To not want to send my just 14 year old DD on a plane alone

[Crestofawave2]

My DM is going to Spain this autumn for 2 months. She has done this a few times and usually I have gone over alone to visit for a few days or have brought my DC.

This year we have had lots of trips (Covid backlog) and with the DC have been on a 4 night city break with DM and the grandchildren (I paid)

I can’t go to Spain this year as I am short on holidays and have a couple of weddings etc towards the end of the year that require holidays and money.

DM is adamant that I send my DC alone on a flight over to see her. DS is 10 so it’s not even an option as they wouldn’t take him and DD is 14 but I wouldn’t be at all comfortable sending her through an airport alone.
DM is fuming - I am ruining her break, ruining it for DC etc.

She is a very dedicated granny and the DC love her so AIBU for not allowing my DC to travel?

Your mum is insisting DD comes out to visit because she's gone on holiday???? That's just mad. DD here would rather stay at home with friends and catch up from 2 summer holidays worth of lost ones with friends.

Do not do this with Ryanair. She will be stopped at the gate as her date of birth is on the passport. Now if she’s tall, older looking, and they don’t cop she’s under 16 it might work, but it’s too risky. Mine looked younger than their ages and were often asked were they flying alone.

Boarding school pupils from overseas do it regularly and have been doing so for years.

Your mum doesn't get to insist but I think I'd be OK with this if the child in question was.

You know your child and 14 year olds nowadays are a lot less savvy. My eldest would have been fine, my middle would probably end up on a flight to a completely different destination and lose their bag and passport along the way. Gate pass at both ends sounds potentially ok though.

Our 14 year old, who I generally think is very independent basically refused to take a flight alone. For some kids it seem scarier than it actually is. She is very confident if someone is there to pick up the pieces if it goes wrong.

Her 12 yo sister I don’t think would be able to do it.

Children at boarding school travel unaccompanied the whole time and think nothing of it. My own son flew alone the first time aged 14 to visit his school friend in Austria ( and yes I had kittens over it, but knew so many of my own friends from boarding school who were so confident from years of travelling alone, that I had to swallow my own anxieties). He was thoroughly fussed over, and loved every minute. He travelled using the unaccompanied service. He was met at the counter by a staff member, who took him through via a staff only access. He was never with the general public until boarding. (He was just glad he wasn’t flying with one airline, where unaccompanied children have to wear a ‘bib’, like a sports bib, that says they are unaccompanied! He said that would have been too embarrassing!)

Do not do this with Ryanair. She will be stopped at the gate as her date of birth is on the passport. Now if she’s tall, older looking, and they don’t cop she’s under 16 it might work, but it’s too risky.

I think that poster means for OP to buy a cheap ticket to get through security with her DD. Not to try and send her DD on a Ryanair/easyJet flight herself

The sheer number of delays and complications at airports at the minutest would make me say no way.

It’s stressful enough when a flight is delayed for an adult let alone a child. What would happen if she gets onto the plane and the plane is then grounded for hours only to be straight up cancelled (it has happened innumerable times over the last few weeks). Best case scenario her confidence would be shattered worst case scenario she could be stranded at the airport, especially if it happened on the Spanish side.

She can go next year.

If your dd is happy I’d let her. I flew alone aged 12ish and before mobiles etc but I was quite a streetwise type at that age. It felt like a big adventure but was fine.

Yes that's the case when you pay for an unaccompanied minor service, I've done that too. When you're just sending your kid alone on an adult ticket you can make your own decisions!

She's not proposing to buy her a ticket with the wrong date of birth on it!! How do you think that would work?!

Your mother shouldn’t really be demanding it and if you’re not comfortable then of course you get final say.

However, when I was younger (around 12-16) I flew alone to Germany twice a year to visit my dad. I didn’t have a mobile phone then so it was literally a call from my mum to my dad to say I’d gone through security and then the same on the other end from my dad to say he’d picked me up.
I found it so exciting and really believe it helped me gain a sense of independence. A couple of times I had to get a connecting flight, I’d always just ask the staff when I got off a flight where to go and they’d happily advise. Also the flight attendants will realise your daughter is flying solo and make sure she’s ok throughout the flight.

I think it depends how many times she has done the journey before. I'd have had no hesitation about ds or dd getting a flight from LGW to Barcelona aged 14 because it was a route they knew well.

Your mother can't demand for her to come over. It's just 2 months rhay she is traveling.

Does the daughter want to go and feels OK with traveling alone? If yes, then I'd let her go.

Does the daughter not want to go and does not feel OK with traveling alone? Then she is not going.

I'd send both of them if they want to go. Use the unaccompanied minors service.

I don’t think it’s any different than taking the train really. I flew long haul at 13 alone though so I’m probably not the person to ask.

I've also been travelling alone since I was 12 so I would have no issues with this.

I've flown hundreds of time on my own over many years and never been sexually assaulted either.

Okay, let’s take your advice and have a look at Google.

I couldn't find definitive numbers globally, but in the US last year, the FBI reported a 30% jump in reported sexual assault allegations on planes. 119 were reported.

www.whio.com/news/local/fbi-sexual-assaults-airplanes-jump-nearly-percent-last-year/MXX2WgmMoP71RFwSYYWfSJ/

Of course, we might assume that most would not be reported. Let's say that one in ten is actually reported, so there's maybe 1000 cases a year in US airspace, of which most go unreported.

How many journeys are made in US airspace every year?

10 million, give or take.

www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/

So, given the assumption I’ve made about unreported assaults, the chance of being assaulted on a plane are about one in ten thousand.

Which is too much, of course. But I suspect it’s less than the chances of being sexually assaulted on your way to the cornershop.

Live abroad and have 2 DC who have travelled both on UM services and later alone. Now is not the time for young inexperienced travellers to fly alone. Airports are in chaos, flights are cancelled and delayed, baggage is delayed or missing - it's a lot for most adults to deal with, never mind a child.

Your DM is being completely unreasonable anyway but particularly at the moment.

Continental airlines 'lost' my 13 year old boy in Newark airport USA, I'd paid for him to be accompanied.

By the time I found out, he'd been found.

Incidentally my boy had the time of his life whilst 'lost' he's 41 and still talks about it.

No reason for your mother to be fuming, but I also think that 14 isn't too young if your daughter wanted to go. They are helped with the airport and it's a really short flight.

I think you’d want to tell her that if she had any issue at all at the airport she should go and find any female uniformed member of staff and just say she’s travelling by myself and I’d be staggered if they weren’t helpful.

i get it’s a bit more worrying with all the airport chaos/delays and for that reason I’d be sticking around at/nearby the airport until the plane had actually left. Then watching it on the flight radar app.

You know your DD best, not randoms on the internet saying they flew alone blah blah blah.
I think your DM is wrong to be fuming about it, she chose to go away for two months! I also don't think it's very fair on your son.
I certainly wouldn't be comfortable with it but like I said, you know your children best.

The whole idea that has suddenly gained some momentum here of accompanying a DD/DS through airside by using a cheap booking, with no intention to travel, and then planning to walk back landside having waved DD/DS off needs a health warning. The whole idea is very iffy for all sorts of reasons, so here comes another slightly long post..

"Airside", despite appearances, isn't somewhere like a shopping Mall where you can come and go as you please. It's an area covered both by national aviation security rules and to some extent by airport bylaws. That has consequences for access, just one example being at most/all UK airports even badged staff can't use their ID to pop in to airside on a day off to for example shop or see a friend or relative off on a flight.

As a result of the rules anybody seriously contemplating doing what is being proposed by some posters had better have a good cover story to hand that errr, proves, that they had intent to fly on their booking. TBF I doubt there'd be a prosecution if the truth came to light but, given the stresses on things like security ATM due to weight of passenger numbers, I wouldn't rule it out.

There's also the practical matter of the cheap flight being used as cover. At many airports the boarding pass gets scanned for, amongst other things, it's validity prior to the individual proceeding onwards, so that complicates matters.

There might not be much point in getting a booking on the 0500 cheapie LoCo if the plan is to use that boarding pass later in that day to go through security with the young traveller - you might find the computer says no...