Planning for a domestic or international trip can be an exciting thing; however, it also can be a stressful thing especially when you have a question in mind,
In this guide, you will be getting the answer to whether your child can fly without a birth certificate or not.
It is better to connect with the airline company to ask what type of documents would be required at the checkpoints for your child to fly so that you can avoid any inconvenience at the time of travel.
In general, the Transportation Security Administration has released instructions for people to have the birth certificates of their children under the age of 18 years so that they can get clearance from the TSA Security Checkpoints.
It means that your child won’t be able to fly with you if you are not having his/her birth certificate in the list of documents.
When it comes to knowing about the rules and regulations of adults to fly, everything seems pretty straightforward as we know what type of documents are required.
However, nothing is straightforward when a little infant or baby is going to be a part of air travel. When traveling with a child, documentation, and procedures can be different as per region and location. You may be confused, how to fly with a child when there is no birth certificate available, or what type of documents would be necessary.
Age would be the most important thing to consider in this regard because requirements can be different for children with different age brackets.
One must know that most airline companies have their own rules and regulations in this regard, some of them may ask for a Birth Certificate no matter what, and some others may allow an infant to fly without a Birth Certificate.
These rules can also be different for domestic and international travel because when traveling domestically, rules may remain the same in all regions of a country, however, when crossing international borders, every country may have a different kinds of requirement for children to fly.
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Requirements
ID is an important document for individuals in airline traveling and without ID proof; no airline would allow you to travel. If a child under the age of 18 is traveling with you; you may wonder if ID proof is required or not.
When you are flying on domestic flights, a child under the age of 18 does not have to show ID proof. A boarding pass or birth certificate would be enough evidence for the child to fly.
Moreover providing a birth certificate is also essential because certain airlines have specific fare discounts for children as per their age. For instance, the majority of airlines allow children with age two or under to fly without paying any fare.
The age range from more than 2 to 11 years is eligible to pay a discounted amount of fare. However, this discount may not be available at the end of every airline company; rather few of them may charge full fare without any kind of discount. So, in the case of getting age-based discounts, it is vital to provide the birth certificate of your child.
Requirements for Domestic and International Air Travel
It was mentioned earlier that minors won’t be asked to provide ID proof on domestic flights; however, ID proof is required for them to travel on international flights. There is one more thing to keep in mind; if a single parent is traveling with his/her child, then he/she will be required to show a permission letter from his/her partner which indicates that consent is given on the part of his/her partner.
If permission or a notarized letter is not available, then it will be mandatory to show court orders clearly indicating the custody or guardianship of the baby. In this situation or in any other situation, it will always be helpful to keep the birth certificate of the child in a list of documents to avoid any confusion and inconvenience.
You must also understand that requirements can be different for single parent travel and a child as per destination country and region. So, it is always good to check with the airline company and review the requirements of the destination country. Otherwise, you may not be allowed to land in a country, if required documents are missing.
Bottom Line
Looking at the variety of information, you may have clearly understood that all other travel documents will be based on the given circumstances, whether you are traveling on a domestic or international flight, what the age of a baby is, and if the child is traveling with both parents or a single parent; in every scenario mentioned above, it is always recommended to have child’s birth certificate in the documents as it will get you through in various situations.
Especially, when it comes to determining the age of a child, the birth certificate is a necessary travel document. Your friends and family members may tell you that airline companies do not check the age proof of a minor child, etc.
but you should never take their advice as any airline company can ask for age proof documents at any stage of the trip. And if you don’t have the proof, you may not be allowed to travel with your child.
What if you have taken holiday leaves for a week from your work and made a proper schedule to fly to another country or state with the departure date, and date of arriving back to your home; everything is set, and you have been stopped at the airport to show age proof of your child, and you don’t have any kind of document to prove this.
Your schedule will be ruined completely because you won’t be allowed to fly, and you will have to arrange the required document. It is just one scenario to tell you that having a birth certificate is a must for you so that your child can fly with you without facing any issues.
