travel for tweens

[moonwise]

Last night, I was asking my mother whether my two younger cousins were going to go down to Florida this summer for a visit. The sisters are 13 and 16, respectively (younger one may be 14; I am not sure.) My mother indicated that the older one might be getting a job for the summer, but the younger one might still be interested.

Because my aunt and uncle are financially strapped (he has MS and is on disability; she doesn't work (she should but that's another story)) my parents pay to fly them down and back. For reasons I can't fathom, they have been flying the girls out of Atlantic City on Spirit Airlines. AC is easily a three-hour drive for my aunt, as opposed to Newark, which would be more like 45 minutes.

I mentioned to my mother that if the younger one did want to come, maybe they could fly her out on JetBlue, because Spirit sucks for threatening to charge people for carry-on. We got into a side discussion over penalizing everyone vs. enforcing carryon rules, but my mother was mostly resistant to the younger flying out of Newark because it is a big and confusing airport. If you are not familiar with Newark, then in a nutshell: Terminal C is enormous and might be confusing, but the only airline that flies out of that terminal is Continental. Terminal B is a complete unknown to me, as I've never used it. JetBlue, my parents' favorite, flies out of Terminal A, which is the oldest and smallest part of the airport. JetBlue itself only uses two of the gates, A20 and A21. When you go into security, you pick the "branch" that has your gate in it, and there are only about six gates per "branch."

So, here's the question. Do you think that 13-14 is old enough to go through Terminal A alone? It seems to me that the younger should be quite competent to find the JetBlue gates on her own, especially if Mom is there to help her find the right "branch" before she goes off to security. What do you think? Is my mom being paranoid, or do I expect too much from a young teenager?

Comments

[arafel.livejournal.com]

The security does allow a parent to escort a minor to the gate, yes, so it puzzles me as to why this problem was even manufactured in the first place.

[maeveth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's the part that had me scratching my head. If she's really that freaked out...just go with her. Simple as that. It sounds like it's stupid easy to find the appropriate gate though.

I will say I would probably go and wait with my daughter -- but most of that is my innate flight-schedule-related paranoia that's born from having my last plane trip fucked six ways from Sunday by the weather and almost getting stranded in JFK. But that's totally just me-as-person, not me-as-parent.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Maybe the kid's insisting she can do it herself?

[arafel.livejournal.com]

I don't think so - my aunt has raised her daughters to be clingy. The younger one is more independent than the older, but I still don't see her insisting on going it alone. Either way, they'll figure it out. It just blows my mind that to save the girls the experience of going through a relatively simple terminal, their mother drives them three hours one way to a rinkydink airport.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Oy vey.