Continental Airlines, which one study ranked as #5 for handling luggage, appears to have particular trouble with misplaced child passengers. This weekend was particularly problematic for the airline, according to press accounts:
In one case, an 8-year-old Texas girl wound up in Fayetteville, Ark., instead of Charlotte, North Carolina. The other was a 10-year-old Massachusetts girl who was supposed to fly from Boston to Cleveland, but wound up in Newark.
Talk about a PR nightmare! Never fear, however. Responsive airline officials, who initially offered a $75 refund of airfare, are now working wildly to control the damage from this story. They've upped the offer - at least to the one parent who is a blogger.
Continental is going to refund my daughter’s entire fare and fly her back to Boston in first class for free. They are also going to refund the round-trip tickets that my in-laws bought to fly to Boston with Miriam and then back to Cleveland, and replace them with first-class tickets as well (note: they had already planned this trip before what happened on Sunday). Finally, they are giving my wife, my daughter and I “Silver Elite” status in their frequent-flyer program, OnePass, until the end of the current program year, which apparently is next February.
Couldn't they have at least bumped them to One Pass Gold?
I question the mental acuity of parents who allow an 8- and 10-year old to fly alone. I'm not discounting the failure of the airlines to safely deliver this precious cargo to its intended destination. But parents who engage in this practice need an extra helping of common sense.
Posted by: Tim Zinnecker | June 17, 2009 at 11:34 AM
How does this happen anymore? Don't they still scan the child's ticket at the gate? If so, it should show up as invalid for that flight code. The only real way I could see this happening is if they forgot to take the child off of a plane whose continuing leg was not the child's destination. Even then, it would have to involve the dumb luck that the child was sitting in a seat that had not been sold on that continuing leg. Bizarre.
Posted by: Chad Emerson | June 17, 2009 at 03:55 PM
@Tim Zennecker: http://blog.kamens.brookline.ma.us/~jik/wordpress/2009/06/16/for-those-who-say-we-should-have-flown-with-our-daughter/
@Chad Emerson: They were boarding two flights at the same time through the same gate. They scanned my daughter's boarding pass while boarding one of the two flights, then walked her down the ramp onto the tarmac and put her on the other one. Full details at http://blog.kamens.brookline.ma.us/~jik/wordpress/2009/06/14/another-airline-screwup-you-just-will-not-believe-continental-puts-my-unaccompanied-minor-daughter-on-the-wrong-plane/
Posted by: Jonathan Kamens | June 22, 2009 at 04:00 PM
I have flown Continental a number of times and I swear I will avoid them at every opportunity. The service on LCC (low cost carriers) is actually better!
Posted by: Travel Insurance | November 02, 2009 at 05:24 AM
Some time before, I did need to buy a good car for my corporation but I didn't earn enough money and could not buy anything. Thank goodness my dude adviced to try to get the mortgage loans at reliable bank. Thus, I did that and used to be happy with my college loan.
Posted by: IvyStrong31 | September 19, 2010 at 10:56 PM