Unaccompanied minors - airline policy

[ozdude]

http://www.theage.com.au/travel/trav...813-243t4.html

Above is an article in an Australian paper about two recent incidents, one on Virgin, the other Qantas. While I don't have an issue with the policy, it seems the implementation of it was handled poorly and ended up embarrassing the gentleman involved, there was fairly lame efforts by the cabin crew to make it clear to other passengers what was happening.

I am sure this policy is consistent with most carriers, but what I don't understand is how this situation can occur in the first place. If there are restrictions on who minors can sit next to, why can't the airline admin perform their due diligence when allocating seats, rather than creating a situation on the place, which will always be messy.

[SQ218]

Agree. This should all have been planned and finalized during check-in or prior to boarding to avoid such incidents.

[benlee]

This is just dumb. The airline should could done the swap when issuing the boarding pass or when at the boarding gate.

[SQtraveller]

post deleted

[ozdude]

So how would SQ handle it? I can't see their website or their personnel being able to manage this. Does it happen and we just don't hear about it? Aussies will generally make some noise about issues like this so it's not unusual to read about it in the papers.