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Thanks for advice, I really appreciate it - have a great holiday.

Thank you, I appreciate your advice.  I'm new to all of this so I guess I still have all the moral highground thinking that doesn't apply.  Thank you.  

My husband's ex (never married) moved to Ohio approximately a year and half ago.  We live in Colorado which is where the child was born and the parenting plan was drawn up.  They have joint custody of their 6 year old daughter, but the ex has physical custody.  

The parenting plan they had drawn up stated that we would have visitation with his daughter every other Thanksgiving, a week at Christmas, and longer visits in the summer time.  There were no specifications as to how the travel arrangements would be worked out.  

The mother told us that it was our responsibility to pay for all of the plane tickets if we wanted to see the girl.  Becuase it wasn't stipulated in the contract, we did whatever we needed to to get to see her.  We also pay $400 a month in child support.  They have demanded that we repay them for unnacompanied minor fees as well because the ex does not believe paying for travel is her responsibility.  

Recently when we sent her home from Thanksgiving, his ex was late to the airport to pick up his daughter.  The mother then decided that it was now unsafe for her to fly alone.  She stated that she would no longer send her daughter on flights unless my husband flew with her.  She stated that she would not send her for Christmas unless we came out to get her.  We purchased the tickets for this Christmas trip at the end of October or early November.  

Besides the fact that we can't afford to buy all of these plane tickets, her flight is sold out anyway so we are in a lose/lose situation.  

My questions are the following:

1 - Most important, what do we do if the ex does not send her daughter?  (I want to make sure we do everything correctly)

2 - Does the ex and her husband have a responsibility to pay for some of the travel related expenses because of their great distance away?  

3 - Can we change the parenting plan to stipulate how travel is paid for?
  3a - How do we go about this?

4 - Becuase this is not the first time she has made stipulations on travel arrangements that we pay for, can we file a petition to have them move back to CO or to get physical custody?

5 - Can we get make up time with the girl since we will likely miss out on Christmas with her this year?  

6 - Finally, is air travel with an unnacompanied minor safe?  Are there statistics or anything?  It is nerve wracking to have her travel alone, but it is sort of our only option becuase we can't afford all of the tickets.  

We are both very concerned about making it hard on the daughter.  We don't want it to get ugly and make it harder for the girl - so we want to do the right, upstanding thing in this.  

Thank you

I posted this after the guidelines, I apologize, would you like me to re send it?  

My husband's ex (never married) moved out of state to Ohio approximately a year ago.  They have a parenting plan, joint custody, where he gets her for every other thanksgiving, a week at Christmas, longer visits in the summer.  His 6 year old daughter has flown here about three times using the unaccompanied minor program with the airlines.  We pay for all of the plane tickets and one time she and her husband had to pay the minor fee and they flipped out.  There is nothing in the parenting plan to outline how transportation is paid for.  Anyway, we had purchased his daughter's ticket for the Christmas visit this year in October/November.  When the daughter flew back to Ohio after Thanksgiving the mother and her husband were late to the airport to pick up the young girl.  The birth mother then got angry at us and decided it was no longer safe for the daughter to fly alone unless one of us flew with her.  We basically can not afford this, we pay at least $1,500 a year in tickets alone and then pay $400 a month for child support.  The mother is now saying she will not send the daughter for Christmas unless we fly with her.  Besides the fact that we can't afford it, there are no seats left on her flight.  What are we supposed to do?  We have tried to contact the person who was un charge of their parenting plan and she says there is nothing we can do to make her come out here.  We don't want to go to court because we don't want to make the daughter have to deal with legal proceedings and having her parents fighting.  We want the best and easiest thing for the daughter, but are tired of being stepped on by the mother - she has pulled various stunts like this in the past.  We aren't interested in causing huge problems, we are actually fine with paying for the tickets (even though we didn't move away) we just can't afford to keep catering to her whims.  Do we have any rights?  What do we do if she doesn't send the daughter?  I want to make sure we follow everything right according to law.  Thank you for your help

They have only been gone for about a year and a half now.  She has flown alone probably 3 times now.  The flights are between Denver and Cincinnati and are always nonstop.  It is about a 2 and half to 3 hour flight for her.  As far as she is concerned, she doesn't seem to mind, usually the flight attendants let her help give out drinks, and go to the cockpit and stuff.  She doesn't seem to be suffering any ill effects from the arrangement.  

He does have a parenting agreement.  The agreement states the times he gets to see her - every other Thanksgiving, one week at Christmas, every other spring break, 6-8 weeks in the summer.  What I'm not sure about though is the travel arrangements - we are looking over it to see what it says, but yes there is an agreement.  Thank you

My husband's ex (never married) lives in a different state and has custody of his daughter who is 6 years old.  We pay for all of the plane tickets and unnacompanied minors fees as well as $400 child support every month.  She has recently told us that she will not send the daughter out unless one of us flies with her the whole time - basically meaning we have to buy another plane ticket.  She is the one that moved, yet she tells us that it is all our responsibility - her and her husband do not have to pay any of the costs associated with travel and are now threatening to not let us see her unless we buy another ticket.  Is this legal?  Do we have any rights?  Can we demand they start paying for some of the transportation costs?  We are stressing out becuase we have already purchased her tickets for Christmas and have less than a month to get this straightened out - is there anything we can do?