Arranging an Airport Ride for a Family Member Traveling Alone

What to Arrange Before the Trip

• Give the traveler's phone number as primary contact, and your own as secondary. The driver needs to reach the person actually being picked up.
• Provide the flight number, not just an arrival time, so flight tracking handles any delay automatically.
• Confirm the exact destination address, including apartment, building, or gate code if relevant.
• Note anything the driver should know — mobility needs, help with luggage, a preference for a quieter ride.
• Make sure the traveler knows a ride is arranged. This sounds obvious and is skipped constantly. Someone who doesn't know to expect a driver will head for a rideshare app or a taxi line instead.

Elderly Parents and Relatives

• Request airline wheelchair assistance separately, through the airline, if getting through a large terminal is difficult. This is not something ground transportation arranges — it's requested with the airline, ideally 48 hours or more in advance, and reconfirmed the day before.
• Ask for help with luggage when booking, so it's expected rather than a favor requested at the curb.
• Consider vehicle height. Some older travelers find an SUV easier to get into than a low sedan; others find the opposite. Worth asking them rather than guessing.
• Build in more time than the schedule requires. Deplaning with assistance, walking a long terminal, and reaching the curb all take longer than a typical traveler's timeline assumes.
• Booking by phone is completely normal, and worth doing on their behalf if they'd rather not deal with an app or website.

Teenagers and Young Adults Flying Alone

• Airline unaccompanied minor programs have specific age thresholds and rules that vary by carrier — check your airline's policy, since some require the program below a certain age and some prohibit connecting flights entirely.
• Make sure they have your number saved and their phone charged. A dead phone is the most common point of failure for a young traveler.
• Tell them exactly where to go and who to expect — the driver's name and vehicle details arrive by text, but a teenager who doesn't know that's coming may not be watching for it.
• Give them a fallback instruction: if anything is confusing, call you before improvising.
• Consider whether you want the driver to confirm the handoff with you — mention it when booking if you'd like a check-in.

First-Time Flyers and Visitors From Abroad

• An international visitor may not have a working U.S. phone number on arrival. This is the single biggest friction point — see our international arrivals guide for detail, but the short version: book by phone or email in advance, and give your number as a reachable backup.
• Terminal 5 at O'Hare is where most international flights arrive, and customs processing means the gap between landing and reaching the curb can be an hour or more.
• Airport WiFi is free at O'Hare with no time limit, so messaging apps generally work even without cellular service.
• Explain what a pre-booked ride looks like. In some countries the norm is different, and a visitor may not know to look for a driver rather than a taxi rank.

What to Send Them in Writing

1. The pickup arrangement — that a ride is booked, and roughly when
2. What will happen — they'll get a text with the driver's name and vehicle
3. Where to go — the specific pickup area for their terminal
4. Your phone number, again, even though they have it
5. What to do if something goes wrong — call you first

Written beats verbal here. Someone who's just gotten off a long flight will not reliably remember a phone conversation from three days ago, but they can re-read a message.