WestJet reviewing policy that allows young children to fly unaccompanied

[Bulldog]

By James Stevenson, THE CANADIAN PRESS
CALGARY - WestJet Airlines (TSX:WJA) is reconsidering the future of its policy that allows young children to fly without an accompanying adult after a five-year-old girl needed to be escorted off a plane by a stranger in Montreal last week.

Calgary-based WestJet said until a review is completed, it has suspended new bookings under its so-called unaccompanied minors program.

"As a parent, I was extremely concerned by this event," airline president Sean Durfy said in a news release. "It drove home to me the sheer gravity and importance of the unaccompanied minor service and to ensuring we can consistently deliver a safe program.
 

"If we, as an airline, do not have the confidence that the unaccompanied minor program is safe considering all variables, then we have to question the future of the program itself."

Spokeswoman Gillian Bentley said the situation won't affect any holiday plans for those already holding tickets.

"Certainly we are continuing to honour any of the bookings that have already been made, but we're not accepting any new bookings," she said Tuesday.

It's common practice in the airline industry for carriers to charge an extra fee for looking after children who are flying by themselves.

In Canada, WestJet charges $50 per flight for children to be escorted on and off the airplane by a WestJet employee. Air Canada (TSX:ACE.B) demands $75 per flight.

Both airlines will only allow children to fly alone on direct flights, and both insist that all children flying by themselves between the ages of five and 11 are checked-in as unaccompanied minors.

Air Canada estimates that it handles more than 45,000 children travelling by themselves each year.

Independent airline analyst Rick Erickson said Tuesday that the program is too lucrative for the Canadian carriers to be terminated.

Erickson said WestJet has to review their procedures and operations manual to make sure the public retains confidence in the program.

"I won't be the least bit surprised when WestJet comes back and says, 'Hey, we've checked it, we've fixed what we think needs to be fixed and we're going to continue to offer the program.' "

Erickson said the incident is particularly damaging to WestJet's "good-guy image."

"They see themselves as a provider of customer convenience as other carriers don't do and obviously this is a considerable service for the moms and dads out there."

Last week, five-year-old Sara-Maude St-Louis flew by herself for the first time from Edmonton to Montreal to visit her father for the holidays.

Though Sara-Maude's mother, Genevieve Pelchat, and stepfather, Philippe Boissy, paid the $100 fee, it was another passenger and not WestJet personnel who ended up helping the girl off the flight to find her father.

A spokesman for Transport Canada said Tuesday that the federal government has no regulations pertaining to unaccompanied minors and leaves it up to the airlines.

Christiane Theberge, president and chief executive of the Association of Canadian Travel Agencies, said young children travelling by themselves always requires extra attention.

"It's always something you have to be very careful about - an unaccompanied minor," Theberge said from Ottawa.

"You have to check twice with the airline to make sure the reservation was well done, that the accompanied service was really paid for at the time of the booking and that it's really confirmed because you don't want to see a child left alone."

David Castelveter, spokesman for the Air Transport Association in Washington, D.C., said some airlines have opted to discontinue their unaccompanied minor programs.

"So what that tells you is that it does present some challenges given the complexities of operations today."

Castelveter said such programs "require the dedication of staff and resources to ensure that a minor is accompanied throughout the entire journey."

He said the airline industry is seeing record delays - driven by the high volume of traffic as well as an antiquated air traffic control system. And with such high levels of "operational interruption," some carriers simply don't have the resources to handle programs like unaccompanied minors or pet transport.

http://travel.canoe.ca/Travel/News/2007/12/18/4730649-cp.html