Delta's Unaccompanied Minor Program experience
 

My 14 YO daughter is requesting attendance at a German Language Camp in Munich as a Christmas gift. She would need to travel alone and would be met at the airport by either her friend's parents or a camp representative. The camp would take her to the airport afterwards. We reside in the US.

Any thoughts, experiences, and advice is appreciated. Feel free to PM me.

I assume you realize that on Delta, a 14 year old MUST pay the unaccompanied minor fee. It is not an option.

Enrollment in the Delta Air Lines Unaccompanied Minor program is mandatory for children 5 to 14. If you prefer that your 15 to 17 year old travel without supervision, please advise the agent at the time of the reservation and it will be noted. Your child will be expected to handle boarding and deplaning as well as transfers to connecting gates on their own.
Remind your teenager never to leave the airport for any reason unless accompanied by a badged Delta employee or uniformed police officer until they have reached their destination city. She or he should never seek help from or leave the airport with strangers.
Provide your teenager with instructions, phone contacts and a small amount of money for food in the unlikely event their flight is missed, delayed, canceled or rerouted.
Remind your teenager that they can seek the assistance of any Delta employee if they have questions, concerns or need reassurance.
Remember most hotels will not accept young people who are not accompanied by an adult.

Recently my kids traveled as UMs on a domestic trip with a connection. I'd assume that the process would be quite same on international trips as well.
When I tried to book the ticket on website the system wouldn't allow me to book as it detected travelers as minors based on DOB.
I called the DM line and was told to go ahead and complete the booking with different DOB which will make them adults, after completing the booking I gave confirmation number to DM agent and she fixed the DOB to actual year and then handed me off to UM reservation agent where I was asked for contact number and identification details (driving license number) of persons dropping off and receiving the kids and also their address. I was also prompted to select a 4 digit pin number and was told that any future changes will only be made after confirming this pin number from the caller.

On day of travel we went to special service desk (can't check in minors online) and their wristbands were printed with bar codes and a sealed envelop was given to me with their BPs stapled on it. At the gate I handed this envelop to GA and she took them in even before the pre-boards. At the connection point they remain on board with an FA until everyone had deplaned and then they were taken out and handed to GA who then handed them off to another delta employee who took them to their connecting gate and handed them off to the GA there.

At the destination airport, receiving person had to go to special services desk where his details - cell number, DL number and address were verified and they were given a gate pass to go past security and meet them at the gate.

Added: Please note that any changes to pick up person at the destination point have to be made before you start the journey and UM reservation line agents will not allow any change after the journey has started so be very sure about who will pick them up before you get their details into the system

As above but on the return you won't be able to meet at the gate if that flight is an international one. Then you have to wait for them at the exit for international passengers. DL agents will take the UM from the plane, through the special Lane at immigration and once done hand them off.

While not UM - my daughter was 16 when she headed home from the rest of us a few years ago. It was her first time traveling along.

Simple hops: MCO-ATL-CHA, but weather intervened. She ended up getting stranded in ATL - not old enough for car or even to check into hotel.

Of course the airport was like black Friday - but everybody trying to leave, not get in. I tried feverishly over the phone to get somebody to pay attention to her in all the chaos. It wasn't long before a red coat noticed her and took care of her - to a special room that Delta has for UMs if they get stranded/overnight or even just long layover. It had food, snacks, blankets, playstations, etc... A kids paradise. Supervised by several all night long.

She came out of the experience (got a flight the next morning) loving the whole experience.

All this to say, if things go south on connections, Delta takes care of them.

Just another data point - my experience picking up/dropping off my nephew was very similar to jeet's. The only thing I would add is to make sure the adults on both ends know the full contact information listed on the photo ID that the other party would use when they pick up. When my step-sister filled out the paperwork at the airport, they had her write down my name and address, then the DL agents on my end checked my ID against the name/address she provided.

My nephew was 14 the first time he traveled as a UM, and generally thought it was very cool. The FAs doted a bit, and gave him extra snacks on a relatively short domestic trip.

I knew from seeing the lines of moms waiting to pick up their darlings at school in the afternoon, even at high schools, that kids these days are babied, but i had no idea you had to be 15 to travel alone without attendants. When I was 14 I not only traveled alone, but waited out a snow delay at PHL all on my own. I suppose I was a bit freaked out waiting most of the day for a flight out, but I learned a lot and it was a character-building exercise.

Now I understand completely why DL has this requirement (legal CYA), but I see UM service is available for 15-17 year olds. Really, do we expect today's kids to spring forth at age 18 fully capable of taking care of themselves when they haven't had any experience stretching their wings even a little before then?

Wow I totally agree with you.

"Rush hour" in my smallish city is before and after school with moms dropping off or picking up their kids. I know some kids who grew up overseas who would often travel alone (think Ukraine to Austria - not a simple direct train) and do it easily. Then some adults from the USA would come to Europe and not be able to do hardly anything on their own!

It's not just the kids. Even the adults here in America can't get around small airports. "Where's my gate?" As they stand under a big sign pointing to "All Gates" and a monitor showing gate assignments.

"special lane at immigration" <== funny

or, alternatively, "will make your 13 year old who is a full fare Medallion DeltaOne passenger will wait in a line at immigration (no-US Citizen) with 8+ other non-US Citizen passengers, even though your daughter has Global Entry and has advised them as such."

Huge pet peeve of mine. One representative meetings all UMs. If there are non-US Citizens, your kid gets stuck waiting.

Not to mention, my daughter has been operating Global Entry Kiosks solo since 12 years old.

Oh well.

They're supposed to go through the special lane. Designated as such as a catchall. UM, disabled, etc. Feel bad for you, but only those that qualify can use GE. If there's anyone else that isnt GE, they have to use the regular line.

It's over. It's just idiotic from a "premium passenger" standpoint. You pay for UM. She was full fare DeltaOne (not that this should really matter...) She's Medallion (I think "only" Platinum).

She basically paid for, and got worse service. NOT better service; as a UM.

I escalated it, just to make a point. I asked for the Boston station manager to call me, and how he would feel if his 13 year old was waiting 1+ hours to clear immigration with a bunch of non-US resident UMs.

This could have been solved easily. Delta charges decent coin for UM, they could have more than one person meeting the UMs if there are a lot of them.

In the greater scheme of the world it's not a huge deal. But, we are talking #PaxEx since that's a common topic on FT. So, figured I would share.

So why do you keep mentioning it? You clearly think it SHOULD matter.

A full size truck costs more than a motorcycle and is slower.

Wait, can you elaborate on this? What's objectionable here?


Did they tell you the extra fee was for expediting the immigration/customs process? I'm not sure what remains to be solved here.

Wow. Just wow. I'm not going to even go into that.

All I'm going to say is that got what you paid for. The UM was provided supervision the entire time. Nothing in the program says your little one gets one on one supervision. I believe they have a program that does just that, but it costs more then the UM program.

The point was, that usually they expedite things with UMs. That was my only point. If given the option, I might have paid for that "extra service." (but that is not possible for UMs)

From a passenger experience perspective, ground services are part of that. Usually UMs get very good ground services. Add in DeltaOne, which advertises a superior service product.

You can disagree. That's fine. If you think this is a good passenger experience. That UMs should wait 1 hour+ for immigration when they are returning to the USA, US Citizens and Global Entry. That's fine.

I just think it's not a good passenger experience. You are welcome to disagree with me.

It's not about one on one service. It's about properly staffing. They know how many UMs are on a flight. They know what the scenario is at a given airport.

Once again, if you agree this is a good passenger experience, we just differ in opinion.

Airlines DO NOT have to accommodate UMs. It is their choice. British Airways does not. They feel there is not enough volume to make it worth their while. While BA is far from perfect, I get the point. If you can't provide the level of service that is cost effective perhaps best to NOT provide the service.