@me29034 if part of your concern is an inability to book a hotel room in the event of an overnight delay I can recommend the following. Call the hotel directly and ask to speak to the front desk or hotel general manager,explain the situation and pay for the room. Ideally you would be able to utilise a hotel chain with which you have a frequent traveller account. A past client history can help smooth out any blip of reluctance.
Some of us feel that we are, @GMTplus7 . 
Give some credit to your kids. My son traveled solo from the West Coast to the East Coast when he was a high school freshman. It was fine. Let kids learn to fend for themselves early and they will be more confident adults.
My oldest is (and has been for a long time) totally self-sufficient and could probably get himself anywhere in the world relatively OK (anywhere it’s legal to go at least).
My youngest (18) is still emailing me for his Minecraft password. 
Wouldn’t trade him for the world though!
We are spoiled living close to three major airports - Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm.
My daughter flew alone for the first time when she was fifteen, with one connecting flight. I think that we were more nervous than she was! We picked flights with a connection time of at least 1.5 hours so she wouldn’t feel rushed and she texted along the way to inform us of her progress. If something goes wrong, flight agents are there to help.
From an early age, we have also had the kids navigate airports when we travel. They like being able to tell us where to go.
We have a friend whose child had been flying alone since the age of 7 or so because the parents are divorced and live 1,000 miles apart. She’s now 12 or 13 and this kid is a pro!
We did not have direct flights from DC throughout my older son’s years at Alabama, but he would be the first to say that one quickly adapts to connecting flights and new airports. Charlotte is awesome, so perhaps she can make a connection from there. He flew through Atlanta, and he says it really is not that bad. If you are uncertain of where to go, ask someone with an airline.
The direct flight from BHM to BWI is great if you can get a seat with a low fare.
To address @Mandalorian, parking in ATL can be very cheap if you look at sales. I book parking through groupon since they have great sales and deals! I prefer ATL.
Also I rarely flew before coming to college. If we traveled we drove. But I’ve flown quite a bit since coming to college. I have learned how to navigate airports. It’s fairly easy. College kids are adults and should be able to manage it.
As a more seasoned parent now, I find the posts above both heartwarming in their concern, as I remember that I was once one of you…and humorous in their cynicism to these concerns, which has only been gained through (bad) experience and (significant) time delays in airports or on jetways…and some of you do not yet have this life experience with travel to/fro UA. It’s all good, both the concern and the flippancy. 
Both are very valid emotions.
For two out of the three winters that my S has flown into/out of MDW and BHM there have been terrible, epic-proportion weather-related delays affecting 10s of 1000s of people and 100s of flights…no one will easily forget the ice storms of 2013 and 2014… Some kids tried to fly back to campus early Jan 2014 and spent up to 5 days doing so, some even arriving after classes had already started that Wednesday. Yup, it happens. You live through it - do you want to? no - but you can live through it if you are one of the unfortunate ones caught in this situation.
Do have contingency plans, and continue to repeat the mantra ‘this is only a temporary problem…i will be fine’ throughout.
@aeromom, remember that ice storm well.
Not only did my DD have to fly back to BHM from Dallas during all of that mess, they had a fire alarm at the airport and had to evacuate the entire airport. Once they let them get back in, thru security again, she arrived at her gate to find they were already boarding. So much for that $12.50 for the Early Bird Check-In for her to have an A boarding pass.
FYI: We do get that bad icy weather here in Dallas. Even if the bad stuff does not hit here, the ripple effect of the delayed flights can cause a mess.
DD had a connection thru Charlotte one year to go from BHM to Raleigh. That one went smooth. It was the return flight that she was stuck in Chicago for over 8 hours that was fun. A fellow UA parent volunteered to go pick her up and let her see some sites, get some non airport food, etc. DD declined and said she needed to get some study time in and while in the terminal she had access to free wifi.
I do recommend that parents sign up themselves and their students for the airlines reward programs. My DD collected enough miles in her first 2 years at UA to receive a free roundtrip flight.
As for the hotels, they can get a room. During DD’s freshman year when the second round of a bad ice storm was going to be barreling down on the BHM area and she had a flight out the next morning, I called the Hampton Inn by the BHM airport and told them the situation and booked a room, no problems. She went up to BHM the day before her flight while the roads were still passible and stayed the night at the hotel. The hotel manager seemed to act like this was a common occurence for the college kids.
No, I’m not being cavalier; I’m speaking from experience as a parent w frequent-flyer minor kids.
Both my kids have been stuck as minors overnight in US and foreign airports because of connection SNAFUs. And i don’t purchase the “unaccompanied minor” hand-holding package. When a kid habitually flies international itineraries involving 3 consecutive flight segments, getting stuck sometimes happens.
S1 has slept in so many airports that he even wrote one of his essays about it-- it was a funny essay.
Do I worry? I worry about them oversleeping in the airport and missing their rescheduled connection? (that’s happened-- but I secretly suspect S2 was distracted playing video games on his computer on the airport free wifi ). But I don’t worry about security. There’s no more guarded public space in America than an airport.
** Airports are safer than college campuses. **There are no frat parties. There are no armed homicidal maniacs. There are no drunk drivers. There aren’t even people w fingernail clippers
I reiterate. It’s not like putting a man on the moon. There’s security, oxygen, ATMs, food, shopping, wifi, and a seat on the next plane out. Our family is not willing to restrict our opportunities to a radius of non-stop flights. I’m more concerned about the car ride to/from the airport. Now that’s dangerous.
GMTplus7-Just because you choose to allow your minor children to fly on three segment international flights doesn’t mean everyone would be comfortable making the same parenting decision. I personally would never allow my children to do that and just like you think it’s right for them to do so I think its not. Their are plenty of risks that I can think of that you didn’t mention in your assessment of US airports. There are still pedofiles, serial killers all types of people trying to pull different scams…and just the fact that my child may feel scared and vulnerable makes it not an option for me. Am I right and you wrong? No. It’s just a parenting decision we make that we could live with no matter the outcome.
I for one am definetly rethinking UA for my middle son who was accepted just because there is no direct flight. I think this a huge deal. My oldest flies back and forth from NJ to Vanderbilt and it’s an easy, cheap direct flight. If middle son wants to go far from home I’m looking for the same convenience and the same piece of mind this affords me.
Your college-age “child” son will be 18. Old enough to be drafted to fight for his country. When are u going to let him do a connecting flight by himself? When he’s 30?
As someone who hates to fly, I totally get the concerns about connecting flights. Going to school a thousand miles away can be a lot to pull off logistically, especially when saving funds is the priority. Not gonna lie, the fact that we have access to an easy-peasy nonstop flight from PHL to BHM is a major PLUS for our family. Even when it’s the pricier option, it’s often the one we choose.
Every family needs to decide for itself how much time and money they’re willing to put into travel. Usually the cheaper option requires more connections, so if that’s the only way to make it work, you make it work. But if your student is comfortable making the trip and she’s mature enough to go away to college, then I think this is more in the “minor nuisance” category than a deal-breaker.
@GMTplus7 - When my sons are 30 I’m sure I won’t be making their decisions for them but while I still am, I’ll be making decisions that I can live with. I feel like this is sort of like the debate we as parents have when the kids are babies. Some parents rush to potty train and take away the bottle saying they’re old enough but I didn’t rush any of that and none of my boys went to Kindergarten in diapers holding a bottle. The right age for everyone is different and it doesn’t make one decision right or wrong.
And BTW It’s not one connecting flight that bothers me. Its several a year for 4 years.
I let my boys wear bigboy pants.
Congratulations
For crying out loud. We have UA students flying solo to and from home in Hawaii.
I’ve been hanging around CC since the summer (maybe before?) and have pretty much boiled our list down to the southeast, with the northernmost points being Virginia and Maryland, western most point would be Nashville I suppose? Is this too logistically-oriented on our part? Probably.
I just know this particular kiddo enough to know that he isn’t going to want to fly all over the country getting to and from school. He also does not like the cold, growing up in SoFla.
I really do think this issue is family-specific and even child-specific. My other kid (the one who didn’t want to go to college) wants to spend a few months in Germany. Go figure.
Now if younger son came to me jazzed to go to school in California or Washington, I’d be all for it. But that is about as likely as us winning the Florida lottery.
@GMTplus7 - I always love your flight stories.
If anyone thinks flying is bad, imagine having your daughter driving by herself 600+ miles. I prefer her to fly.
Yes, she has had car trouble along the way once. On a Sunday! There are zero car repair places open on a Sunday in Mississippi, where she was when she first started having trouble. No, she was not in a “pos” car. Thankfully, it was, and dare I even use the word “just”, but, just overheating. She had to pull off the highway several times to let the car cool off before continuing her drive back to Tuscaloosa. I had the “Find My Friends” app on my phone and was able to help her know where to get off and head to a gas station or such as some are not right on the service road. She made it back safely after lots of prayers on my end and some street smarts on hers. Like, do NOT sit on the side of the highway, get off the highway! Nope, even AAA was not much help that day 
We are now members of the BMW Car Club of America and they seem to be quicker to respond from what I’ve seen.
This next fall, I will be sending my then 17 year old daughter off to college. She was looking at schools even further away than UA that would have been at least 1 1/2 - 2 days of driving or flying that would not have the option of nonstops and then still a good 1-2 hours drive! However, it now looks like UA is calling her home. 
I will be thrilled to have both my girls at the same school for one year.
ROLL TIDE