Costs of Travel for Unaccompanied Minors

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Children Traveling Alone

Some parenting plans require the parents to fly the children back and forth between two distant places.  What some people do not realize before they start shopping for the cheapest fare is the fact that different airlines charge different fees for minor children to fly without an adult chaperone.  This chart has the unaccompanied minor fee each way for all major domestic airlines in the United States.  It is accurate as of November 27, 2017.

As you can see, Alaska and Southwest are the least expensive.  Unfortunately, Alaska’s service is a little limited for the Sacramento area, and Southwest often has connections between origin and destination cities.

Unaccompanied Minor Information
Fee Nonstop Fee Connecting
Alaska  $25.00  $50.00
Allegiant  No Unaccomp. Minors
American  $150.00  $150.00
Delta  $150.00  $150.00
Frontier  $110.00  $110.00
Hawaiian  $100.00  $200.00
JetBlue  $100.00  $100.00
Southwest  $50.00  $50.00
Spirit  $100.00  $100.00
United  $150.00  $150.00
Virgin American  $25.00  $50.00

Feel free to share this chart with anyone who needs to know the additional charges to fly an unaccompanied minor on a domestic flight.

 

Getting along after its over.

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This is an interesting article from People magazine about a couple who, after their divorce, gets together for a family picture each year for the benefit of their child.

Experience tells me this couple’s relationship is pretty unusual; however, it certainly sets an example of understanding how your relationship can influence your child’s life.

Whenever I have a person come into my office, there is typically a complaint somewhere in the mix about the behavior of the other spouse. Complaints typically relate to finances, parenting, inattentiveness, substance abuse, poor judgment, and interloping significant others. My client often wants me to get an order that will “make them” be better.

While the orders create an incentive for a party to be better, or at times rearrange parenting time or financial decisions to help protect against known problems, there is very little I can do to change the behavior of the problematic party.  More important, I try to help clients develop coping skills to deal with the other party’s habits.

This is especially so where the conflict between the parties relates to the raising of children. Often times, the differences boil down to a difference in approach or style. When that is the case, even a court will not typically issue orders, and the only thing a parent can do is learn to put up with the differences as best as he or she can.

In the long run, you will have a direct parenting relationship with your ex-husband or wife for however many more years it takes for your youngest child to turn 18 (and graduate from school), and you will continue to have ongoing dealings for other life events (graduations, marriages, grandchildren, etc.) forever. The better you can make your relationship with the other party after your divorce, the better this will make your life.

How courts view home school in custody cases.

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Many years ago, when I first started working as a family law attorney, home school was presumed to be a haven for the fringes of society.  People who had unusually strong religious beliefs, or who were sailing around the world with their kids, or who were living in communes, all home-schooled their kids.  In those days, home schooled kids struggled to be accepted into four-year colleges, and were seen as poorly educated, possibly indoctrinated, and socially backward.

Courts back then echoed this sentiment.  They frequently would custody of the children to the parent who wanted to put the kids into a mainstream public or private school, and express openly that the reasons for doing so were exactly as listed above: home schooled kids were weird and didn’t learn to standards.

This is all changing now.  This article has a nice collection of opinions from around the nation showing the growing trend away from the previous negative presumptions about home school.

My own experience with home school has varied, but I have generally found the courts to be much more accepting nowadays.  The one big exception I have encountered was a case where the child’s pro-home-school parent was engaging in severe parental “gatekeeping,” and was using home school as a means of isolating the child from the other parent.  The child admitted during child custody recommending counseling that home school included repeated severely negative references to the non-home-school parent as mean and psychologically unstable (both untrue statements).

This is generally how home school works in conjunction with child custody nowadays.  Home school is increasingly looked at as any other school choice, unless it is causing some harm to the children that would not be experienced in other circumstances.

Here is a link to the Washington Post article:

Home schooling and child custody – The Washington Post.