Trying to figure out air travel

[coolmomof4]

What is the name of your state? GA

My husband is in the process of trying to agree on air travel with his ex. We let his son (hubby has custody) fly for the first time, on his return trip over xmas and his mother flew with him.

One issue that has come up is that we had the times in the draft, such as on school fridays, the fight to bio-mom in NC shall be no earlier than 6pm (because of the time he gets home from school and the distance to the airport.) And the return trip to GA being no earlier than 4pm. Bio-mom says she will be losing time with him, with this schedule which cannot possibly be true, given the distance between her home and her airport. But she wouldn't be gaining extra time either.

She wants the order to say the flight times "as mutually agreed to" which we don't want to do because those words have caused problems in the past with other visitation issues. We don't mind pushing the return flight time out a couple of hours, getting him home around 9 on a school night, but the only way he could get on an earlier flight on Friday would be to miss some school. We don't want that to start a habit.

She's also asking that we be flexible with the visitation schedule itself when he flies, to "justify the cost of the ticket", Such as whenever he has a 3 day weekend, could she switch the schedule so she gets that weekend, hence an extra day. We don't have a problem with doing that sometimes, we've already agreed to do that in Feb. But does it really need to be in an order?

Most of it comes down to her wanting to get the cheapest tickets, that fits into her schedule.

Please give feedback. Thanks.

 

[VeronicaGia]

You have an order that specifically states visitation times and I would absolutely not agree to "mutually agreed upon" or any other term(s) that could will cause problems.

As far as three days instead of two, I see no problem with just doing that and seeing how it goes. You may find she will expect it as opposed to being happy about your flexibility, so I would not want to put it in writing at first.

Working togeter is always a good thing, but letting go of some of the legal stipulations in the order is not good.

 

[MamaLlama]

same situation

I was working on the same kind of agreement and we found that it met all parties need to state that each year we would agree on the visitation scheduled before school starts which allowed ust o make a schedule based on the school schedule and intentionally planned visits around the long weekends from school so the children did not have to miss days of school. If you set these days in advance but allow it to vary upon mutual agreement (with sufficient advanced notice of at least a week) then you have something to fall back on when there is no mutual agreement to change the visit.

 

[stealth2]

And then you get ex's like my friendly little one who insists that "after school" means that they will be on the plane by the time school lets out. My attorney told me that I can fight it and insist on a later flight, but if the kids are doing well in school (and they are - High honors) a judge will likely order me to pull them out early once a month to make that early flight. Not a hill I want to die on.