Turkish Airlines minors flying alone

Does Turkish Airlines offer services for children traveling alone?

Turkish Airlines takes care of all young passengers who need to travel without their family. For this reason, there are two services that Turkish Airlines offers when a child has to travel alone:

• Escort Service (attended child passenger).
• Unaccompanied Minor Service (unattended child passenger).

What is the difference between these two services?

Between the services that Turkish Airlines offers for children traveling alone, there are two major differences with regard to how Turkish Airlines will provide supervision for the child during the flight and who can use each service:

Escort Service

The Escort Service must be requested at least 48 hours before the flight if a child is traveling without the company of their parents or relatives. The child will be accompanied by an experienced, reliable and caring escort from the beginning to the end of the flight. For this reason, the language spoken by the attended child must be specified when requesting the service. Besides your child’s ticket, you also have to pay all costs related to the designated companion.

Only the parents or legal guardians may accompany an attended child passenger to the airport, deliver him/her into the care of the Turkish Airlines representative and pick up the child at the destination. When this is not possible, the parents can authorize another person who must submit a notarized authorization document to Turkish Airlines on the departure day. An attended child carriage document must be signed, and the parents or parents’ representative must wait in the airport until after the departure of the child’s flight.

Unaccompanied Minor Service

At departure, parents or legal guardians must accompany the child to the check-in counter at least 2 hours before departure in order to complete all necessary formalities. Acceptance of unattended children is subject to the permission of the parents/legal guardians, who must fill out and sign an ‘Authorization Form’, and confirmation of all reservations in the child’s itinerary. At the airport, unattended children are given priority, but, at Istanbul Airport, there is a separate check-in counter for unattended children.

Turkish Airlines’ authorized personnel will assist children at the departure airport when passing through security controls, in the waiting areas and at the boarding gate until the child has boarded the aircraft and has been handed over to the purser. Unattended child passengers are assigned seats that are near the cabin crew so that they can be under the supervision of the cabin crew during the entire flight.

At the arrival airport, unattended child passengers are delivered by the purser to the authorized personnel in charge of assisting through all procedures in the arrival station such as customs, passport controls and baggage retrieval. Then, the unattended child is delivered to the person stated in the ‘Authorization Form’, only after his/her identity has been checked and the person picking up the child has signed the form.

More information here >>