I’ve seen films a number of times where kids are allowed to travel by themselves on a bus / plane / ship. I’ve often wondered at how brave these kids under 12 are. Even more amazingly, how the parents can let their kids visit their grandma, say in Chicago, travelling from North Dakota – alone. But I’ve never really wondered whether the companies charge extra for taking charge of minors, until recently.

Hubby’s auntie is originally from Leyte but resides in Cavite. Last summer she let her kids (16 & 11 year olds) take their vacation to their hometown. They travelled by themselves with no hassles. Coming back the older child had to leave early so the youngest was left to travel on his own. Worse, he was to bring a 5 year old cousin with him back to Manila. Yes, yes, how can their elders let them travel alone? Well the parents are both abroad & perhaps the aunties/uncles back home were “confident” the 11-year old was responsible & competent enough. Who knows really, I find it incredible, too.

Anyway the auntie they stayed with confirmed the kids flight with Cebu Pacific. She was told on they will be charged 500 Php per kid for apparently “looking after” the kids. Unfortunately, they were late & they missed their flight. Then the next flight was cancelled. By the time the kids are ready to board the next plane bound for Manila, their auntie was told they owed Cebu Pacific a staggering 3,000 Php!!!

I nearly fell off my chair when I heard the story. I was indignant because of the blatant daylight robbing that happened. How in the world Cebu Pacific can justify 1000 Php for a missed flight is already beyond reason as the kids were not onboard, who did they look after? To charge them again for a cancelled flight is totally absurd as the kids were with their aunt the whole time in the lobby.

I checked Cebu Pacific’s website for details but found no policy for minors travelling alone. The only thing they have was a “1 adult 1 child” policy, which I’m sure is malleable over the phone. I was sorely tempted to contact their customer service but I’m still not sure I want to. See, the family this happened to doesn’t seem fussed. They probably just mentioned how unbelievable it was, but most likely the thought of filing a complaint will not even cross their minds. I mean common if you can let children travel without supervision, you really think they’d have the slightest inclination to stand up to business suited a-holes?

Out of curiosity I checked Phil Airlines’ website, too, in the hope that I’d find some policy there. No chance. Aside from a few bugs on their site’s incompatibility with Firefox, I found nothing else of note.

Do you know if other airlines have policies for letting kids onboard without an adult?