Air

Practicalities Getting There Air Unaccompanied Children 

Increasing numbers of children are travelling unaccompanied each year. BA has reported that up to 1,500 children aged between five and 12 travelling alone are carried at peak times daily, with sometimes more than 100 of them on board long-haul flights.

However, there are problems with this. First of all, only scheduled carriers offer a chaperone service. Charters generally refuse bookings for unaccompanied children under 12. They will take over 12s but accept no responsibility for them.

Cutoff dates for any kind of supervision makes it particularly difficult if you are trying to send say a 13-year-old on a flight which involves a change of planes.

A report in the trade publication TTG suggested that there is a further potential problem if you buy the child a heavily discounted ticket. These are not valid for registered unaccompanied minors.