Flight Deviations

An American student’s return date can be extended upon a parent’s request, if the participant has friends or relatives in Europe willing to take over responsibility for that participant once the official exchange program is over; however, The Friendship Connection, Inc. can no longer make these arrangements with the airlines due to the many restrictions they have placed on our negotiated contracts.

If parents choose to allow their child to extend the stay, either before or beyond, our 3 week exchange program in order to visit other friends or relatives in Europe, the parents would be responsible for purchasing their child’s ticket to and from Germany and would only owe The Friendship Connection, Inc. $350 to cover the illness/injury insurance and administrative fees, including expenses incurred by the chaperoning teachers who visit the German schools during the first 2 weeks of the exchange and who are available to all participants in order to help resolve any issues should they arise.

For those parents who purchase their child’s airfare on a different airline than the one FC uses for the summer program, they must realize that The Friendship Connection, Inc. cannot provide adult supervision for individuals not traveling with our group. We can, however, send the parents the Friendship Connection group flight information so that parents can book their child on the same flights as the Friendship Connection group departing from their local airport.

Parents who purchase their child’s airfare must fill out the “Flight Deviation Form” under the link “Forms” and send it in before March 18th. We will then remove that participant from our Friendship Connection flight list. In addition, we will need a copy of that participant’s full flight itinerary to have on file as soon as parents have purchased their child’s airfare.

The illness/injury insurance we purchase for all participants would only be in effect during that participant’s official FC exchange program experience; after the last official day of the exchange program, the insurance we provide will no longer be in effect. Therefore, parents are responsible for alerting their own family insurance company about their child’s oversees travel to make sure their child would be covered for any days beyond the official insurance policy Friendship Connection will provide. It is also wise to ask if there are any special claims forms or contact information the participant should bring along in case of a medical emergency during that private travel time after the exchange program portion has ended.

Please click on the link “Forms” and then “Flight deviation application form” to obtain the document needed to request a flight deviation from the group flights.