Picking up an unaccompanied minor... WWYD?

amother

Wed, Apr 03 2024, 12:27 am

we live in Israel and sending our 11 yr old daughter alone to my parents for pesach. since they live in a city with no direct flights, one of my adult siblings is actually going to fly to JFK to pick her up and then take a connecting flight with her to the city where my parents live. (there is no other halfway affordable way of getting her there--and apparently since el al does not partner with the airlines flying to my parents city, they can't accompany her all the way there so this is the only way.)

the thing is, my sibling does not LIVE in ny but would have to fly there to get her. my daughter's flight is supposed to arrive at 10:45 am. how safe would you feel if he books a flight that is supposed to arrive in JFK at 10:30? his other option is to arrive at LGA at 9. and the third option is for him to arrive in NY the night before and stay the night and come back the next morning, but that obviously increases the size of the favor for him.

we do know other people in NY, so I think in a real pinch we could get someone to go to the airport--but I wouldn't want to rely on that obviously and practically speaking I'm not sure how hard it would be tell the airlines to please release her to somebody else.

interested in any thoughts and advice... thank you!

amother

Mintcream

Wed, Apr 03 2024, 12:32 am

I think that flight time is perfect.

It's not a problem if she has to wait a bit until he arrives to pick her up. I've come late to pick up my kids when they were unaccompanied minors, they may be slightly annoyed but no big deal.

Remember that it might take a while for her to get off the plane either way, so trying to match up the minutes of arrival is not likely to be very accurate.

Just give DD the number of his flight so she can see if it's delayed and let the flight attendant who is staying with her know when to expect him.

WhatFor

Wed, Apr 03 2024, 2:11 am

If you called the second flight airline directly, they wouldn't have someone to accompany your DD? Meaning, if the El Al person anyway needs to accompany her to meet your relative, is it that much more difficult to bring them to meet the other flight chaperone? Or is it that they're refusing to go from the international terminal to domestic? In which case I wonder if it's ultimately cheaper to pay someone you know in NJ/NYC to be there for your DD and accompany her between terminals instead of having your relative fly all the way there and back. Although I get why it could be stressful either way.

singleagain

Wed, Apr 03 2024, 3:47 am

I know that past performance is not necessarily indicative of future success

But is there ever trouble on the siblings flight? I mean, I'm just thinking like if that flight is often delayed or especially depending on what the weather might be, I might be a little bit more cautious about a closer meeting time

Also, if you wanted to have someone in New York on standby, you would have to let them know with whatever time frame it takes to get to the airport so it doesn't necessarily make sense if your sibling is anyways going if you wanted to have them go instead of your sibling different story.

amother

Sat, Apr 20 2024, 10:19 pm

I just wanted to thank you all for your responses. I didn't manage to respond but I read them and it was helpful in us deciding whether to take the risk--and we did. My brother booked the flight that was supposed to arrive right before.

What actually happened: It's not a flight that is usually delayed or canceled, but this time it was. So my brother made a different flight, to LGA. And then took an Uber to JFK. He was definitely late in arriving, but my daughter's flight was also a bit delayed, and then it took her a long time to come out. It was stressful for us not knowing what would happen, but in the end, HE was waiting for HER.

amother

Sat, Apr 20 2024, 10:24 pm

WhatFor wrote:

Just responding here in case it is useful to someone else. I don't think there's any mechanism whereby any flight chaperones hand kids off to other flight chaperones, unless the two airlines have a relationship with each other. Like I can't tell El Al can you please give my kid to a Delta person--they won't agree to take the responsibility.

It could be I could have found someone else to transfer her, but it's actually a pretty big and time consuming job/responsibility and I wasn't comfortable asking anyone I know in NY to do that. (This way worked out, also we booked the second flight for much later in the day and my brother took her out of the airport and around to visit some relatives and sites in NY before heading back for their next flight--it was a really special day for her.)

amother

Sat, Apr 20 2024, 10:26 pm

singleagain wrote:

Also, if you wanted to have someone in New York on standby, you would have to let them know with whatever time frame it takes to get to the airport so it doesn't necessarily make sense if your sibling is anyways going if you wanted to have them go instead of your sibling different story.

You're right, that's why I didn't bother... Like there was no point in "standby"--if it turned out that my brother's flight was canceled and he couldn't find his way to NY at all, at that point I'd have started to find someone else to do the big favor etc...