Frontier Unaccompanied Minor Policy: Why There Is No Service

So what do you actually do instead?

Four realistic routes, in the order most families should consider them.

1. Fly the child on a carrier that does run a programme

Several large US airlines operate supervised services from around age 5, with staff escorting the child to the gate, crew aware of them on board, and release only to a named adult at the other end. This is the proper answer when a child under 15 genuinely needs to travel alone.

The fare will usually be higher than the low-fare ticket you started with, and the supervised service is charged on top. Set against a booking the child cannot legally take, that is not really a comparison.

2. Put an adult on the same reservation

If someone is making the trip anyway — a grandparent, an aunt, an older sibling over the threshold — putting them on one record with the child solves it directly. Make sure it is genuinely one reservation.

3. Change the routing to a nonstop

Where the child is old enough to fly alone but you are nervous about it, a nonstop removes the part that actually goes wrong: the connection. Many carriers that do run supervised services restrict children to nonstop flights for exactly this reason.

4. Move the trip to a date an adult can travel

Worth saying plainly, because it is often the simplest answer and the one nobody suggests. If the trip is not time-critical, shifting it by a week so somebody can fly with the child is simpler than engineering a solution around a rule.

If your child is 15, 16 or 17

They can fly on this airline alone, and most do so without incident. There is no supervision attached, though, so a few things are worth getting right:

• They will need acceptable identification. Check what the airline accepts for a passenger of that age on that route, and for any international flight they will need a passport.
• Book a nonstop where you can. A missed connection is a problem a 15-year-old has to solve alone, in an airport, possibly at night.
• Avoid the last departure of the day. If it cancels, the options are a hotel booked by a teenager or a long night in a terminal.
• Walk them through the mechanics beforehand — bag drop, security, finding the gate, what a gate change looks like, what to do if the flight is delayed.
• Put the cabin bag essentials in order: charger, battery pack, medication, a card that works, and a printed copy of the itinerary with phone numbers.
• Agree check-in points: a message at the gate, on landing, and when they are with the person collecting them.

The bare fare makes a disrupted trip harder

This airline's fares are built to be low, with the rest sold separately, and that structure has consequences for a young traveller who hits a problem.

• Bags and seats are bought on top, so a rebooking can mean paying for them a second time.
• The schedule on many routes is thin. If a flight cancels, the next one may not be the same day, and a teenager alone is not in a good position to wait it out.
• There is no interline arrangement to fall back on, so being moved to another airline's flight is not something to count on.
• A missed flight is usually a loss rather than a credit, so the arithmetic of "book the low fare and hope" is worse than it looks.

None of that is an argument against the airline for an adult who can handle a delay. It is an argument for choosing the routing carefully when the passenger is 15.

How the carriers that do run a programme compare

If you are moving the trip to another airline, these are the variables that actually differ between them — and the ones to ask about rather than assume:

• The minimum age. Several large carriers start at 5. At least one major carrier does not accept a child under 8 flying alone at all. That four-year difference decides which airlines are even candidates.
• Whether connections are allowed. This varies more than anything else. Some carriers do not sell the service on connecting itineraries at all; others allow connections only above a certain age, commonly 8. If your route has no nonstop, this is the first question to ask.
• Whether the flight is operated by the airline itself. Codeshare and partner-operated flights are frequently excluded even when the ticket carries the right airline's name.
• Time-of-day restrictions. Some carriers will not carry a child flying alone on the last departure of the day, precisely because a cancellation leaves nowhere to go.
• International versus domestic. A number of airlines run the service domestically but not across borders, or apply different age bands to each.
• Medical eligibility. Some programmes exclude children who would need help with medication during the flight. Worth raising early rather than at check-in.

These six questions, asked about your specific route and your child's age on the travel date, settle the matter far faster than reading policy pages — which is a large part of what a phone call to us is for.

Questions to settle before you book anything

1. How old will the child be on the travel date? Not today — the travel date.
2. Is there an adult who can be on the same reservation?
3. Is the trip date flexible?
4. Does the journey need a connection, or is there a nonstop?
5. Is the child travelling internationally? That adds passport, visa and parental consent questions on top of the age rule.
6. Who is collecting them, and will that person definitely be there?

How Fond Travels can help

• We tell you straight away whether a carrier will take your child at all, which is the question that decides everything and the one a fare search will not answer.
• We know which airlines run a supervised programme on your route and from what age, so you are not reading conflicting pages at midnight.
• We book the routing around the risk — nonstop where possible, earlier in the day, not the last departure.
• We put the child and the accompanying adult on one reservation properly, rather than two bookings that happen to be on the same flight.
• We check the passport, consent letter and any visa together for an international trip, because those are the problems that cannot be fixed at the airport.
• We are reachable on the day, which is worth a great deal when a young traveller is delayed somewhere.

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