Double Oops. Two Girls Put on the Wrong Planes
Two girls, one aged 8, the other aged 10, were flying unaccompanied last weekend. Both were taking Continental Express flights -- the kind that board on the tarmac. And somehow, within a day of each other, airline personnel boarded both girls on wrong flights. In both instances, two planes were loading passengers from the same gate at the same time.
First up was 8-year-old Taylor Williams, who was flying from Houston to Charlotte, N.C., where she was to be met by her father. Taylor ended up instead on a plane Fayetteville, Ark., reports the Houston Chronicle. The next day, Miriam Kamens boarded a plane at Logan Airport in Boston. Her intended destination? Cleveland, where she was being met by her grandparents. Instead, 10-year-old Miriam ended up in Newark, N.J.
In a blog posting about the incident, Miriam Kamens' mom discusses the mix-up:
"We packed light because she was going to carry all her luggage on the plane so as to not worry about having it lost, damaged, or garnering extra charges. I didn’t pack sunscreen, bug spray, or a drink for her because she was going to have to go through airport security which keeps our skies safe by banning such items from coming on the plane. My husband went two hours early to the airport to have time to get through security and to make sure all the proper paperwork was in order to allow him, a non-ticketed escort, to bring our daughter to the gate where she’d be flying for an extra charge as an unaccompanied minor. My husband checked her in, waited with her until boarding, brought her to the entrance to the jetway, and could go no further, because again, that would violate security and we all know that the reason we stand in long lines, remove our shoes, show our IDs, and leave our toiletries behind is to keep our airlines secure. Airline employees signed her paperwork, took charge of it and her tickets and proceded [sic] to bring her on to the tarmac and load her on to the wrong small commuter plane where she flew unnoticed and unaccounted for to Newark, New Jersey."
And dad Jonathan Kamens, who first wrote about the incident on his blog:
"It took forty-five minutes from that point until the Continental people in Cleveland finally confirmed that she was in Newark. The only reason they were able to figure it out at all is because I told them that there had been a flight to Newark boarding at the same gate and the best possible explanation for her whereabouts was that the gate agent put her on the wrong flight (the alternatives were much worse!). God only knows how long it would have taken them to figure out where she was if I hadn’t noticed the Newark flight leaving from Boston and mentioned it to them."
“I have never seen so much incompetence in all my life,” Taylor’s mother, Wendy Babineaux told the Houston Chronicle.
Indeed. The U.S. Department of Transportation does not regulate unaccompanied minor travel. Rather, it's left up to the airlines to determine their own rules and precautions. Continental has apologized for its errors and compensated the families.
Do these incidents make you rethink unaccompanied travel for your children? What experiences -- good and bad -- have your children encountered when traveling alone?