The 6 year old unaccompanied minor that Spirit Airlines sent to the wrong airport – to Orlando instead of Fort Myers, Florida – isn’t the only minor flown to the wrong place by a U.S. airline this holiday season.
While the 6 year old’s Philadelphia family spent extra for the airline to manage the child, and the employee who stuck the child on the wrong plane despite the paperwork and boarding pass has been fired, a teenager flying similar low cost carrier Frontier wound up in the wrong place under their own direction.
It was, naturally, another Florida flight. The 16 year old was flying from Tampa to Cleveland and wound up in San Juan on December 22. The two flights were departing from the wrong gate and the minor was there early, boarding the San Juan flight which departed before the aircraft for Cleveland arrived. The gate agent did not scan his boarding pass.
Logan Lose, was nervous about flying alone for the first time and checked with the gate agent before boarding his flight. [Father] Ryan Lose said the agent checked his son’s baggage and looked at his boarding pass but did not scan it.
When the plane landed in Puerto Rico, Logan frantically texted his family.
Frontier flew him back to Tampa and then to Cleveland the next day, to visit his mother for Christmas.
Troubling is that the plane’s passenger count was off and nobody noticed. Gate agents don’t always scan boarding passes, especially when there are problems with the scan, and they’ll enter a passenger manually into the computer at the gate – but errors are possible.
Spirit and Frontier. That’s just shocking. SHOCKING.
Perhaps FAA needs to threaten withdrawal of Air Carrier Certificates held by both Spirit and Frontier, for their inexcusable mistakes that should have been entirely preventable! And to think that Spirit and Frontier were, at one point, applying to merge together … lucky that effort did not succeed!
Hilarious. At age sixteen, he most likely was doing a trial run of emancipation.
I myself almost ended up in the wrong continent, in supposedly super secure Israel of all places, and I was on the jetway before a “have a nice flight to Israel” comment from a flight crew tipped me off that I was on the wrong flight.
How about some more stories about confusing Austria and Australia?
Yawn. Kid’s an idiot then. Back in the ‘99s airlines didn’t require that parents pay for unaccompanied minor status starting at age 12. I knew how to fly very well by that age and was thrilled to be ubshackled. I remember on my first trip right after I turned 12- I was going to visit family in San Francisco. On delta. Louisville- Cincinnati- San Francisco. Agent asked me if I needed help. I said certainly not. I never looked back. That 16 year old was an idiot. The minute he heard them say they were going to San Juan he should have said something. I don’t know if it’s his fault or the fault of the way kids are raised these days, but I don’t put all the blame on the airline here. Stop coddling kids. They can’t fend for themselves and are just helpless. No sympathies here for this worthless 16 year old
There’s no mention of the adult who would have brought both of these kids to the airport, and should have been staying with them until the plane took off. How the hell do you allow an airline to put your kid on the wrong flight?
Did the 16 year olds family actually utilize the UM services, or did they figure he was old enough to manage on his own? Most 16 year old kids can easily navigate an airport. Heck, my 11 year old grandson could fly alone if he had to.
Finally, why would you put your kid on an ULCC if they’re alone? Too many things can go wrong and they would be screwed if there’s a diversion, cancellation, or hours long delay.
He’s 16 – he probably did it on purpose. A nice little overnight adventure.
I flew by myself at age 12 and had a connection in DFW. No staff was with me. I had the layout of DFW from my public library and even brought quarters to play on the arcade, lol. And this was 1984, so obviously no cell phone.
My only thinking is that this kid had special.needs or something like that, but who knows, I’ve boarded the wrong flight before (and after 9/11!), and didn’t catch it until the pilot announced they were flying to Pittsburgh, not PHL.
At 16, he should have been able to negotiate getting to the right place with a little coaching of what to expect at the airport. Yes the gate agent didn’t do the job correctly but the young adult should have checked to make sure he was on the correct flight. A lot of young adults are too shy to ask at that age so they have to be taught to ask where the flight is going to.
Agree that there are three issues here. First, the 16-year old ending up in the wrong city is, to be honest, a good part the fault of the parent who didn’t accompany them until they boarded. If the kid WAS truly concerned about flying, then all the more reason for the parent to stay with them until they board.
Second, is the security issue. Regardless of whether this was a “big deal”, the gate agent and whoever is responsible for the final passenger count needs to be disciplined and their performance tracked long-term. Not sure I would fire them over this, unless it happened before, but it sounds like someone was fired, which I can understand.
Third, the airline needs to institute or strengthen policies to ensure this doesn’t happen. Maybe they have and I don’t know them. If the consequence of allowing the wrong people to board and/or having the wrong passenger count is severe, the airline should have redundancy checks built in to catch errors before take-off (e.g., multiple counts by different people, repeated announcements of destination, extra checks/notification after gate changes, etc.).
It seems to me the third issue is the biggest problem here.
Surely if you’re old enough to drive, you should be able to determine the correct gate. And if my 16 year old did this on purpose he wouldn’t be driving for another 2 years.
Very preventable with some minor planning and rehearsal. The flight number, airport code, and destination name are all something the kid should be taught to double check, as is the at least 2 times they’re announced and multiple times they’re displayed. Go over everything with your kids and teach them to watch out for the details. Heck they should know they can double check with other passengers too, especially parents with kids would be happy to help with something as simple as a confirmation and allowing your kid to stand in line with them.
This is a side effect of prioritizing on-time departure with your employees and reducing your gate agents to one. Scanners are error prone and having to stop to manually enter random passengers will end up dinging the gate agent for delaying departure.
Kids have no situational awareness. Head buried in their iPhone with headphones on. Probably never heard gate announcement nor on board announcements.
Nevertheless the gate agent when he/she was told the head count was off needed to investigate further.
In 1964 I was 6 and flew unaccompanied from SDF to HHH with a change in BNA. Both ways. On Piedmont.
I remember a staffer knocking on the belly of the plane to get them to lower the stairs for me.
@Linda, @Thing1
The mother DID bring the teen to the gate. The teen asked the gate agent if they were boarding. The gate agent said “yes”, then wanted to see the teen’s carry on luggage and if it was compliant. Then teen claimed he showed her the boarding pass but was shooed off and told it was OK while the agent was assessing the carry on luggage.
All this according to CNN. Shortly afterwards, the mother called the father. The father’s 9 year old son (probably teen’s half brother) said that wasn’t right and deduced that the teen was on the wrong plane heading to San Juan based on the gate number! Father then called the teen, whose phone was on voice mail but the plane hadn’t yet taken off from the runway.
In flight, the captain told the airline that he would keep an eye on the teen.
The teen missed his chance to see San Juan. His return flight to Florida was the same as his first flight, leaving around 3 am
@ted poco:
> This is a side effect of prioritizing on-time departure with your employees and reducing your gate agents to one. Scanners are error prone and having to stop to manually enter random passengers will end up dinging the gate agent for delaying departure.
Good point. When you set up a workflow based on things working correctly the workers won’t have time to deal with things that don’t work correctly and corners will be cut. The more efficient a system becomes the more brittle it becomes. Since the emphasis is all on time, not on accuracy the result will be accuracy suffers.
Update
TPA SJU departs 7:59 pm.
TPA CLE departs 10:16 pm.
The teen got to the gate early!
This is 100% airline fault. No if’s…and’s or but’s. The responsibility of the agents are to clearly and distinctly scan and verify the boarding passes, etc. No one knows the capability of a 16 year old traveling for the first time by himself. He is a minor. Many things can overwhelm a new traveler. I do recall flying from Atlanta to Salt Lake and due to heavy bookings, I flew to Kansas City to change planes. It would delay my travel by one hour. Big deal. While waiting for the connecting flight, one of our aircraft that never flies to KMCI was taxiing in. Management was going crazy. Seems that a 6 year old was put on the plane going to KSLC rather than KMIA! The plane made a technical stop to offload the kid and put him on the flight back to KATL and then on to KMIA. This was a fluke, in a way. A teenager going to visit one parent in KSLC and pissed off about the divorce, intentionally took the 6 year old’s boarding pass from the envelope around the kid’s neck and swapped it with his boarding pass to KSLC. When the airline agent took the kids from the secure area where they were awaiting to the gates to KMIA and KSLC next to each other, everything looked “normal” until the plane landed in KMIA and the wrong kid got off! Both kids were in “custody” the whole time. Who would have thought that a teen would surreptitiously swap boarding passes? Since they are under 18, they are not required to have a photo ID.
I know a con man who once told me he could get more mileage out of 10% of the truth than a lie. So it seems to be with headlines. At 16, I had often traveled alone and so have thousands of others. The Six-year-old? Big deal. I get the kid had a great time.
Big issue is scan of boarding pass. If not done, Frontier screwed up. Wasn’t that the issue with Spirit a few days ago….lack of scan.
“It was, naturally, another Florida flight.”
Not the same situation. The 6-year-old on Spirit took off from Philadelphia and was going to Florida. The 16-year-old on Frontier took off from Tampa. Nobody in Florida was to blame for the 6-year-old’s situation.
I remember as a kid I took a UA flight from DC to Dallas and they took such good care of me. Looking back probably one of those pivotal moments that made me enjoy travel so much.
Not sure how it works now but once my Mom dropped me off, someone was with me the whole time and I got a personal escort to the plane. Then after everyone got off the FA held my hand and escorted me through the terminal until my grandpa met me and showed ID. Same on way back.
Seems like a simplier time back then, so much hustle and bustle now a days.
He is 16. He is getting a driver license. Forget that. At that age I was smoking cigarettes stealing booze. Taking algebra and computer programming. Driving to work and school. And this 16 needs assistance to read a sign in Tampa. I mean I. Can see help in LHR changing terminal s.
It’s been a few years since I retired but what happened to the chain of custody docs that were required by everyone in the UM program??
The parent/guardian signed off to the CSA at the departure airport. The CSA handed the docs off to the Lead FA after verifying their name and destination. An FA took the UM to the seat and briefed them one in one over safety protocols including they are to remain seated until a uniformed employee escorted them off the plane. The chain of custody doc was signed off again by the CSA or sometime FA who took them to the gate to make a connection (another sign off) or authorized person picking up the child after verifying ID & another sign off.
Not labor intensive at all and in 26 years never lost anyone.
Before they take off the flight crew on the plane discussed in advance how they will handle emergencies. A parent who does not watch their child board the correct flight, track the flight as it progresses and have the child check on landing is irresponsible. They should also discuss with their child how to ask if they are on the correct flight and how to deal with some type of unscheduled problem. If this keeps up airlines will eventually stop providing service to unaccompanied children because of the increased liability and limited income it produces.
Oh BS the kid isn’t necessarily an idiot. I’ve gotten on the wrong flight (to Paris instead of London) at IAD and they actually checked me through. While I realized it before we took off the gates were changed no announcement was made and they actually SCANNED ME THROUGH.
Sh*t happens sometimes and anyone can make mistakes.
Irresponsible lazy parents
Year’s ago at SFO the end of the pier was known as the Bermuda Triangle. We had three gates close together in a semi circle and if I recall correctly there were kid’s that ended up on wrong flight’s. Good Times