My student is traveling alone to a private school in Connecticut. Should I be nervous?
We receive these types of calls and emails all the time. Especially now when the start of school is right around the corner. The recent short comings of a domestic airline certainly didn’t help the matters at all. Should you be nervous? Well, as parents we’re always nervous when our children travel alone. My daughter traveled by herself this past July from Louisiana back home to Connecticut. My biggest fear centered around her changing planes in Atlanta for her second flight back into Hartford’s Bradley Airport. I tracked both her flights, had a map of Atlanta’s terminals up on my computer, and talked her through her walk and train ride to her next gate. As parents, it’s ok to be nervous. It’s our job.
In 1987, KEE Limousine & I’ll Drive Livery Service, began transporting private school students to and from their various destinations. When I first started working with the private schools it became very clear that the other companies treated students as they would any other customer. I will never forget one of our earliest “student travel” trips. I was bringing a few students to meet their departure flight at JFK. We walked into terminal 7 and I recognized a young Japanese girl from the school. She was standing in the corner crying. Another company had dropped her off at the curb to fend for herself. This 12 year old girl checked herself in at the counter only to find out her flight to Tokyo had been cancelled and there were no other flights that day. She didn’t know what to do, and this was before the time of cell phones, texting, and IMing, so contacting Mom & Dad on the other side of the world wasn’t an easy task. It was at that moment I realized these students needed additional care. By the way, yes, I did make sure the school knew of the situation, she was taken care of, and we made sure she was on the flight the following day.
Since that time, we’ve worked with the schools to develop special programs specifically to ensure the students are cared for from the time they leave the schools to the time they board their flight, and vice versa. These programs also help to relieve the parent’s stress of having their child travel alone to/from school. What do we do differently? Well, to steal a phrase from someone else, “No Child will be Left Behind”! We truly treat your children as if they were our own. For those busy travel times; beginning and end of school, holidays, and spring break, we will spend weeks working closely with the schools and parents to verify all itineraries are accounted for and correct prior to travel. On those busy incoming travel days all flights are tracked in real-time, and we have greeters to meet your student and walk them directly to their driver. On all outgoing travel, our greeters or drivers will check the younger and special needs students in at their airline. For students that qualify for “unaccompanied minor” status, we will obtain the correct passes and go through security to wait with the student at their flight’s gate. We also understand the travel needs for older students are much different than the younger ones, and they might not need, or want our special care. That’s ok, we can personalize our service to meet their individual needs. For more information, please visit our student travel page https://keelimo.com/content/student-travel
Remember with KEE Limousine & I’ll Drive Livery Service, “We’re here, to get you there”, and that most definitely includes your student!
