Paying baggage fees when the airline loses your baggage is galling. But pay hefty fees to have an airline take care of your children and them finding them flying to another city, hundreds of miles away, is enough to make the hair on the back of any parent’s neck stand straight up.
Along with everything else, airline unaccompanied minor fees have been steadily increasing. For most parents it’s a small price to pay for the peace of mind of having their children looked after while traveling alone, especially when a connecting flight is involved.
Unfortunately, earlier this week that’s not the way it turned out for two families who paid the $100 fee and sent their children on their flight on Delta.
The children made their connections in Minneapolis, but somehow they got swapped to the wrong airports. The Boston kid ended up in Cleveland and the Cleveland kid ended up in Boston.
As reported by WOIO television in Cleveland, an airline spokesman said that they were “inadvertently boarded on incorrect connecting flights as a result of a paperwork swap.”
Delta Airlines did say, however, that they “apologized to the families, re-accommodated the children to their final destination cities at no cost, arranged full refunds for the children’s tickets, provided credits to the families for future travel, and refunded their unaccompanied minor fees.”
I particularly like the fact that they refunded the unaccompanied minor fee and didn’t charge the families to get the children to their final destination. Wonder if they charged the children for onboard meals?
In this case, it sounds like no permanent harm was done, and now two kids have great topics for their “what I did on my summer vacation” essays. But in all seriousness, however, this does bring up a tip or two for parents sending their children on flights alone.
1. Tell your child to speak up if anything seems wrong. Presumably the children did hear the destination announcements for their cities when they were put on the wrong plane.
It’s possible they were confused, but often children are afraid to risk confrontation with adults, even relatively non-threatening adults such as flight attendants.
In fact, this advice applies to other travel situations as well, if another passenger is making a child uncomfortable, or the child is not feeling well, or there is some other problem, within reason it’s a good idea to talk to a flight attendant or gate agent.
Or if talking to an airline employee doesn’t seem to be an option, and your child has a cellphone, suggest that they use it and call you. There were no details on when the children realized the mix-up, but it probably was before Delta did.
2. Another tip wouldn’t have helped in this case, but would have several years ago for a co-worker’s son. If there is a connecting flight, not only should you make sure your child knows what city they are traveling to, but remind them to be careful about wandering away from the gate.
A flight attendant had actually delivered this boy to the right gate, but then left. The child got bored and went to look in some stores. The aircraft departed and got as far as the runway line without him. Fortunately, when he returned to the gate, an agent was able to bring the plane back.
In this week’s incident, besides compensating the families, Delta has apologized, and one would hope that whatever loophole prompted the mistake has been closed.
Although considering that a little over a decade ago Delta pilots landed at Frankfort, Kentucky instead of Lexington, and last year overflew an airport completely, perhaps the airline should be a little more focused on details.
Photo: Ciao Bambino
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