’d guess that more parents would complain about the extra hoops involved when their older kids are flying alone. I mean, this kid managed to do it and got two newspaper articles dedicated to him. That’s gotta indicate that it just isn’t that common an occurrance.
I’m sure it isn’t. But considering all of the security checks we already need to go through in the name of making it safe for all, I don’t think a parent would particularly mind having to give permission for his or her child to fly unattended.