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.
Was the flight to New York, and did they put him up at a fancy hotel?
Did he get directions from that fuckin traitor Trump in the hallway?
Its the fault of the parents. Anyone who thinks that a 6 year old is capable of handling the airline experience is a moron.
No it isn’t. Airlines have systems for this, the kid is supposed to be accompanied by staff.
It makes no difference who accompanies them if its not their parent or gaurdian.
Only parents or guardians are ever allowed to look after kids? Just give it up, you sound ridiculous.
Do you also believe daycare should be banned?
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
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
Mistakes happen. They’re human. They apologized and made up for it.
They’re not human, they’re a bloody airline.
Airlines don’t run themselves dumbass.
There are multiple points of failure at play here.
The wellbeing of a child cannot be left to only one employee, therefore it’s either an institutional failing or more than one person made a “mistake”.
So if it were one person, it’s a person making a mistake, but if it were more than one person, it’s no longer human- it’s an airline!
Got it. People don’t run businesses, persons do.
You’re a fucking genius!
Airlines don’t lose people. People lose people.
All it takes to stop a bad person with an airline, is a good person with an airline.
I forgot how polarized people are here. Was my mistake.
Yeah, couldn’t possibly just be that you had a bad take.
I’ve never been to the north or south poles. Or Poland for that matter. What the hell are you talking about Gomer?
A company losing a child is not a mistake.
I work with children, if I accidentally left one somewhere it would not be a ‘mistake’ it would be a massive systemic failure on behalf of myself, everyone else I’m working with, and my company and its training, policies, and procedures as a whole.
The company has the responsibility for the child, they are in charge off ensuring there are multiple stages of checks to make sure the child is safe. This does not get brushed off as one person making a simple little accident.
There is no excuse for this child being sent on the wrong plane, you can swear at me all you want but that won’t change.
They call this the Spirit Quest. If he makes it home alive, he’s considered a man.
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?..
When the US Parcel Service was first introduced, a few people mailed their children.
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.
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 👍👍
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.
