United Airlines Drops Early Boarding for Children, Putting Strain on Family Summer Travel Plans

Unless you’re sitting in first or business class, your children will no longer be able to board early on United Airlines flights.

United spokesman Charles Hobart released a statement saying the policy change was in order “to simplify the boarding process and reduce the number of overall boarding groups”.

A few major airlines like Delta, Jet Blue, and Virgin America still allow families with small children to board ahead of other coach class passengers.  United Airlines’ policy change has drawn a lot of media attention and could mark the beginning of the end for the pre-boarding of families with small children on all major airlines.

Passengers can expect a $9 or more charge for early boarding privileges on United Airlines, while active duty military passengers in uniform remain the last fliers to have free early boarding. 

New Airport Security Policy for Children 12 and Under Unveiled by the Department of Homeland Security

On Tuesday, September 13, 2011, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano testified on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee regarding the terror threat to the United States. During her testimony, she discussed the outline of an updated airport security procedure for children 12 aged years and younger.

According to Napolitano, children will no longer be required to remove their shoes when going through the security line- except in cases of random screenings, in order to keep the sense of randomization and unpredictability of airport security in tact, and to continue to discourage terrorists' usage of children (and potentially their footwear) as a vessel for sneaking destructive weapons into crowded airports and planes.

In addition to this provision, children will also be less frequently required to undergo the increasingly intrusive pat-downs (often intruding passengers private-parts) that have more recently emerged. In order to reduce the unfortunate proclivity of the TSA to pat-down anything/ anyone that comes into an airport, children will sometimes be required to walk through metal detectors or imaging machines numerous times in order to obtain a clear(er) picture- and determine if the child is carrying anything that is illegal or potentially harmful- and will likely be subject to a more frequent exposure to explosive trace detection tools (ie: hand swabs).

TSA predicts these changes to begin being implemented in many airports in a matter of weeks (Napolitano originally said months).

It will be interesting to see what provisions are made to airport security in the coming months and years with all of this recent talk by the DHS about changes in screening technology and security procedures.