Spirit Airlines sent a 6 year old flying alone to the wrong airport in Florida. They wound up hundreds of miles away from their waiting family.
The child’s first time ever on a plane was taking a trip from Philadelphia to Fort Myers. The airline sent them to Orlando instead. The airline told his grandmother, who was waiting at the gate, that he “missed his flight.”
Despite security protocols, she said that she “ran inside the plane to the flight attendant” and asked her,
Where’s my grandson? He was handed over to you at Philadelphia?
The flight attendant said “No, I had no kids with me.” Then the child called (impressive for a six year old!) saying he’d landed. His luggage went to Fort Myers, his grandmother drove to Orlando to collect him. Spirit is promising to cover mileage cost for her drive. But, the grandmother says, the airline hasn’t called her.
According to a Spirit Airlines spokesperson,
On Dec. 21, an unaccompanied child traveling from Philadelphia (PHL) to Fort Myers (RSW) was incorrectly boarded on a flight to Orlando (MCO). The child was always under the care and supervision of a Spirit Team Member, and as soon as we discovered the error, we took immediate steps to communicate with the family and reconnect them. We take the safety and responsibility of transporting all of our Guests seriously and are conducting an internal investigation. We apologize to the family for this experience.
Spirit Airlines charges $150 each way for unaccommpanied minor service, which is mandatory for children aged 5-14 traveling alone.
Sending your kid alone on Spirit, though, I dunno.
(HT: @crucker)
If Spirit Airlines thinks that they are going to get away with “mileage cost for her drive” compensation for this huge error on their part, they are fooling themselves. The checks going to be much bigger.
Disappointing . Perhaps a result of mobile phone addiction and inattention . All mobile phones ought to be banned from any ‘safety-first’ employment .
Not a big problem because the kid is smart. I wonder if he knew he was in Orlando.
Spirit should have had an agent accompany the kid by taxi and paid for the taxi.
When I was 4, a relative came with me then immediately flew back.
When I was 9, I flew alone. Cell phones didn’t exist. The connection was canceled and Delta handed me a hotel voucher. I was able to check in by myself as a kid!
Orlando to Fort Myers is not “hundreds of miles”. It is 156 highway miles.
how is one kid a “them”/“they”? confusing…
@Derek, 156 Miles One Way is 312 Miles Round Trip or are you suggesting the Grandmother move to Orlando to save the inconvenience of having to drive back to Ft Myers?
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” ― Theodore Roosevelt
Hey, it could have been a lot worse. This was one of only a handful of Spirit flights in Florida that didn’t involve a passenger melee.
@i can do simple math
Read the article again. It didn’t read that Grandma had to drive hundreds of miles.
Consider a name change.
So wait. The accompanying adult (Spirit team member) got on the wrong flight with the kid and didn’t notice they were on the wrong flight? This story is not making sense.
@joan
Likely is that Sprit employees hand over the kid to another one and it’s not a single employee acting as an escort for the entire trip.
The kid has sense to call upon arrival. He is a good flyer and not stupid.
I once got on the wrong plane at Houston IAH’s circular concourses in Terminal B. I got off in time. Those gates are closely spaced.
I suspect that the grandmother stated her desire to drive.
Biggest point I’m taking from this is that a 6 year old seems to be smarter than the average Spirit employee/passenger. Not shocking
What I’d like to know is how these things are even possible with the tickets? Why doesn’t scanning your boarding pass fail if you’re at the wrong gate? That’s a major security concern that goes far beyond the kids getting on the wrong flight.
Good training for the kid to call, and very prepared parenting for sending him with a phone. (There are lanyard attachments for phones. Irrelevant to this article but the kid could’ve even been using one of those.)
My son, who’s autistic, even before he could talk, he taught himself how to find us on Google Maps based on the highway shaping and then street shaping and position.
If this kid had taken his current Covid booster and had been properly masked, this wouldn’t have happened. Covids is a serious and shouldn’t be ignored by everyone. The pandemic is not over, it has only just begun!!!! Get your boosters and mask up or do not go out in public!
What kind of caring parent would send a six year old unaccompanied on a plane? I’m flabbergasted.
Don’t blame Grandma for driving to get him.
Spirit is liable to put him on a plane to lord knows where next
I worked as a F/A many years back, it always surprised me how parents would send children alone on flights . I decided to ask my coworkers if they would send their child alone on a flight and they all said NO, my exact thoughts. Not because the employees were irresponsible but because you never knew what would go wrong
@Bob: You use they/them when the gender of the party in unknown, as it almost certainly was not disclosed publicly.
@Chris Riches: 10’s of thousands of unaccompanied minors safely fly every year. You’d be amazed what children were allowed to do in the 80’s!
@Christopher: See the linked article. The child’s gender was definitely known to be male when this post was put up:
The article switches between “they/them” and “his” with no apparent reason. Does the six year old boy want to be called “them.” I’ll call someone, for the most part, what they want to be called but would be offended if someone called me “them.”
Would you PLEASE lose this insane politically-correct pronoun BS? You’re making an ass out of yourself.
Did the kid fly unaccompanied?
If so, the parents should be shot. Six years old??? Perhaps the parents belong in a mental institution, but they should not be raising children. Nauseating.
To the Mother and Grandmother: You are fools to leave a 6 year old unaccompanied minor in the hands of a discount airline. You know, or should know, that “discount” airlines cut all costs in order to offer low fares. “Costs” include accompanying “unaccompanied minors”. And to hear that stupid grandmother complain that the child “should have been accompanied” in her TV interviews. . What entitled and arrogant fools!