Would think $27K would be in order here
 

Nearly eight hours in a waiting room? Seems the boy and his Mom should have at least $27k coming there way from United for this one.

Boy, 9, forgotten at Chicago Airport

A nine-year-old boy was forgotten in a Chicago airport waiting room Saturday for nearly eight hours after an airline representative failed to put him on a connecting flight, the Ottawa Citizen reported.
Julien Reid was headed home to Ottawa on a United flight after visiting his dad in San Francisco, a trip he makes about six times a year.
He left San Francisco at 6 a.m. and arrived at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport at 11 a.m. He was supposed to catch a connecting flight from Chicago to Ottawa at 1:50 p.m., which would have put him in Ottawa at about 4:45 p.m.
His mother, Genevieve Harte, checked online and saw that Julien's flight was delayed until 5:35 p.m. When she arrived at the airport to pick him up, she noticed other passengers had disembarked but that her son was nowhere to be found.
Then she got a call from Julien, using his own pre-paid cell phone.
He said he was still at the Chicago airport in a "tiny, little room cramped with kids," where they played the same video on a loop all day, the Ottawa Citizen reported. The only food he'd been given was McDonald's, but Julian is a vegetarian. He said the other children were yelled at to "stop being kids."
Harte, 36, asked Julien to put her on the phone with the United attendant who was watching the children. That's when the attendant let it slip that no one had come to fetch Julien to put him on his connecting flight, she told the Ottawa Citizen.

27K....HA! More like an apology and a "$300 voucher anywhere United flies". No tarmac delay here. A nine year old and a connection? His parents are more brave than I.

I find it more sad that people do this to their children. :(

Airlines can be fined up to 27K per passenger for exceeding 3hrs on the tarmac. The money doesn't go to the pax :eek:



Airlines Face Big Fines for Delays - WSJ.com

Totally agree, mom and dad can't seem to stand eachother to even live in the same timezone, let alone country..... kid pays the price for mom/dad going on as if nothings wrong..... oh that's right, it's United's fault

There is nothing sadder than the Friday/Sunday afternoon/evening flights with the divorce UM shuttle.

Some one has to check the facts in this story, just sounds like a regional pilots life to me. Stuck in a small room all day waiting on a flight, playing the same video game over and over, eating McDonalds, mommy calling to check on you and the chief pilot coming in and yelling at you to stop being kids..........the $27,0000 seems a bit high......is this some flight schools regional traing program?????

+1

Used to see the same girl every other fri/sun on my old commute. We all knew her name and her dad's name on sight, and they knew all gate agents by name too.

really sad for the daughter.

Talk to some therapists and you'll hear that they've got an increased number of patients coming in saying they were sexually abused on flights as minors flying between divorced parents in the last ~10 years which was unreported.

Don't put your kids on planes alone if they're too young, the F/A's aren't baby sitters. It's not cheap, but why take the chance?

How much revenue actually comes from allowing UM's on your flights vs the Liability if something happens to the Kid?

Devil's advocate would say: "At LEAST he/she did not end up on the WRONG flight/destination....."

You do have a point in the revenue that the UM ticket/charges brings to a carrier vs the liability that goes along with making everything work smoothly (especially when connecting flights/layovers are involved). I realize that it's an extreme example, but the same case of liability can be cited when an air carrier sells a ticket to an "Average Joe". He/she walks down the jet way, cross into the threshold of the aircraft entry door and God forbid falls....only to break his leg....viola!! I'm sure there would be some sort of law suit/or settlement that would be made to that passenger. The simple idea of liability is there, and a lot more common in that light than that of UM travel.

In today's world "liability" has become all more encompassing with every passing year. I've said it before....."The best way to limit your liability, is to mitigate your exposure"......kind of a tough mantra for airlines to do when their in the market to make $$ in providing a service of airtravel....even if that involves UM travel.

In the end, I do sympathize with the children who are caught in the middle/become a product of "divorcee shuffle" with UM travel. Summer time is the season, and we see it all too often. That's the sad part.

Well.... It is. The parents didn't leave that kid in a mini torture chamber for 8 hrs. UAL offers the service so it's on them. The status of his parents marriage doesn't really matter. You can't fault them for this. I applaud them for giving the kid a pre-paid cellphone. Most UM's we fly never have that.

Is it just possible that one of the parents got a better paying job that required a move from the old city to another? And hence the shuttling of Junior back and forth? Have any of you actually thought of that?????????:)

So the money is more important than the kid? Sorry, I can't buy that one. I DIDN'T move for 16 years so that I would be near my kids, and when she talked about moving six hours away, I looked for a job there. It's the parents fault.

This + a billion...

Adults suck.

Not my kids
 

No way I let my 9 yr old fly solo transcon with a stop in ord.
Idiot parents passing the buck of responsibility.

We had a 5 year old UM on a flight not long ago... what are these people thinking?

I always make sure the UM's are sitting next to a woman on the flight. Never next to a man. I taught my kid to that if he is ever lost go to a woman. When's the last time you saw a firefighter or cop? When's the last time you saw a woman. The kid will get frustrated and scared looking for a uniform.

Do you allow your 9 yr old to attend public schools?
Do you allow your 9 yr old to ride the school bus unattended?
Have you ever dropped your 9 yr old off at Little League practice and them run errands?
Would you allow your 9 yr old to go to a friend's birthday party at the Mini-golf with the Friend's parents in charge?
Would you allow a 9 yr old to go to a G rated movie with his friends?

The fact is that we leave our children under other's supervision all the time with the reasonable expectation that they will exercise due care. These parents PAID for a service and the service was not rendered. End of story.

I realize there is an inherent bias on this board in that no one believes that an airline employee could ever possibly make a mistake....but it happens. I know I'll be branded a heretic, but Pilots make them too. In this particular case, the airline failed to perform it's duty. Stop blaming the victim.

If you really believe that the parents are idiots because they trusted an airline employee to perform the simple task of guiding a child from one plane and on to another, then why in the world would you expect any of your customers to trust the other airline employees to safely maintain, dispatch and fly an airplane. Seriously, how can you safely work with fellow employees that you hold to such low standards.

BTW, I'm still with wife #1 after 21 years and I've never sent my kids as UMs, but I still think the airline should be held accountable to provide a service when even naughty divorced parents pay for it.

You may want to rethink that strategy. Here's the first hit in a google search for female sexual predators.

Female Sex Offenders / Female Sexual Predators - Women who sexually abuse children and teens - Rape, Incest, Female Teachers Sexual Predators

I think BA automatically assigns UM's next to women.

Either way, don't send your kids UM until they are teens please.

Also, since when can you send children <18 unescorted into Canada? Last I checked, they required 18 or older to pass through CBSA/Immigration.

Also of similar interest, the movie "Unaccompanied Minors" (Lewis Black being the only thing good of that movie I'm sure) loosely based upon a story that was read on This American Life on NPR years ago I remember hearing. The story reader was a child and was being ferried between divorced parents during a holiday. Pretty sad story how they got stuck in the room overnight with other divorced children whose parents were shuttling them between each other during xmas.

No static here DelDuh. I agree with you. Taking responsibility for ones (or companies) actions is becoming a lost art in this country of passing the buck. Unfortunately in our sue happy society it can be very expensive to take responsibility.:mad:

Denny

Maybe there wasn't room for her because some fat people needed two seats??

LOL! Maybe she was stuck in the crew lounge :-)