Spirit Airlines put six-year-old boy on the wrong flight alone
Spirit Airlines put six-year-old boy on the wrong flight alone
Airline staff allegedly told boy’s grandmother that he missed his flight
Spirit Airlines issued an apology after putting a six-year-old unaccompanied minor on the wrong flight.
The child was set to fly on Thursday from Philadelphia International Airport to Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers, Florida, to visit his grandmother, WINK-TV reported.
Instead, the boy was “incorrectly boarded” on a flight to Orlando, Spirit acknowledged in a statement on Saturday.
The statement did not address how the error came to take place - during a busy holiday travel day.
They call this the Spirit Quest. If he makes it home alive, he's considered a man.
Really weirdly I was actually thinking about this the other day.
I had a girlfriend that used to work in an airport and they used to have this really archaic system for keeping track of minors. It was a piece of software written in the 1980s and they had to keep computers from the time around because it was never converted for modern systems.
Occasionally the software would just stop working and it had to be reinstalled from floppy disk. When that happened they lost all the data. The backup was, and I kid you not, to take a photograph of the screen after you'd entered the data, and then email that photograph to someone who would then resubmit the data if the program had to be reinstalled.
Even if this might sound crazy to some, it doesn't sure me at all. Industries are not upgrading systems just for fun. It's only done when it is absolutely necessary.
I've worked with systems running in windows 95. On laptops so old they didn't have USB. The only way to transfer new files to it was to use serial link (we didn't have floppy drives). What did that ancient computer do? Communicate with subsea control systems for oil wells.
The entire airline industry is like that. It's part of the reason we have such big problems when one airport has flight delays- they aren't able to easily make adjustments system wide.
There's a really interesting video on YouTube about it. Link
That’s the spirit.
Airline loses 6 years of baggage....
I am glad I have never made a mistake at work lol. Every time I see a rule or a warning sign I think back to what caused it. Let’s hope the 6yo getting put on a plane without his family fixes something so it doesn’t happen again
There was no family to go with him. Unaccompanied minors can fly under the supervision of airport staff, usually for a fee. Which must already be terrifying enough for the parents even if they didn't know "losing your kid" was an option.
https://www.aa.com/i18n/travel-info/special-assistance/unaccompanied-minors.jsp
I flew to Europe unaccompanied in the 90s at around age 12. They put a lanyard on you, you're first on the plane and last off, and a flight attendant takes you between connecting flights on a cart. There's very little unsupervised time. It's not like you can get off the plane.
I would imagine there's even more supervision, more technology as well, than when I did it. Which makes a fuckup like this fairly astounding.
So yeah this can't happen. The parent has to hand the kid to an escort, who is with the kid until they are put on the plane and handed off to the flight attendant. Not to mention the kids ticket has to be scanned on boarding. This was not just one person making a mistake. This was more than one person making more than one mistake. Including the escort, the gate agent, and maybe the flight attendant on the plane the kid was boarded on. Not to mention the gate agent on the flight the kid was supposed to be on. Their computer should tell them they have an unaccompanied minor on the flight who has been checked in at the counter. They would know the kid wasn't on the plane and as they board very first.
So how did this happen. Well Spirit contracts most of their labor. So the ticket counter, the escort and the gate agent were all contract labor. Probably for the same company but maybe not. And all of them were probably fairly inexperienced, as soon as most people get experience they leave spirit contractors and get hired with a real airline with real benefits.
I was an escort many years ago (phrasing deliberate) and yeah. Some safeguards we had off the top of my head:
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Parents stayed with the kid at the gate for their first flight. They were also told to stay at the airport until the plane left the ground, not just when the kid boarded or the plane left the gate (I only worked with kids on layovers and arriving from international flights who needed to go through customs)
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When kids had an extended layover, they had a supervised play room we'd take them to. When it was time for their next flight we would call their name, check their wristband to make sure it matched the paperwork (oh yeah, they got wristbands with name and flight info) and we would ask them where they're going (not "are you going to St. Louis?" but "where are you going?" and make sure they say St. Louis, Missouri, or something to that effect)
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At the gate, talk to the gate agent. Tell them you have Kevin, the UM (unaccompanied minor) going to St. Louis so everyone knows they have the right kid going to the right place, especially if there was a gate change and she thought you had Blake for the new flight at this gate going to Denver
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Board the plane with the kid, and introduce them to the flight attendant. Same deal: name and city. When they take the kid from there, they should sign the book and check the wristband just as we did
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When the kid is handed off to the parent (or whatever) on the other end, make sure the name and address matches their ID. This was typically only done on international arrivals (otherwise parents would meet at the gate and gate agents would do the handoff) but if anything didn't match we had to get in contact with whoever dropped the kid off at the beginning of the trip and get authorization. But I'll admit I bent that rule when a deaf teenager was going back to her boarding school and Mom put the school's address which of course didn't match the ID. The girl knew the woman picking her up already and was old enough to trust a little vs some 8-year-old who doesn't understand that Aunt Suzy has a restraining order
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This would have been avoided if the child's ticket was scanned, which I can only assume must not have happened. I imagine this type of error isn't something they want to talk about any more than misdirecting a kid to the wrong destination.
How shitty of a parent must you be to force you child to fly alone?
I had a job of escorting kids flying alone. This kind of thing was SUPER rare, and the kids were treated really well. I'd have no problem sending my own daughter on a trip alone if I knew they were doing things the same way. But to give some reasons why a kid would fly alone:
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Parents are divorced and live across the country
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Kids are going to camp in the Midwest
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Grandma and Grandpa live in Paris this summer and want the grandkid to visit
For a parent to fly with the kid would roughly triple the flight cost (kid, round trip for parent to fly one way, and another for the return trip), take a lot of time for a parent that just may not be feasible with working schedule (yes, non-shitty parents work too) and if the trip involves crossing an ocean jet lag from a redeye flight with immediate turnaround will fuck anyone up
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My kid flew alone every summer to go stay with his grandparents for two weeks, starting at age 8. The amount of security precautions that legitimate airlines use to prevent this sort of thing means this is the first incident you've ever heard of.
Never understood American laws, I mean, don't let go your kids to a party could be child abuse but letting your six-years-old flying alone it's totally fine.. WTF?..
Usually minors are accompanied by an airline employee to ensure they get to their destination okay. I’m surprised Spirit Airlines didn’t do this
Ok then sounds reasonable, thx for the info 👍👍
When the US Parcel Service was first introduced, a few people mailed their children.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/brief-history-children-sent-through-mail-180959372/
The first case was an 8 month old baby being delivered to his grandparents a few miles away by the postal worker on his route.
A more extreme case was a 4 year old sent 73 miles; a cousin who was a clerk with the rail mail service apparently accompanied her.
One of my husband's ancestors was shipped across Texas by train as a child.
Even in Europe it's legal to let the airline deal with your kids. Personally I think it's insane and I would never trust them but it's totally legal because the airline is supposed to be responsible.
Europe, Asia, the Americas... it's legal around the world.
I did it many times with my daughter when she was young.
You have to accompany your child to the gate, where the gate agent puts a lanyard with identification and destination around her neck.
Then, flight attendants personally accompany the child into the plane, seat her, and note what seat she's in.
I was not allowed to leave the gate until the plane was in the air.
You must designate an adult to pick the child up at the destination at the gate. They must have photo ID that matches the designation before the airline will release the child.
Children can only go on direct flights. They are not allowed on flights that change planes.
I always found the system safe and friendly. Most flights would have several kids flying alone, so the crew would usually seat them all together and would pay them a lot of attention during the flight.
Around age twelve or thirteen, they no longer count as an unaccompanied minor. At that point, they can just fly like any regular passenger. To me, that's the more sketchy situation. I'd rather see that happen around age sixteen or so.
Different Americans think different things. There's no way in hell I'd let my kid fly alone at six!
OMG! There could have been Republican Senators on that flight!
Bad enough to put him in the cabin on the wrong flight, but to put him in the cockpit! I know there's a pilot shortage but geez!
Its the fault of the parents. Anyone who thinks that a 6 year old is capable of handling the airline experience is a moron.
My son has been flying unaccompanied since he was 6. Once a year, almost every year. It’s fine, I accompanied him to the gate where he is handed off to a flight attendant. It’s not some huge traumatizing experience you’re imagining. He loved it, too, cause there were usually other kids on the plane to play with.
It's your fault for not understanding how the UM system works, which makes you a massive moron.
"Unaccompanied minor" shouldn't even be a thing on a flight. Sounds like a parenting problem to me, rather than a problem with an airline.
Thats a narrow position. It shouldn’t be a thing when there’s a choice in the matter. There are times when there is no choice.
Nah, it's fine. I did it a lot as a kid. Very rarely does a kid end up in the wrong place.
Mistakes happen. They’re human. They apologized and made up for it.
People make mistakes, that happens. Certain systems should be designed such that any mistakes people make have no or minimal consequences.
Numerous things failed here. Sending a lone 6 year old on the wrong flight is completely unacceptable for an airline.