Youngsters Become Frequent Fliers Shuttling Between Divorced Parents

Michael Bullard belongs to three frequent flier clubs and has accumulated enough miles in the air, he says, for “oh, about 43 free trips to China.”

So excuse him if he’s a little tired of flight attendants who think they’re teaching second grade.

“They squeak their voices, and they say, ‘Now, this is how you fasten your seat belt,’ ” says Michael, a guy with an earnest, freckled face and glasses perched on the tip of his nose. “Then they make you read the safety instruction card. I’m like, I’ve read it a million times. I could draw the card for you.”

“God,” he says, rolling his eyes, “they treat me like I’m 7 years old.”

Since Michael turned 11 last December--well, the magnitude of the insult is evident. Michael, who lives with his mother and stepfather in Sherman Oaks, flies several times a year to visit his father in Upstate New York. He’s one of a growing segment of the passenger population: children who commute by themselves between divorced parents.

Airline officials are reporting a dramatic increase in the number of children between 5 and 11 who fly unaccompanied by an adult. United Airlines carried 200,000 unaccompanied minors in 1989, up from 100,000 in 1987. Based on conversations with the young passengers, United estimates that more than half are flying between divorced parents. Other major airlines, including American, TWA and Delta, report an increase but say they don’t keep written statistics.

Paul Carlson, a child psychologist who practices in Tarzana, says he has noticed more of his young clients are commuting by themselves between parents. Until a few years ago, he says, “a parent would either go along with the kids or send an aunt or a nanny along. Now, kids have a great amount of responsibility placed on themselves.”

Some, like Michael, handle it well. They’re grateful for the chance to visit the other parent, and they seem to gain a sense of independence from traveling alone. To them it’s as easy as traversing the valley on the Ventura Freeway, only a bit more exciting. “Especially the turbulence,” Michael says.

But for others, the commute isn’t so simple. Some children are afraid of flying, some are intimidated by strangers in an unfamiliar setting, and some don’t want to leave the parent they’re living with.

Still others do want to leave. In January, a 12-year-old boy, tired of bouncing between his mom in Boston and his dad in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., decided that he wanted to live with his dad instead of his mom. He was such a veteran of air travel that--without his mother’s knowing--he was able to catch a cab to Logan Airport, slip past gate attendants and stow away on a Delta Air Lines flight to Florida.

Michael isn’t planning an escape from Sherman Oaks, but he’s no slouch either when it comes to airport knowledge.

“O’Hare, that’s the worst,” says Michael, who has commuted since age 5. “They have H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 and they go all the way through the alphabet with 15 numbers for each gate. But I like LAX because it’s organized, and in Austin there’s just 12 gates. Atlanta and Pittsburgh, you can handle them because there’s no one there. But a place like Dallas-Ft. Worth, there’s too many people--it’s crazy.”

So many children are flying alone these days that in some cities many airlines, including United, TWA and American, have established special rooms where they supervise children during layovers.

Mary Taylor, who supervises the unaccompanied minor room at United’s Denver hub, has seen many children of divorce pass through.

“I had one little boy who had just come from visiting his dad in Florida, and he started telling me: ‘I’m gonna move back with my dad. My dad wants me.’ He was just on cloud nine.”

Some of the older children resent having to stay in the room with younger children, Taylor says. “They say: ‘I’m big enough. I know what I’m doing.’ I think a lot of it has to do with the kids feeling like they’re being used. . . . And I’m sure they’re frustrated with the fact that mommy and daddy can’t be together.”

Because air travel can be such a hassle, airlines prohibit children under 5 from flying alone. And those between 5 and 7 can take only direct flights. Some airlines charge $30 for escorting children to connecting flights.

In addition, the adult who brings the child to the airport must provide the name, address and telephone number of the adult on the other end. The person picking up the child must show identification, which is especially important if there’s a custody dispute, says United spokeswoman Sara Dornaker.

Carlson says parents need to prepare their children for the experience or problems are bound to occur.

“Many kids don’t know they ought to be drinking liquids and snacking, and they sometimes forget to go to the bathroom,” Carlson says.

And some of them end up very fatigued. “Adults have trouble understanding the time perception of kids,” he says. “A 5 1/2-hour flight can seem like a 15 1/2-hour flight to a kid.”

Carlson says it’s helpful to explain the concept of air travel in a concrete manner, perhaps with a toy airplane. It’s also useful, he says, to make a cassette tape “saying aunt so-and-so is going to meet you at LaGuardia.”

While flying alone can be troublesome, for some children it also has benefits.

Jenna Ferer, 20, thinks commuting alone gave her an unusual sense of independence, which later fueled her desire to travel worldwide.

“It gave me traveler’s blood,” says Ferer, who spent last year traveling alone through Israel, Egypt, India and Nepal.

From the time Ferer was 5, she flew to see her dad in San Francisco and to vacation with him in Cabo San Lucas. Although traveling as a child in the United States was no problem, she says: “The airports in Mexico were just a big mess. I remember going through customs. It felt like being in a movie, with bamboo and palm leaves on the roofs and a dirt floor in the terminal.

“I thought it was really cool,” says Ferer, who often traveled with her brother, who is a year older.

But Ferer often feared her father wouldn’t be there to pick her up.

“We were put on a plane without anything being explained, and we were expected to intellectualize it. I learned not to trust my feelings. . . . I think I was upset about it, but I stuffed it down,” she says.

Some children don’t hide their feelings. Dornaker, United’s spokeswoman and a former flight attendant, says she saw a 7-year-old girl and her 5-year-old brother break into tears just after takeoff.

“They just sobbed their little eyes out after departure. I think it was the first time they had been separated from the parent they were living with. It was heart-rending.”

The flight attendants tried to comfort the children by serving their meal as quickly as possible, and they soon cheered up. After the meal, Dornaker says, the girl came up to her and said, “Did you find the tip we left on your tray?”

Michael is anything but anxious on a Thursday in February when he’s flying to Austin, Tex., to meet his dad for a short vacation.

Carrying a big black bag full of “junk my mom packed,” Michael trudges through the Continental terminal at LAX. “It’s just a regular thing to me,” he says.

While his mom, Laverne Maule, checks him in, Michael sits on a bench and draws cartoons. A few minutes later, Maule gives him his ticket and pins an orange badge onto his shirt, signifying that he’s flying alone. Michael isn’t pleased.

“It makes you feel really geeky,” he says, scrunching his face.

When it’s time to board, Michael and his mom walk up a ramp that leads to the door of the plane.

“Guess I’ll see ya Monday,” Michael says, shrugging his shoulders.

“Yeah,” Maule says, giving her son a kiss on the cheek. “Guess I’ll see ya Monday.”

Michael acts as if he’s going no farther than the bathroom. He’s planning to pass the time reading, playing Nintendo and talking to the other passengers.

For Maule, the trip is tougher.

“It would be better if he didn’t fly so much,” she says. “It’s time-consuming and expensive, and there’s some fear of problems happening. I worry until he gets there, and I worry until he gets back.”

Schlosberg is a regular contributor to The Times.