Airport transit dilemma - 'nanny service'

[fevs2090]

Hi I wonder if someone could give me some advice.
A friend of mine living in Australia has had to leave to the UK ahead of her 12 and 15 year old children as her brother has died unexpectedly. Her children will follow unaccompanied flying Sydney to Singapore and then on to London but with a transit time of 6 hours at Singapore airport. (late night to early hours in the morning)
Her airline does not provide any care for unaccompanied 'minors' and they are on the cusp of not being young enough for this service anyway.
She is understandably anxious about them being alone at the airport for 6 hours, potentially sleepy and not making the connection through to their London flight.
Does anyone know of any reliable 'nanny' service that might be able to provide secure, reliable adult supervision for the children in the transit area until they are back on the plane to London? I have searched the airport website without success. All the children services seem to be related to individual airlines rather than the airport itself. Thank you. F

[ecureilx]

Hi I wonder if someone could give me some advice.
A friend of mine living in Australia has had to leave to the UK ahead of her 12 and 15 year old children as her brother has died unexpectedly. Her children will follow unaccompanied flying Sydney to Singapore and then on to London but with a transit time of 6 hours at Singapore airport. (late night to early hours in the morning)
Her airline does not provide any care for unaccompanied 'minors' and they are on the cusp of not being young enough for this service anyway.
She is understandably anxious about them being alone at the airport for 6 hours, potentially sleepy and not making the connection through to their London flight.
Does anyone know of any reliable 'nanny' service that might be able to provide secure, reliable adult supervision for the children in the transit area until they are back on the plane to London? I have searched the airport website without success. All the children services seem to be related to individual airlines rather than the airport itself. Thank you. F

Changi does have some concierge and assistance services.

Which airline are they flying in / transiting ?

[fevs2090]

Thanks for your interest. They are on Virgin - code sharing with Singapore airlines. She rang Virgin but they apparently have no facility or willingness to help with unaccompanied children in transit in Singapore. As they are not booked directly with Singapore airlines, their unaccompanied children service is not available. Very difficult.

[PNGMK]

Change their flights to Singapore airlines? Part of the problem here is that to provide help the helper has to get through to the transit side which means entering via the immigration gates. A quick google shows no appropriate service from Changi airport. Another alternative is to pay someone to fly with the kids from Sydney to Singapore - get them on the flight and then turn around and go home.

[fevs2090]

Thank you - I think one of those two options will have to be the solution. Much appreciated. I just wanted to check if there was a Singapore airport facility/service that she had not been able to find from this end. Cheers

[PNGMK]

Thank you - I think one of those two options will have to be the solution. Much appreciated. I just wanted to check if there was a Singapore airport facility/service that she had not been able to find from this end. Cheers

I don't think so - at least not on their website. It's actually a very good suggestion for Changi to add such a service. At 15 I would have been able to do such a trip but I know it's a bit much if the kids have not travelled internationally before.

[x9200]

Or just come up with a plan step by step the kids should be able to handle.

Precheck:
Ensure they both have mobile phones with the roaming activate (two different providers preffered).
Ensure they have something that can do an alarm clock job.
Check with the Singapore outbound flight airline if possible, and if yes, what number to call when the gate opens to check whether the kids passed the gate.
Check who to call in the Changi airport in case the kids have trouble to locate the gate (instruct the kids where to look for help too - stop any passing ground staff, for example driving the carts).
Ensure the kids have chargers for their mobile phones (there are places to charge in Changi)
Let them have a tablet or something capable of doing connections over wifi - Internet is free at Changi, but be sure they don't exhaust the batteries at their phones.
Do the usual job: check in/out terminals, and if not the same how to get to the right place. Print out maps if necessarily etc.

Execution:
Set the alarm clocks to the time shortly before the gate gets open.
Call them after they arrive at Changi (it will be late evening in the UK)
Establish a connection over wifi (skype, messenger anything).
When the No of the gate is known (can be checked online), communicate again to check if they are clear where is this place. Tell them if they are sleepy to get to the gate and sleep there.
1h or so before the gates open call them again to confirm everything is ok.
Tell them to send you a text message once they cross the gate.

Nb. I flew in and back from Europe some older folks who didn't speak a single word in English and the trips were with stopovers. The key is to have means of communication. If that's in place, everything else is usually manageable unless you fly airfrance.

[sundaymorningstaple]

...everything else is usually manageable unless you fly airfrance.

Still LMAO....

[ecureilx]

Thanks for your interest. They are on Virgin - code sharing with Singapore airlines. She rang Virgin but they apparently have no facility or willingness to help with unaccompanied children in transit in Singapore. As they are not booked directly with Singapore airlines, their unaccompanied children service is not available. Very difficult.

I was 11 when I was traveling alone for studies abroad, though the airline is well known to take care of UAs.

As for your question, did you check with SQ ?

Alternate, google for Affinity Concierge Services

I haven't got a reply from my Airline contact about the personal services.

Though I know for sure Affinity and JQ did offer such services, though JQ is priced for the premium travelers.

PNGMK, a lot of Sub Con forums are awash with requests to accompany mummy, daddy, children