Originally Posted by
Dr. HFH
I'm going to hazard a guess that perhaps this has something to do with a legal problem which AA faced with a particular passenger. No, I have no specific information, but it would make sense.
Probably.
The only thing that changed is that AA for whatever purpose raised the age that defines a child as UM from 12 to 14. Nothing else changed -
the UM service and the associated fees remains mandatory for children under 12, but is optional for children age 12-14. AA does not make you book the UM service and charge the fees for 12-to 14 year olds, like some posts here suggested.
The impact of this verbiage change here is rather that AA effectively raised the age where children could connect to/from another airline on the same itinerary from 12 to 14:
American Airlines and American Eagle do not accept unaccompanied children (UMNR) when their itinerary includes a connection to/from another airline, including codeshare and oneworld partners
Industry standard for allowing this type of connection is 12.
So if I had a 12-14 yo child and wanted them to fly LAX-LHR-ZRH (connecting to BA) or DFW-HNL-KOA (connecting to HA), I can't do that on one ticket anymore. Of course buying separate tickets is more expensive...