Kids On a Plane! Kids On a (Wrong) Plane!
Lucky for me, I live within driving distance of my family and most close friends, because the idea of flying with my kids – or worse yet, putting them on a plane by themselves – gives me the nervous sweats.
I know that’s the reality for plenty of families, though, and there are kids who are far, far more seasoned travelers than I’ll ever be. But even the most travel-savvy kid and cautious parent is no match for an incompetent airline.
Case in point: this story on Consumerist. Jonathan put his ten-year-old daughter on a plane in Boston to visit her grandparents in Cleveland. He paid the “unaccompanied minors” fee, which is supposed to guarantee that airline staff would look out for the girl until she was delivered safely into the hands of her waiting grandparents.
That didn’t happen. She somehow got onto a flight that was boarding at the same gate for Newark, and no one discovered it until her grandparents watched everyone but her come off the flight they were waiting for and called her father to find out why she wasn’t on the plane.
I’m a little unsure how she was able to get on the wrong flight if her father was there watching her board, but if it was the same jetway or if they walked out onto the tarmac and boarded via steps, I could see how that happened.
It gets better. The family finally figured out where the girl was when a Continental representative called the grandparents (whose number was listed on her paperwork) and informed them they could some pick her up. In Newark. No one called the father until the grandparents did.
The story doesn’t say how the poor girl finally got to her grandparents, but it does say the only resolution Continental has offered far is to refund the unaccompanied minor fee.
Yikes.
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Tags: consumerist, continental airlines, family travel, flying, kids flying, kids on a plane, travel, unaccompanied minors, visiting the grandparents
2 Comments
Shana commented on Jun 16 09 at 6:06 pmMy sister and I flew like this when she was five and I was twelve. We only had to fly from Corpus Christi to Houston where we were to meet our aunt who was flying with us to Trinidad & Tobago. Pretty much one of the stewardists had the job of checking us once in a while on the plane and walking us to our aunt. Maybe the one that was supposed to be doing their job for this flight felt put upon and didn’t bother. But really how often do you hear about the unnaccompanied minor travel going wrong. I would totally do it with my kids. I know that I am going to be sending mine to Sweden a lot to spend time with granny.
PlumbLucky commented on Jun 17 09 at 7:23 amRead an article *somewhere* on an AP news feed that said the two planes shared a jetway/single gate that split. Still - seems to me, at least from a PR POV, that Continental should do something a little bit more than offer to refund the Unaccompanied Minor fee, since it sure seems like they blew it.
