Delta Airlines doesn’t actually hate your baby. In fact, they love your baby. How could they not? It’s a spectacular profit center. Of course, actual babies can’t fly unaccompanied, but older kids certainly can. Airlines make a big deal out of how well they’ll take care of your children while they fly off to wondrous lands where grandmothers and non-custodial parents wait with open arms and pockets full of assorted candy. But all they really do is pocket an exorbitant fee that amounts to a reach-around for their shareholders.
I recently moved from Minneapolis to Chicago, with my son staying behind in Minneapolis with his mother. For the last three and a half months he has flown to see me every other weekend. He’s 13 and an experienced flyer, so we’ve thought nothing of booking him tickets and putting him on the plane to be met on the other end. This last time (the 5th time he’s flown Delta in this time period) the ticket agent stopped him and decided to finally enforce the airline’s unaccompanied minor policy. Now, I was unaware of this policy, and that’s my bad. But the baffling part, aside from the incredibly rude and condescending customer service agents, is the actual fee – $100 each way. This applies to any kid under the age of 15.
Now, one might expect go-kart rides, happy meals and puppet shows for a $200 fee. But what you actually get from Delta Airlines is a wristband that says “Future One Million Mile Customer” and a gate pass for the accompanying adult (me) to take the kid to the gate, where a gate agent will walk the child down the jetway to his seat. And then on the other end, you get another gate pass while a flight attendant does the oh-so-long walk back through the jetway to the gate. Since flight attendants may pay a few extra calls to their seat in flight, let’s be extremely generous and call this a half hour of work. That works out to be about $400/hour.
The airlines, of course, try to defend this fee, saying it’s supposed to cover fuel costs (which are actually lower for children, being lighter) and for the time spent by their employees. But sadly, I have to call bullshit. Not only is the time negligible, but after doing some minimal research I discovered that, as recently as two years ago, the fees hovered around $30-$40 for unaccompanied minors. Since we’ve established that fuel is a non-factor and wages at airlines certainly haven’t increased during that time period — what’s the increase stem from? Simple. Delta Airlines wants to pad their bottom line any way they can. Even on the backs of parents.
My family is lucky enough to be able to absorb the costs. They’re painful, but we’ll get by without going back to a ramen diet. But what about those divorced parents who aren’t so lucky? The ones who had to move because they lost their job at GM or were transferred to a different plant? Or the grandmothers who live in Florida and Arizona on a fixed income and want to see their grandkids for a long weekend? Like it or not, the airlines don’t just run a business. They’re also a public service and vital piece of infrastructure that makes modern life possible. They connect families. Jacking these fees up is a rapacious cash grab, pure and simple.
In short, I won’t be flying Delta again any time soon. If ever. And certainly not before they rethink a policy that keeps families already struggling to stay together, apart.
Brutal experience. I'm flying with the fam to Orlando in October so I won't have this problem. But, I do fear being THAT family on the plane. But in your case, a C-note in addition to what you're already paying is absolutely brutal. Talk about nickle and diming travelers.
It's highway (flight path?) robbery, really. $200 extra for a kid to sit on the plane? We've really got to draw the line somewhere.
Why would anyone ever fly Delta when Southwest Airlines is an option? My policy in year 2010 is simple: If SW doesn't fly there, I don't need to go.
Southwest rightfully considers any passenger over 12 an adult.
I think you need to start a FB group. “Southwest Airlines Please add more flight from Minneapolis / St. Paul Delta is killing us”
Agreed. My daughter's father bought tickets on Delta because they were the 'best rate available.' My daughters have been flying as unaccompanied minors on Southwest since they were 5 years old, and there has never been a fee.
Delta charged us $100 each way for my younger daughter, who is 12. They didn't charge my older daughter a fee, because she is 17 years old, but…. she is not a legal adult, so she can't 'accompany' her little sister on the flight. Ironically, my children fly so much that I'd bet that at least 25% of adults need more 'assistance' than my kids do on an airplane.
Southwest will allow children of 15 to 'accompany' younger siblings on flights without a fee (or requiring a parent to go through the security gate with the minor). I will never fly anyone but Southwest again.