To think 14 isn't too young to fly alone?

[Deadwood58]

Dd14 will be flying to Munich by herself over the summer to attend a language camp in Austria.

We will drop her at a London airport, and she will be picked up in Munich by the camp staff, who will drive her to the camp in Austria for 3 weeks.

I was talking about holiday plans with a few of the mothers of her school friends, and when I mentioned this they all seemed utterly horrified.

Is it unreasonable?

Of course a 14 should be able to do this, you're delviering her and someone is picking her up at the other end. Quite often minors are accompanied by an air stewardess anyway who make sure they are delviered to the relevant people at the other end.

I sent my daughter off when she was 13 years old, she'd never flown before and was meeting people she didn't know at the other end. It was in the days of no mobiles either so no way of (immediately) finding out whether she'd arrived safely or not.

We live in an age where parents don't foster independence any more, ignore those who say it's too young.....

OP

Please tell me about this language school, it sound really interesting for my children.

And, yes, absolutely she should be fine. Other who are concerned, what is it you think will happen? And would you even let your child go to the language school?

@WorldWideWanderer - I absolutely agree about fostering independence, see my post for details - but it is important to note that OP's DC will be flying EasyJet and you will not get any help whatsoever from them so don't expect any. It's a budget airline, it's just not part of the service. I would really not recommend that a child who has never flown before does their first solo flight on a budget airline - it's hugely different from those airlines with unaccompanied minor Programmes.

Presumably the 6/7/8/9 year olds mentioned on this thread flew with the airline's scheme for unaccompanied minors? Which is a very different proposition to flying completely alone.

Yes but the UM scheme was a little different then. Eg when we switched planes at Heathrow they would tell us where to be at xx time then send us off for a wander....

youcantget
That and we used to go through the Crew gate for customs - none of that queueing stuff for us UMs !
It really was a different world

Although Easyet may be 'budget' and not have an UM programme when they see a youngster flying they will take some care of them as the possibility of even temporarily 'misplacing' a child would ruin their reputation.

I've flown with LOTS of airlines (though never ryanair)
I've flown with my own kids since they were babies

Easyjet staff are lovely.
I could slag off the staff of lots of airlines - but I will not slag them off.

I flew Easyjet with my very small kids in the days before seat allocations
and the crew were FABULOUS - they "magically" got us seats together and were attentive to the kids right through the flight.
They are my airline of choice in Europe

I work in a airport, just make sure she takes a letter from you saying she has permission to travel , with your number on it and the number of the staff picking her up, will make things easier as they will question anyone under 18,

Hope she has a great time!

@outabout Read my post about my DD missing an EasyJet flight - the EasyJet staff could not have been less concerned that a 15yo was on her own airside in tears with nowhere to go. Their sole effort was checking that the flight the following day was sold out. After that there were just shoulder shrugs, not our problem, etc.

Now I wasn't shocked or annoyed because I hadn't expected much else. EasyJet might be way better than Ryanair for customer service, but it's still an 'your problem not ours' attitude. I've flown with EasyJet enough times to make contingency plans part of the trip. In the case I spoke about with DD, I had actually already researched ahead of time the best hotel for her to go to for the night just in case the flight was cancelled. I just hadn't thought she could muss a flight that she was apparently at the right gate for!

@bigupapple Good Point - we always give our kids a document like that when they travel alone, in English and the local language, including exactl dates they're away and flight details, our contact details and those of where she's going.
We're in Germany, where it's expected that the parents also make a copy of their ID cards or passports and append these to the contact details. It's possible Austria will require something similar - since she's flying to Munich it might be wise.
I've found the people at Munich airport to be right old funny buggers, to be honest.

Mine too TalkinPeace. I really love and rate EasyJet. Flew with them just last night and they were great. Got us home in the snow just 20 minutes late.

It is of course very regrettable that a teen missed the flight due to a gate change. It should probably be borne in mind that particularly budget airlines get gates changed and seem to be beyond the end of the earth anyway as the national carrier tends to get the cream of the gate positions. Perhaps she looks in the 'between' age where she would be competent and obviously young and would need help.
Maybe for others sending youngsters, tell them to speak to the gate staff as soon as possible on arrival which might then prompt the gate staff to at least register that a youngster should be on that flight. Just asking them to check the boarding pass would be sufficient.

I flew alone at 14 and was absolutely fine - I wasn't the most independent 14 year old, either! If she is happy with it go for it. You can contact the airline about it and many provide a steward to keep an eye/bring her to the correct area, I've seen it a few times on flights.

I should point out that I flew with a stopover, too! It's doable for sure.