On Tuesday, December 21st Elena Kerr put her nine year old daughter, Chloe, on a Southwest Airlines flight from Nashville to New York to see her grandparents for the Christmas holiday. The plane was scheduled to make stops in Columbus and Baltimore before landing at LaGuardia Airport, but the youngster was not supposed to deplane until it was at the gate in New York, where her aunt would be awaiting her arrival.
The flight didn’t go smoothly.
The flight had weather problems from the start. Fog hit Columbus, so the flight first landed in Cleveland. This delayed its arrival in Baltimore, and subsequently at LaGuardia.
Kerr had no idea anything was wrong until she received a frantic phone call from her sister waiting for Chloe at LaGuardia.
Chloe’s aunt, finding that Chloe wasn’t on board the flight called Kerr saying, “Were you going to call and tell me she was going to be late?”
It took about an hour for Southwest to determine where Chloe was and let Kerr know what happened. For some inexplicable reason, in Baltimore, a Southwest employee took Chloe off the plane and rebooked the 9 year old on a flight five hours later. Chloe was at Baltimore’s BWI airport. The problem is, no one contacted Chloe’s mother or aunt about the change.
Two Southwest policies must be called into question concerning Chloe Boyce’s travail.
Southwest states in their policy on unaccompanied minors,
“Unaccompanied Minors are allowed to travel on only nonstop or same-plane service (makes one or two stops but does not require a change of planes or flight number).”
In his statement about what happened to Chloe, Brad Hawkins, Southwest spokesperson said, in part,
“Our unaccompanied minor policy does not include the contacting of guardians when a flight is delayed or rerouted, but we typically do our best to keep guardians notified when a disruption in scheduled service occurs. Unfortunately, we did not connect with the parents of the customer traveling in this situation.”
I question why a Southwest employee would take Chloe off her flight and rebook her on a flight 5 hours later, when the original flight was continuing to New York, as planned, albeit late.
Moreover, I question why Southwest’s policy doesn’t require immediate notification to an unaccompanied minor’s parents or guardians about flight changes when delayed or rerouted, or if the child is rebooked on a different flight.
To its credit, Southwest says it’s investigating why no one called Kerr about Chloe’s delayed flight and rebooking, but it is apparently not redressing its lack of requiring such communication. Moreover, Southwest hasn’t addressed why Chloe was removed from her flight from Baltimore to New York.
Southwest needs to immediately reevaluate their unaccompanied minor policies and their training of personnel in carrying them out.
Chloe did make it to New York, picked up by her very relieved aunt. While in Baltimore, a Southwest flight attendant took her to Hudson News to get her a drink and snacks, and a Southwest pilot bought her dinner. Of course, that still doesn’t make up for the mistakes the airline made.
As families are spread out, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins may live across the country or overseas. Due to job opportunities and remarriage, a child’s divorced mother and father may live far apart. Both these situations often give parents, especially in today’s economy, little choice but to send their children flying without them, to see grandparents and parents away from their home.
While there is no question Southwest Airlines was wrong in how it handled Chloe’s travel on their airline to New York, I wonder about Kerr’s choice in booking that particular flight for her daughter, and about Kerr giving her daughter an easy way to communicate with her, if she had difficulty on her flight.
Whenever possible, I try to fly direct, non-stop flights, to my destination. Potential problems due to weather, mechanical difficulties, etc., are minimized by eliminating or minimizing intermediate stops between one’s origin and destination airport. If that’s not possible, I will take a flight with a minimum of stops prior to my destination.
I normally try to fly in the morning too. This can minimize the effects of getting caught in a day’s build up of cascading delays, and can maximize the number of available potential alternate flights, if any, if my scheduled flight is delayed or canceled. I think these same “rules of thumb” would even be more important for booking a flight for a child flying alone.
In an online review I found no non-stop flights from Nashville to New York are currently available on Southwest Airlines, but both American and Delta airlines have non-stop flights between these cities. Flying via Southwest takes 5–6 hours including layovers, but flying on American or Delta takes only 2–2½ to reach New York from Nashville.
Kerr would have had to spend about $125 more for Chloe to fly non-stop, but I think, that would have been the far better choice for her safety and comfort, and her family’s peace of mind.
I also think most 9-year-olds know how to use cell phones, and if instructed, call home if anything unusual happened on their trip. Apparently Chloe didn’t have a cell phone for her trip. Had she had one, Kerr and her sister could have immediately known about the problems Chloe was having.
Next week I’ll follow up today’s column with some travel advice about sending your youngster flying unaccompanied, which I’ve gathered over the years, from parents and experts.
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