Apparently this over-the-top “protection” of their unaccompanied child passengers only extends to treating male passengers like potential pedophiles; and not to actually supervising the kids themselves. This is how United Airlines managed to “lose” a 10-year-old girl during a connection in Chicago – and then refused to do anything about it.
“We dropped our 10-year old Phoebe at the San Francisco airport on Saturday, June 30th for her first flight as an unaccompanied minor,” wrote father Perry Klebahn to United Airlines in a strongly worded letter of complaint. “She was traveling through Chicago to Traverse City, Michigan to summer camp for two weeks.”
“We waited for the call from camp that she arrived safely. That call did not come. Instead we received a frantic call from the camp that Phoebe was not on the flight, nor did the United person in Traverse City know why she was not on the flight.”
It turned out that 10-year-old Phoebe got “lost” during her connection in Chicago – and, according to her father, United Airlines didn’t care.
“She landed and no one came to get her,” Perry wrote. “The attendants were busy and could not help her she told us. She told them she had a flight to catch to camp and they told her to wait. She asked three times to use a phone to call us and they told her to wait. When she missed the flight she asked if someone had called camp to make sure they knew and they told her “yes—we will take care of it”. No one did. She was sad and scared and no one helped.”
This horrible story just goes to show that the real danger to unaccompanied minors on flights doesn’t come from male strangers who might be sitting next to them – but from airline staff who fail spectacularly in their role of supervising these young passengers.
“We dropped our 10-year old Phoebe at the San Francisco airport on Saturday, June 30th for her first flight as an unaccompanied minor,” wrote father Perry Klebahn to United Airlines in a strongly worded letter of complaint. “She was traveling through Chicago to Traverse City, Michigan to summer camp for two weeks.”
“We waited for the call from camp that she arrived safely. That call did not come. Instead we received a frantic call from the camp that Phoebe was not on the flight, nor did the United person in Traverse City know why she was not on the flight.”
It turned out that 10-year-old Phoebe got “lost” during her connection in Chicago – and, according to her father, United Airlines didn’t care.
“She landed and no one came to get her,” Perry wrote. “The attendants were busy and could not help her she told us. She told them she had a flight to catch to camp and they told her to wait. She asked three times to use a phone to call us and they told her to wait. When she missed the flight she asked if someone had called camp to make sure they knew and they told her “yes—we will take care of it”. No one did. She was sad and scared and no one helped.”
This horrible story just goes to show that the real danger to unaccompanied minors on flights doesn’t come from male strangers who might be sitting next to them – but from airline staff who fail spectacularly in their role of supervising these young passengers.
This has more to do with United's corporate culture than discriminatory policies. Just read a response from one of their own pilots. Also, most airlines in the US do not have a policy of making men seated next to unaccompanied minors move their seat. So far that seems to be mostly airlines out of the United Kingdom and Australia (British Airways, Qantas, Air New Zealand and Virgin Australia), and British Airways has since revised the policy after a German businessman sued the airline for sex discrimination and won.
It looks like hyperlinks don't work in SEXIS comments...
Here's a link to the United Pilot's response to the lost 10-year-old: [https://profile.typepad.com/greenpolymer]
I agree the airline dropped the ball (and lost the kid) here. That is unforgivable.
However, what kind of parent puts a TEN year old child on a plane THAT REQUIRES A CONNECTING FLIGHT (or on any plane at all) without an adult to attend her?
The actions of some parents (being a parent of 3 myself) makes me bang my head on the floor sometimes. Yes, the airline screwed up, but they also are not day care workers. Yes, the child should have been allowed to call her parents, BUT didn't the parents have a back up plan? Say, BUY THE KID A CELL PHONE? We got our then 11 year old a cell phone when I went back to work out of the home. WHO would put a child this age ALONE on a plane with no way to communicate with her parents or anyone else?
Both the airlines and the parents are to blame here. I hope the therapy this kid is going to need for her abandonment issues was worth the two weeks "vacation" her parents got by sending her to a camp more than halfway across the country. Really. Who DOES things like this to their kids? My kid has to check in via her own cell phone if she and her friends walk to the Target.
I can't imagine putting my children on a plane unattended. With an older and responsible sibling, maybe, but NOT alone. This is too scary. I can't imagine what went through that child's mind when she couldn't get to the next plane and no one would help. I wonder if this is the same story I heard on the news this morning in which the airline said they hired and outside company (?!!!) to escort the child from gate to gate, but didn't show up.
S&P, I heard on local Chicago news that supposedly, the airline hired an outside company to get the child to her connecting flight, but they never showed up. *sheesh*