Traveling alone can be rite of passage for teens

Although he is a responsible young man, I admit I had several concerns about this trip.

The airlines require all children 14 and under who are traveling alone to be registered as unaccompanied minors and pay an extra fee, which allows for supervision en route by airline personnel. However, once they reach their 15th birthday, they are considered young adults and free to travel on their own.

An experienced traveler, Ben has flown many times on family trips, both in the United States and overseas. He even flew by himself earlier this year to meet me in South Carolina, a trip that required a change of planes in Philadelphia. By comparison, this West Coast journey was simple, a nonstop flight to LAX, where he'd be met by his friends' parents.

Still, apart from sending him into the teeth of the holiday travel crunch, this was his first trip since the stringent airport security regulations were implemented, and you don't have to be a travel editor to realize that while supposedly making our skyways terrorist-free, these restrictions also have increased the possibility for unexpected delays and hassles.

Naturally, we wanted to do what we could to make sure his trip would go smoothly.

That started, of course, with booking him on a nonstop flight, which eliminates a whole set of potential problems involved with making connections -- especially this time of year, when bad weather can foul up tight flight schedules.

Then there is the issue of a photo ID, which all adult passengers are required to have. Minors traveling with an adult are not required to have their own photo ID, but it wasn't entirely clear what the rule was about young adults traveling by themselves.

When I called the airline, an agent said passengers under 18 didn't have to have a photo ID, while the US Airways' Web site advised that they should. While not requiring minors to have ID seemed humane, it also struck me as a rather large loophole in our security procedures. Are we to assume that any passengers harboring nefarious intent are going to be 18 or older? And while I could be there to help him through security in Pittsburgh, who knew what the rules might be in Los Angeles?

So it seemed prudent for him to take some ID, but what kind? Since he's too young to have a driver's license, his only other photo ID is his passport. Being the official keeper of all passports on family trips, I was somewhat hesitant to turn Ben's over to him. I made a copy of the picture page of his passport, intending to give it to him to take along. After thinking about it, however, I decided to give him the passport and keep the photo copy at home. After all, if he was responsible enough to travel across the country by himself, surely he could take care of his travel documents.

He was traveling on an E-ticket, but rather than waiting to get his travel documents at the airport, I clicked on www.usairways.com and printed out his boarding pass and itinerary, which travelers can do within 24 hours of the flight and up to 90 minutes before departure. This proved to be both easy to do and very handy. While on the Web site, I also checked to make sure that the flight was still scheduled to leave on time. It was.

We left for the airport, figuring to get him there about an hour and a half before his flight. Wonder of wonders, when we pulled up to the curb-side area, no other passengers were waiting to check their bags, which had the two skycaps wondering where everyone was.

I didn't want to just leave him at the curb, so after checking his luggage, we drove around and parked in the short-term lot, which now costs just $1 for the first hour. That allowed me to escort him into the terminal and make sure he got through the security procedures with no problem.

I've seen long lines form at the security checkpoints but, despite being a prime hour on the busiest travel day, there was no line at all. I'd already made sure he wasn't carrying any pointed or major metal items in his backpack. Finally, I gave him a prepaid phone card he could use if he needed to get in touch with us and made sure he knew his friend's phone number in Los Angeles.

By this time, I'm sure he thought I was being an over-protective dweeb.

While parents can get passes from the airline that allow them to accompany their children and young adults out to the boarding gate and make sure that the flight actually takes off, that didn't seem necessary. Ben's flight was still scheduled to depart on time, and, as with the passport, if he was mature enough to fly on his own, he could probably handle getting to the plane by himself.

So I made sure he had enough money to buy himself some dinner, since US Airways no longer serves free meals on their West Coast flights, and then I watched him calmly go through security without incident and disappear into the shuttle to the air-side terminal.

Six days later, when I met Ben as he emerged from that same shuttle after flying some 4,000 uneventful miles on his own, a subtle change had taken place. Both of us regarded him as a more mature person.

"How'd it go?" I asked.

"Fine," was all he had to say.

When you think about it, sending our children alone into the conveyor belt of America's transportation system is both an act of faith for us and a rite of passage for them.

As parents, we must learn there comes a time when these beings we have nurtured for so many years are ready to move beyond our immediate control. Although that happens progressively as they grow up, sending them into the world on their own is clearly a milestone.

As young adults, they must learn to be responsible for themselves while at the same time trusting in and negotiating their way confidently through the various mazes of modern society. Being able to function independently is a big step.

Once again, we realize that travel is an education in many ways.

Still, I breathed a bit easier when he handed his passport back to me.