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British Airways increases the minimum age for children to fly on their own from 12 to 14

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British Airways is rolling out changes to the minimum age for travel for a child flying alone.

From bookings made after 1st May, a child must be 14 before it will be allowed to fly unaccompanied.  This compares to the current age of 12.

British Airways minimum age for child flying alone

In addition, any child aged under 16 MUST bring a completed parent / guardian consent form with them to the airport.  This rule applies to new bookings made after 1st May.

Unaccompanied children will be booked on adult tickets and must travel without a chaperone throughout the entire journey.  The ‘Skyflyer’ service which allocated chaperones to unaccompanied minors was scrapped by British Airways in 2016.

Full details of the changes are on this page of ba.com.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (72)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Clive says:
    15 Feb15 February 10:37

    OT: Do any of you lovely people know, regarding the free night voucher you can earn on the IHG credit card: how long is the voucher valid for? Are you able to change or cancel the booking without losing the voucher? Thanks!

    • Peter K says:
      15 Feb15 February 12:26

      1 year validity. Same cancellation rules apply as with a normal points rewards night…so yes you can cancel the night and get the voucher back for another night.

  • Scott says:
    15 Feb15 February 10:43

    This is an academic point for me (for now at least…) but the issue about children requiring a consent form to travel – does this mean that if child is traveling either alone (and between 14-16), or with an adult (but not the parent), they need a signed consent form? Does that then mean that to travel with my own child I’d need proof I was the parent?

    (No particular opinion on the merits of this policy, just interested in the nuances)

    • Andrew says:
      15 Feb15 February 11:12

      There are all kinds of academic points.

      My 12 year old nephew flew down on Saturday on one of my orphan BA return tickets from Edinburgh. There is no ID check or age check for a BA domestic. I met him at Heathrow.

      I suspect the bigger risk would be if he was turfed off the flight at Edinburgh and told to make his own way home to Perthshire.

    • Michael C says:
      15 Feb15 February 12:32

      Being a single (male) parent, I carry an ID “pack” with me even for my own son on international travel, Scott.
      I think part of the problem is that UK ID doesn’t include the parents’ names (whereas Spanish, for example, does).
      Btw never asked for more ID in Heathrow, but in S America I was, constantly, including in hotels and on coaches.

    • Rob says:
      15 Feb15 February 14:41

      Just if the child is alone AFAIK.

  • N says:
    15 Feb15 February 10:54

    Rob, Anika, congrats on hitting 8k followers on Twitter!

  • Phil says:
    15 Feb15 February 11:10

    OT: As a BA free card holder can I refer myself for an AmEx Gold? If so, what is the referral bonus?

    • Peter K says:
      15 Feb15 February 18:45

      Some have had success with this but who knows if Amex may decide to take a dim view of it at some point. You would get 4000 Avios.

  • rams1981 says:
    15 Feb15 February 11:40

    OT any tips for finding decent (ex-eu?) prices for flights from London to Colombo in business class flying in June/July earning BA tier points?

  • JAXBA says:
    15 Feb15 February 11:57

    Pity about the minimum age for an unregistered UM being raised to 14. My first UM flight was at 12 and I knew what I was doing; was probably was ready for it at 10/11 personally.

    Now BA.com has to spell out what UMs under 16 need to carry with them? My, we must be breeding some special snowflakes… Common sense truly ain’t common.

    JAXBA
    a Millennial beyond his years

    • Rob says:
      15 Feb15 February 14:38

      Apparently someone internally has been panicking about UMs in case of a plane being diverted to an airport where BA has no staff. Apparently at 14 you can fend for yourself!

      • Paul says:
        15 Feb15 February 15:36

        Whilst putting a 14 year old on a flight from A-B I would expect that in the event of a diversion that BA would provide care and protection beyond that given to any other adult passengers. It would be scandalous if a 14 year old came to any harm in such circumstances.
        Not that it matters this policy like so much at BA sends a message, “ you are of no value to us”. That’s fine there are plenty of airlines who provide excellent care of young people.

  • Gavin says:
    15 Feb15 February 14:16

    Thanks, I got 15% up to £15 for Morrisons. No particularly convenient one for where I live though.

  • JamesB says:
    15 Feb15 February 16:09

    I got them for the Iberia version but they took a long time to post. I was signed up for the 1500 IHG points for this too and it initially showed on my account offers page. However, it disappeared with the website update so I raised a missing point query with IHG and they added them for me.

    • Graham says:
      15 Feb15 February 20:44

      Thanks, James.

      • Stuart P says:
        15 Feb15 February 21:42

        I had to chase via the missing avios link but the team at IHG got it sorted in the end. The time I invested in it probably wasn’t worth the £5 worth of avios though…

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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