Posted on 06/16/2009 12:19:36 PM PDT by rawhide
Continental Airlines is apologizing for sending a 10-year-old Massachusetts girl flying alone to New Jersey instead of Ohio.
Jonathan Kamens says he brought his daughter, Miriam, to Logan International Airport in Boston on Sunday. She was to fly to Cleveland to visit her grandparents.
He tells WBZ-TV that shortly after the plane landed in Ohio, his father-in-law called saying she had not arrived.
Kamens says for 45 minutes no one could tell him where his daughter was, setting off a panic among the family. She was finally located unharmed in Newark, N.J.
The airline says the error was caused by staff miscommunication. The two flights used the same doorway at the airport.
Kamens says the number of people who failed to do their jobs is "mindboggling."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I have always wondered why parents would put a child on a plane alone. Do they think the airline is a day care facility?
Home Alone 6
Indeed. Nobody will ever care about your child as much as you will. Which begs the question over where the first mindboggling failure occurred.
But they did verify that she packed her own suitcase, and had no liquids larger than 3 oz.
“Calling all lawyers!!!!”
“Calling all lawyers!!!!”
Soooo, Miriam? Do you like gladiator movies?...
This poor family must have been terrified...
I cant imagine...
Another casualty of America's divorce epidemic. Kids are placed on planes because most parents can't afford to buy an endless supply of round trip tickets.
I found out after I dropped off my nephews at the gate and left. They refused to let them fly on that plane, I had to return to the airport and see them off on another flight!
But that was in the late seventies and early eighties...
How many years were you eight?
(Born on Feb 29th, perhaps? </Pirates of Penzance>)
But that was in the late seventies and early eighties...
Just how long were you eight?
Well, the airline should make sure they have enough condoms
/sarc
“I have always wondered why parents would put a child on a plane alone. Do they think the airline is a day care facility?”
This never crossed my mind. Did you drive your kids to school instead of letting them ride the bus? It is that anal retentive my friend. My wife and I sent our kids across country several times alone. There is such thing as NON-STOP FLIGHTS DOOR TO DOOR.
There is such thing as grand parents on the other side of the frigging country. Nothing to do with divorce.
Excuse me, but did dad not have any responsibility of seeing with his own two eyes that his little 10 year old got on the right flight? For that matter why didn’t he fly with her or have the grandparents fly out to get her? I know parents today think this but the airline isn’t flying daycare center.
Newark and Cleveland...a matching pair of armpits.
No, not really.
>>Kamens says the number of people who failed to do their jobs is “mindboggling.”
Matthew 7:3
I would imagine that a fee was paid to the airline to watch her. If so, the airline accepted responsibility for the child and to deliver her to a pre-designated person at the planned destination once on the ground.
Did her luggage go to the right place?
Our daughter flew back to Grandma’s house a couple of summers when she was 12-13. It’s really not a big deal. A family member is there when they get on the plane, and another family member is there when they get off, and in-between they are assigned a supervisor in one of the flight attendants. She knew what the rules were and was instructed to follow the direction of the flight attendant. As a general rule the airlines take this pretty seriously because of the huge potential for negative press.
It looks like the problem in this story is that perhaps two aircraft were boarding via the same gate? How terrifying for that family.
When I sent my son to Washington D.C. for a school trip last year I purchased what amounted to ‘door to door’ service. I passed my child off to an airline rep who escorted him to the plane and to his seat ahead of the other passengers. At the distant end he was escorted off the plane to the waiting adult whose name I had put on the card as being allowed to pick him up. When he returned it was the same thing in reverse. They escorted him off the plane and delivered him directly to me where I had to sign for him. It doesn’t sound like the parent in this story spent the extra money for this service.
For as long as they had cheap fares for 8 and under.....
I logged a lot of air miles alone growing up. With one parent in LA and one in Chicago and 3 or 4 visitations a year I got very good at air travel, I could (and did) sleep through turbulence that made the stewards air sick (one of my few accompanied trips). Of course this was in the days before terrorism fear, which ever parent was seeing me off could take me all the way through check-in through the metal detectors to the gate and right up to the foot of the entryway, and on the other side not more than 10 feet from the entry way was the receiving parent. Less time and opportunity for trouble than the average school day. I’m not sure if there’s a parental exception to the current rule that won’t allow people without tickets past security, if not that could make things a bit more difficult.
No ticket, and you can't get past the TSA Humiliation Station.
Why should an airline be a friggin babysitter for your dumb a*s kid? Keep the kid at home during summer vacation or else you all go with her to damn Ohio. I’m so sick of everybody blaming everyone else. Whateve happened to personal respsonsibility?
That makes it pretty OK then, as long as the kid has it together enough to behave for a couple hours. I wonder if the kid was the only one that hit the wrong plane, if the explanation from the airline is true there should be others that got steered incorrectly.
Ah. Thanks.
She had a 2 stop flight. :0)
All 4 of my kids fly out to spend two weeks with their grandparents. They each get to make the trip alone so they can have one on one time with grandma and grandpa. They all fly solo because I sure as hell cant afford 4 extra plane tickets.
Now I will say that if the door led to two planes I would insist on escorting them to the plane door, but in Albuquerque that doesn’t exist. I escort them to the plane and stay at the airport until I see the plane in the air.
I never have had a single problem with it, but I’ll admit that I have 4 kids that are very polite when they are not home. My 5 year old made his first solo this year without a single problem. In fact he was helping the stewardess clean the plane after it landed since he had to be the last one off anyway to get escorted.
This has not been my experience. My daughter - yep a product of divorce - she’s an Army Officer now so there you go - flew regularly and alone to her dad’s in Arizona. I took her to the airport and did not leave until the plane was in the air. We did this for a few years until he moved back to CA.
It is true that non passengers cannot go past TSA, but if your minor child is traveling, the ticket agent when you check in, will issue you a pass allowing you to go to the gate. When she was 16, it was mortifying for a parent to go to the gate with her, ha ha.
i was 10 when i first flew alone...they let my dad take me on the plane and hand me over to the stewardess....i saw some young kids flying alone a couple of weeks ago in boston myself...the airlines had great checks and balances to ensure the children got on the right flights....i still think parents should travel with their children myself as i was scared to death....lol...
Thanks. The system isn’t quite as screwed up as I thought.
I wonder if they wouldn’t let the parent go to the gate because of the TSA regulations about people without tickets.
Closing in on 800,000 people in this "suburb." Unemployment 8% vs Cleveland's 11%. We must be doing something something right.
The child should have been chaperoned, the service is available for about $50 from the airlines. A flight attendant and/or gate/ticker person makes sure they get on the right flights, are taken care of during layovers, and are given to the correct/authorized person at the end of the flight.
Back in the day when I traveled on the airlines, I seem to remember that they would make an announcement, before the plane was pushed back, that went something like this——”this is flight(insert number here) enroute to (destination city), if you don’t desire to go to (destination city) you should deplane now.
Seems to me a kid should be able to tell the difference between the sound of the names “Newark” and “Cleveland”.
a couple weeks ago in boston (logan airport) i did see adults waiting at the gate to pick up children flying alone...they were brought off the plane and the adult had to show id to be checked against the airlines documentation and then they had to sign for the change of custody...i was surprised because i remember logan would never allow in recent years nonticketed persons to make it past security....
Could have been worse. One kid flew from LA to Auckland, not Oakland...
Jonathan Kamens left his daughter Miriam, 10, at Logan International Airport with Continental Airlines employees. He had walked her all the way to the gate and watched her walk through the doors to her plane.
"The flight crew on the Cleveland flight was supposed to check that they had the right number of passengers, and they didn't do that," Kamens said.
"We are truly sorry for this error and have apologized to the family. The child was supervised throughout the entire process and was rebooked and routed to the proper destination on the same day," the airline said in a statement.
The airline has offered to refund the $75 fee the family paid for an unaccompanied minor.
Miriam Kamens,10
See post 47
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