Continental Airlines has apologized after admitting that “miscommunication among staff members resulted in [a] child being boarded on the wrong aircraft.” Jonathan Kamens had taken his daughter, Miriam, 10, to Boston’s Logan Airport and explicitly spoke to Continental agents about Miriam’s solo trip to Cleveland to visit her grandparents.
“They seemed like they knew what they were doing. The paperwork” had her flight number, destination, and phone numbers for himself and his in-laws. But Miriam ended up at Newark International Airport, not Cleveland, because the gate was being used by two different flights and the girl was put on the wrong flight.
Kamens said he only found out that Miriam never made it to Cleveland as scheduled when his father-in-law called-and Continental couldn’t tell him where his daughter was for 45 minutes. While Continental rebooked Miriam on another flight and she made it there a few hours later, her dad questions the airline’s procedures.
“I’m sure there are rules that the flight crew is supposed to verify the number of people on the plane matches the number of people on the manifest.”
{Gothamist}{Matzav.com Newscenter}
A ten-year-old flying alone on an inter-city aircraft? Are the parents crazy? Is the airline crazy to allow it?
Most people won’t allow their ten-year-old to take the bus downtown alone, and these people are sending a child inter-state on an airplance? And how are the grandparents permitting it?
This story is appalling.
Rachel,
The airlines provide these services all the time. They chaperone the children from the beginning to the end of the flight they are under the care of the stewardess all the time.
Much safer then sending them on the bus.
My kids were flying to visit there grandparents for shabbos since they were ten.
They flew to Israel to meet us with Israir too