Mother left to choose between her seat and her 12-year-old son on overbooked Málaga flight

A mum and her 12-year-old son had already paid around €1,500 for a Marbella holiday, only to then experience the boy being stopped at the airport gate while everyone else boarded. Rather than leave him waiting alone for hours, she gave up her own seat too, and said nobody warned them beforehand.

A 12-year-old was picked out while everyone else boarded

Karoline Tellum-Djarraya, 54, and her son Viktor were due to fly from Oslo Gardermoen to Málaga on Sunday morning, September 27, with a Marbella holiday waiting at the other end. They’d paid around 16,000 Norwegian kroner (€1,500) for the trip, and their flight was due to leave at 6.25am.

However, the flight was overbooked, and at the gate it was Viktor who was stopped. ‘We weren’t told anything until the plane started boarding. Then Viktor was stopped, and we stood there waiting until everyone else was on board,’ she told VG.

Rather than leave him standing alone at the gate for hours, she used her flexible ticket to switch to the next flight, which left at 11am, and the pair travelled together on that instead. ‘It’s not a voluntary rebooking when I have a 12-year-old who’d otherwise be standing alone at the gate,’ she said. The family said they received no compensation and no meal vouchers, and she now says she won’t fly with Norwegian again.

Norwegian says its system didn’t see them as a family

Norwegian’s press officer, Catharina Solli, said the airline’s priorities in an overbooking are ‘absolutely not random’, and pointed out that Karoline had booked a flexible ticket for herself and a youth ticket for Viktor in two separate reservations. That meant its system didn’t show them as travelling together.

The airline added that a flexible ticket lets you switch to a later departure, and said it understood why she’d done that to stay with her son. It treated her move to the later flight as voluntary, and no compensation was paid.

Now, plenty of families would assume ‘surely the airline can see we’re together’, but Norwegian’s explanation suggests the system only sees what’s in each booking.

Norwegian lets children of 12 fly on their own 

Under Norwegian’s own rules, children aged 12 to 15 can travel without an adult, and its optional service for children travelling alone costs €50 per child each way. However, the airline itself notes that delays, cancellations, gate changes or rerouting can happen, and recommends that children carry a note with pick-up details and contact numbers. 

EU rules say airlines must ask for volunteers first

Under EU passenger rights rules, which cover flights to and from Norway as well as flights leaving Spanish airports, airlines must first ask for volunteers to give up their seats in exchange for something agreed with the airline. Only if too few come forward can they deny boarding against passengers’ wishes.

Passengers denied boarding against their will are entitled to a refund or a rebooking, food and drink while they wait, and compensation. On a flight of between 1,500km and 3,500km, which includes Oslo to Málaga at roughly 2,800km, that’s up to €400 each.

It isn’t clear whether Norwegian called for volunteers first, and Karoline said nobody told them anything before boarding began. That leaves open whether a parent who changes flights to stay with their child has really volunteered, especially when the alternative is to leave a minor unaccompanied in an airport and to travel alone for hours. 

So if it happens to your family, ask straight away whether the airline has called for volunteers, because up to €400 each is only on the table if you were denied boarding against your will.