Children under 13 flying without parents on BMI baby
 

As BMI baby have so far failed to reply to both of my letters on the subject I will try my luck here. (I refuse to call them and contribute 65p per minute to their coffers)

My 12 year old will be flying with a friend of mine on baby shortly, and I am wondering what authorisation, if any, baby need to clearly show that my son is travelling with my permission with another adult.

Thanks in anticipation of your responses

I may be very wrong here - but I don't believe any sort of authorization is required. Happy to be proved otherwise.

Brgrds,

Try again with the airline. An adult and a minor with different surnames travelling together might raise questions at check-in. Or try an online check-in to see if it's accepted as pax ages are usually asked for.

You don't need to. Pay a standard phone charge by looking up their normal geographic number on SayNoTo0870

Next best option would be phone the handling agent of the airport your son is due to fly from.

I agree with farci. You can get an all-purpose number from

saynoto0870

Don't be a cheap skate and call the number.

In actual fact though, provided he is travelling with an adult that will be absolutely fine. They won't need any authorisation from you AFIK. Remember parents and children travel together on different names all the time and thats before we start with kids going on holiday with grandparents etc scenarios.

A while ago, we travelled abroad with a 13 boy, who was a friend of our son, on Ryanair.

We checked with a lawyer, who suggested that obtained a letter from the parents of the child, making it clear he was travelling with their permission.

This was for the benefit of the immigration authorities in the country concerned.

They didn't even read the letter properly, but we felt happier having it with us.

Thanks for all your responses

Farci and Ancient Observer, thanks for the sayno link, I am already an avid user of that website, but the number on there is for BMI not for BMIbaby, and the pelasant call centre man in India reminded me of that when I called.

Easy flyer at 10p a minute I would have no hesitation incalling the number, but at 65p a minute they are taking the micky. They know full well that the longer they keep you on the phone the more money they make to subsidise their "low cost" flight tickets.

As my son and my friend are booked on the same reference it does look as if there will be no problem, and I will send my son with a letter of authority from me when he travels.

If I ever get a written response from Baby I will post it here.

Thanks again everyone

have you tried the Bmibaby web?
Lots of inofmation under "terms & conditions"

Does this mean that you are not impressed by their fares? That they are not low enough for you? You could always fly with someone else surely? Maybe a full cost carrier....

He seems to be satisfied with the airfares, but unsatisfied with the cost of the telephone call.

Seems reasonable to me.

Then why place quotation marks around low cost? I interpreted that as ian23 implying that the fares were perhaps not so low after all. However if he is satisfied with the cost perhaps he should consider how the fares can be so low....

To clarify

I do not deny that the low cost carriers have been a breath of fresh air for air travel generally. My gripe is that the low cost usually comes with a plethora of extra costs, not all of which most of us would consider as extra. I would expect an airline to carry my suitcase for example, and I do not like to see that as an add on, nor a checking in cost as it is unavoidable, I could go on... I usually travel as a family of four so these extra costs mount up, I would simply like to see the headline price advertised be closer to the actual price paid than it is at present, and the cost of contacting the airline is just one of those extra costs. Low cost is not true cost, that was why I put it in quotes.

What low cost carriers have done is make the major carriers look at their costs, and, as others have commented widely on these boards, it is always good to check their prices against the so called low cost operators as they can be competitive.

ian23, thanks for the clarification.

Very true, which is why I try to avoid using most of them as much as possible, especially Ryanair whom I regard as the masters of hidden costs. Sounds like BMIbaby could be almost as bad though....

For what it's worth I have used Norwegian quite a lot and as far as lo-co carriers are concerned that are by far my favourite.

Hope you eventually got an answer from them.