Why don't travel site allow comparing airline fares for an unaccompanied minor?
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 23 Jul, 2023
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KAYAK and other online systems do not know exactly how old your child is and therefore can not determine which rules apply and can not ensure that a booking would meet those rules for any specific airline. So it is better to simply not quote those fares (plus many airlines require you to call direct to arrange UM services).
My guess, because it varies from one airline to another, even for airlines in the same country. There is usually some sort of a nationwide limit, then the airlines can go more restrictive on defining “unaccompanied minor”.
For the airline I work for, a passenger between 5 and 12 years old is considered UM, while another neighbor airlines set the limit to 5-11.
Now imagine a site that has to collect the information for most of the airlines around the world and then keep track of that in case of any change? including special fares and conditions for each airline, just too much work.
Also, most seats sold via agencies are consolidated tickets, I do not think airlines sell UM seats in bulk to be used by agencies (online or offline).
In addition to that there is a technical problem. Unaccompanied minors’ reservations have special codes which are different from one reservation system to another, and since most agencies connect to airline’s systems using GDS (think of the GDS as a webservice with limited types of transations allowed), I think handling this might be a techincal issue as well. Hence, many airlines offer the UM reservations by calling them directly, by visiting their office or via their own website.
Last but not least, and it’s also a guess, airlines do not want to handle people’s children via a third party seller.
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘