British Airways and unaccompanied minors

[cosborne13]

Just want to warn mums and dads that my 13 year old daughter travelling from Spain to London alone was refused boarding to her flight this morning due to overbooking. Luckily a friend was on hand to help but had she been truly alone it would have been very bewildering for her. BA complaints have been useless and treat it like a normal complaint. When she came back for the later flight no one accompanied her post check in despite assurances from BA on the phone that they would. Think twice before trusting your child to a BA flight if alone. They don't seem to care one iota and have offered standard compensation and trite apologies.

Did you use the Unaccompanied Minor scheme?

I'd be hopping and would be demanding a refund. It shouldn't have been up to a friend. Your DC should be accompanied by staff from handover at check in, seen in to the plane, handed over to briefed cabin crew. If there is a problem with the flight, they should be cared for appropriately by staff cleared for Unaccompanied Minors until it's sorted (and the people lined up to take her off the flight at destination and hand her to the designated adult (and that adult should) should both have been informed by airline staff, as should the person who booked the UM service).

Dreadful they got it so wrong.

I thought BA had axed their unaccompanied minors scheme. Under 12s must be accompanied by someone aged 16+

Young people aged 12 - 18 can travel alone. But as this experience shows they need to be accompanied to the airport in case they are denied boarding.

EasyJet did this recently. Shocked at BA though.

Thanks for support. She is 13 so doesn't need to be accompanied on the plane but I had to inform them she was travelling alone and they said someone would help through security etc. No one did. TBH she's confident and handled it well but the fact that she couldn't fly on her overbooked plane despite her age and fact that it was her first flight alone is really crap customer service. For future reference the only way to get a halfway decent response to a complaint from BA is via twitter. All other avenues are useless including their own recommended one which is via the impenetrable website complaints form.

Thanks for the warning. The unaccompanied minor scheme doesn't exist any more so my son has traveled a few times by himself now. Luckily it's always been fine, but good to know how crap they can be at handling overbooking issues. IMO overbooking should be illegal. It's selling the same item to 2 people.

Overbooking will always happen (or we need to accept that all flights are totally non-refundable/re-bookable which no-one wants) but they should prioritise who they bump and an unaccompanied minor should be a "not for bumping" passenger.

Problem with BA is that they're either great or utter shite. There's nothing in between.

I agree they ought to prioritise and an unaccompanied 13 year old should be right at the bottom of that list.

For anyone considering using an UM scheme, I can highly recommend KLM. We sent DS (then 13) to Panama from Edinburgh via Amsterdam and KLM were excellent. He had someone with him all the time while in the airport - they even have their own UM lounge at Schiphol. On the way back, his flight from Panama had been delayed and he was at risk of missing his connection. They sent a van to his plane to collect him and send him straight to his connecting flight.

I'm pretty horrified that any airline would bump a 13 year old!