Did you call CZ/DL to inquire about this? If you can pull off the CZ flight, your life will be MUCH better. Feel free to PM me after you confirm the unaccompanied minor situation; I will help you: 1) find dates that work; and 2) get the best fare possible.

JieJie,

Thanks for your very useful suggestions. Sounds like direct airport shuttle would work for me. Someone else has suggested a taxi. I know they are cheap in China, but I wonder whether I could trust a taxi.

DB

I'd really skip the train if possible—especially arriving at PVG, it's a huge hassle.

Why not do something like:

CVG - LAX (pick any flight...)
LAX - ICN (KE12, redeye, departs LAX 11:30 arrives ICN 4:40am)
ICN - WUH (KE881, departs 9:10am arrives WUH 11:10am)

ICN is an easy airport to transit, you won't have any annoying ground transfers, and KE has far better transpac service than any of the US flagged carriers. I'm also confident that KE can handle an unaccompanied minor without problems.

A year or two ago there were reports on FT of DL being unwilling to do UM handling if a CZ connection were involved.

ICN is my suggested back up plan for the op, but utilizing the sfo-wuh flight is even better. Flying Delta to Shanghai should be an option of the last resort.

The only problem I see with WUH-SFO for the return is that CZ's unaccompanied minor policy stipulates no connections, so presumably someone would have to pick up the 9-year-old at SFO (the 14-year-old wouldn't qualify as a UM at all). Absent the UM issue, this is obviously the better choice.

KE's policy doesn't seem to have any such restrictions.

Thanks again for the many good suggestions, which have been helpful to me in deciding my course of action. Right now I wish to avoid non-Chinese or non-American airports because if anything goes wrong in, for instance, Korea, I have no contacts to assist me in resolving the problem. Also, right now my preference is to take the bullet train from Shanghai to Wuhan as a matter of simplicity so that coming and going flights will be the same.

Shanghai to Wuhan (by train) is arguably simple during the outbound portion of your trip in which you are with your kids (e.g. book hotel and train for next day).

But, on the return journey (when you are not with your kids), there is significant potential for things to go wrong. While I don't think this is an impossible to overcome obstacle (e.g. trains are almost always on time, and transportation between SHA and PVG is straight forward enough for you to put a viable plan in place), if you didn't have to deal with it, things would be simpler/easier.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, I encourage you to try to your best to nail down the SFO-WUH nonstop flight as an option (and investigate DL's unaccompanied minor policy on the SFO-CVG leg). If this works, then go with it; the PVG-SHA-WUH (and vv) drill is bound to set you back $600 anyway.

Moondog: "But, on the return journey (when you are not with your kids), there is significant potential for things to go wrong."

This is what we did 2 years ago and why I feel comfortable with this potential itinerary. Our Chinese relatives just arrived a day ahead of time. Am intrigued by SFO to Wuhan though.