Etihad Unaccompanied Minor Policy: Ages, Transit Limits and Rules

The 24-hour rule, and why it matters more than it looks

The service request has to be submitted at least 24 hours before the flight. Requesting it at the airport instead may attract a charge — and, more importantly, leaves you depending on something being arranged at a check-in desk on a departure day.

Treat 24 hours as the absolute floor rather than the target. Arranging it when the booking is made is the version of this that does not go wrong.

At the airport, both ends

• Check in at least two hours before departure. The paperwork is not quick and there is no value in arriving tight.
• Stay at the airport until the flight has actually departed. This is a requirement, not a courtesy, and it exists because aircraft return to the gate.
• Bring your own identification, not only the child's.
• At the destination, the person collecting the child has to bring identification. The child is handed over to that named adult and nobody else.
• Build in time at the far end. Assistance through immigration, baggage and customs takes a while, and a collecting adult who arrives late leaves a child waiting.

Documents to have ready

• The child's passport, with the ticket matching the data page exactly, middle names included.
• Any visa or entry permit for the destination — and this is the one to start earliest, because a visa mismatch is an immigration matter that no airline and no airport can resolve.
• A transit document if the child's nationality requires one for the connecting country.
• Written parental consent. Many countries expect a signed letter for a minor travelling without a parent, sometimes from both parents.
• The airline's service request form, with full contact details for the adult dropping off and the adult collecting.
• Medical information, if the child takes regular medication or has an allergy staff would need to know about.

Names on the ticket

Worth a separate mention on these routes, because a large share of passengers hold passports that do not divide neatly into a first and last name — single-name documents, patronymics, four-part names, transliterated spellings where the same name can be rendered several ways.

The ticket must match the passport's version, as shown in the machine-readable zone at the foot of the data page. A child cannot negotiate a document mismatch at a check-in desk, and an adult is not there to do it for them, so this is one to get right at booking rather than correct later.

Booking it

• Book by phone or through your agent, so the routing is checked against the transit limit before anything is paid for.
• Submit the service request early — at minimum 24 hours ahead, ideally at the time of booking.
• Have both adults' details ready, with phone numbers that will work on the day in the right country.
• Confirm the child's age on the travel date, particularly where a birthday falls between booking and departure.
• Ask about the departure country's own rules, since conditions and amounts vary by market.
• Get the confirmation in writing and keep it with the travel documents.

What can go wrong, and how to reduce the chance

• A connection outside the eight-hour window. The booking will not work, and it is better to find that out now than at the airport.
• The service was not re-requested after a flight change. It does not carry over automatically.
• A visa that does not match the passport. This is the problem with the longest lead time and the one nobody can fix on the day.
• A name mismatch between ticket and passport. Check the booking against the document the day the confirmation arrives.
• The collecting adult is not the named person, or arrives without identification. The child will not be released.
• Requesting the service at the airport. It may cost more and it may not be available at all on a full flight.

Preparing a child for a long-haul journey alone

The paperwork is what parents research. What decides how the day actually goes is whether the child knows what is coming.

• Walk through the sequence out loud — check-in, security, being taken to the gate, the flight, being met at the transfer and taken to the lounge, the second flight, being collected.
• Tell them waiting is normal. A transfer of several hours is part of the plan, not a sign something has gone wrong.
• Agree who they ask. A child who knows it is allowed to speak to a crew member or a staff member copes with a delay far better.
• Pack for longer than the schedule says — medication in the cabin bag, a charger, a snack, something to do that does not need a battery.
• Put the details on paper in a pocket: the collecting adult's name and number, your number, the flight numbers. Phones go flat.
• Think about the time difference when you agree check-in points. A message on landing is more useful than one at a fixed hour.
• Keep the goodbye short. It sounds trivial and it is what experienced staff mention most.

Family and group bookings

A large share of these journeys are children travelling to or from relatives — a summer with grandparents, a wedding, a family visit — and often more than one child is involved.

• Collect photographs of every passport data page before booking, rather than typing names from memory.
• Check each child's age on the travel date separately. Two siblings can fall into different bands, which changes what has to be arranged for each.
• Confirm whether siblings can be treated together on the service, and what that means if one of them is old enough to travel without it.
• Remember a 12 to 17-year-old cannot act as the escort, so an older sibling does not remove the need for the service for a younger one.
• Check spellings against each other. Where relatives share part of a name, an inconsistency in one booking usually means one in another.

How Fond Travels can help

• We check the connection against the eight-hour transit limit before you pay for anything, which is where these bookings most often fall down.
• We talk you through the 12 to 17 choice honestly — adult ticket or supervised service — rather than defaulting to whichever is simpler to book.
• We submit the service request properly and re-submit it if the flight changes, so nothing depends on a desk on the day.
• We book names from the passport, including single-name documents and transliterated spellings, so a child never faces a document question alone.
• We check the visa, transit and consent requirements together, because those have the longest lead times.
• We are reachable on the day, which matters when a flight is delayed and your child is in transit on the other side of the world.

To arrange a flight for a child travelling alone, call +1 (323) 800 6001. A travel expert answers any hour.