When It Costs Double to Let Your 12-Year-Old Fly Alone<br />$25 for nonstop flights<br />$50 for connecting flights<br />COST FOR UNACCOMPANIED<br />MINOR TICKET, EACH WAY*<br />Alaska/Virgin America<br />$25 for nonstop flights, $50 for connecting flights<br />“We look at it every year and evaluate the costs of the service versus our costs to implement<br />and manage it, and for the time being we’re satisfied,” said Fred Taylor Jr., Southwest’s liaison to the federal Department of Transportation’s aviation consumer protection division.<br />Even Southwest, which charges $50 each way for unaccompanied minors (required for children 5 through 11)<br />and is historically quite careful about costs, could not provide an itemized breakdown of unit costs or profitability.<br />Those $150 fees are not minute, however, if your divorce means<br />that you’re suddenly paying for two homes instead of one, and one child or more have to travel by air between homes on school vacations.<br />Airline fee outrage is a consumer trope, but it is rare<br />that a single fee can double your cost and rarer still when the rules seem to reflect a fundamental disagreement about child development and risk.
