During the recent summer holidays, 11-year-old Liam Corcoran left his home in Wythenshawe, caught a bus to Manchester airport and boarded a Jet2 flight to Rome. The tabloids had a field day, but the incident highlights a serious concern for the travel industry: child safety and protection.
Liam was escorted home on the return flight. But with millions of families jetting off on foreign holidays every year, what can the travel industry do to ensure their young charges arrive back unharmed?
Getting there
The fact that an 11-year-old could board a plane without a ticket or accompanying adult raises very specific issues. Airport security was clearly grossly inadequate. UK Border Agency rules do not permit children to fly without correct documentation or boarding pass.
Likewise, standard airline procedure requires security staff to check a child's boarding pass and passport at check-in and at the gate, as well as the boarding pass stub once the child is on board. A passenger headcount before take-off is also habitual – a procedure that Jet2 had discontinued, but has since reinstated.
Over and above these routine checks, special provisions are in place for children (generally defined as under-16) who are travelling without adults. Responsibility for these unaccompanied minors falls to the airline or their handling agent, clarifies Sarah Brookes, head of public affairs at Manchester airport.
Policies on unaccompanied minors differ from airline to airline. In the case of Jet2, it – supposedly – operates a blanket ban on children flying without an accompanying adult. Higher-end carriers are more lenient. British Airways, for instance, will carry unaccompanied children under 12 as long as they are registered under its Skyflyer Solo service.
The UK carrier insists that the child is checked-in in person, not online or at an airport kiosk, and that the adult stays in the airport until the plane has left. Other provisions include photographs of the person responsible for meeting the child at the other end.
Ferry and train companies exhibit a similar range of policies. Many ferry companies refuse to take unaccompanied children full-stop. Others have an age limit. Eurostar, for instance, will not take unaccompanied children under 12, but "will consider" taking children aged between 13-17.
Breaches are possible, but extremely rare, transport operators say. In Jet2's case, the airline undertook a thorough investigation following the Corcoran affair. "Revised procedures have now been implemented," clarifies Gaby O'Grady, a spokesperson for the airline.
Once on holiday
Travelling alone is the exception. The vast majority of children heading abroad for their holidays do so in the company of their family. Ensuring these child holidaymakers come to no harm starts with basic health and safety in their hotel or resort, insists Angela Hills, destination services manager at the UK travel trade association Abta.
Abta produces a Health and Safety Technical Guide, which includes child-specific safety measures, such as signing children in and out of the hotel, and notification of parents' contact details. Since the guide was introduced in 2003, Abta has distributed it to all its 5,500 members, plus around 40,000 suppliers.
At a facilities level, child-related risks tend to be wrapped up in general health and safety management, according to Barbara Powell, senior director of corporate social responsibility at the hotel chain Marriott International.
Where specific child protection policies kick in is to cover child violence or trafficking. Since the Madeleine McCann case in Portugal in 2007, such issues have become a top-line priority for the tourism industry, notes Abta's Hills.
Marriott follows many other large hoteliers and tour operators in having tailored training for all its employees on child protection and human rights. The training provides guidance on how to spot suspicious activity, as well as protocols on how to report it, Powell explains.
"We don't put this in the hands of an associate [hotel employee] as it's too sensitive", she states. "Instead, they are told to report it to their supervisor and then it goes through a chain of command in the hotel."
It falls to the hotel's head of security or hotel manager to then investigate and intervene if necessary. Depending on the seriousness of the case, hotel security will either approach the guest directly or put in a call to the local police.
Marriott's position keeps with the zero tolerance approach set out in the Industry Position Statement on Human Trafficking – a collective agreement drawn up by members of the International Tourism Partnership, which represents 16 global hoteliers.
Leading tour operators take a similar approach. The global travel company TUI has gone further than most. Working with children's charity NSPCC, it has set up a train-the-trainer programme that sees all its 350 childcare staff receive instruction on child protection issues. This is in addition to the child safety content of the NVQ2 qualification required of all TUI's childcare staff.
In addition, NSPCC provides a 24-hour helpline service that TUI staff can call when suspicious incidents arise. The charity's expert staff can advise them on what action to take locally, as well as dealing with social services and other agencies in the child's place of residency.
"While kids are away, we need to make sure that doesn't become a vulnerable time", clarifies Ian Chapman, director of holiday experience at the TUI brands Thomson and First Choice. "The NVQ and in-house training, plus the NSPCC partnership, means that we've been able to deal directly with the handful of cases that we've had or pass them on to the appropriate authorities."
The tourism sector cannot make the scourge of child trafficking disappear for good. That said, it is making "positive" steps to combat it when incidents occur, insists Fran Hughes, spokesperson for the International Tourism Partnership.
"We've gone from a position where child trafficking wasn't on the radar for some companies", she notes, "to one where they are developing their own policies and training."
Oliver Balch is author of India Rising: Tales from a Changing Nation, published by Faber
This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. Become a GSB member to get more stories like this direct to your inbox
