Aer Lingus has denied claims its decision to cease catering for unaccompanied child passengers on its flights is part of a cost-cutting exercise at the State airline.
A spokeswoman for the company said: "If cost was the rationale we would leave the service stand and charge for it. Cost is not the issue, the safety of children is."
The airline has confirmed that from February 1st it will not accept reservations for unaccompanied minors aged under 12 on any Aer Lingus scheduled service.
The decision will have a knock- on effect on other airlines which fly out of Ireland using Aer Lingus aircraft under "code-share" arrangements. KLM and British Airways are both expected to terminate their unaccompanied minors services on such code-share routes.
However, along with other airlines, including Air France, they say they have no plans to terminate the service on flights which they operate themselves.
Under the new Aer Lingus arrangements, which mirror those in place at Ryanair and other low-frills airlines, children under 12 will not be allowed to travel on any flight unless accompanied by an adult aged 16 or over who takes responsibility for the child.
Passengers aged 12-15 can travel on their own but only on an adult ticket and where a parent or guardian has signed an indemnity form relinquishing any responsibility from Aer Lingus.
The company said the decision was taken "in the interest of safety and security of children in a changing environment where airports are becoming more congested with a greater number of people availing of air travel".
The Aer Lingus spokeswoman added: "The last thing we want to do is scaremonger but we feel we can no longer guarantee the safety of children travelling unaccompanied. We don't want to wait until something happens to act."
Among the issues which have raised concern are unaccompanied minors who are stranded at airports because of delays or cancellations and foreign children where communication is a problem.
Until now, Aer Lingus provided a free service for about 150 unaccompanied minors on average a day. Other airlines which offer the service said yesterday they had no plans to discontinue it despite Aer Lingus's safety concerns.
However neither Ryanair nor EasyJet said they had any plans to introduce such a service.
