Flown Alone, Spirt sends UM to wrong airport
 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/6-year-old-boy-flying-alone-put-on-wrong-spirit-airlines-flight_n_6589a296e4b014ec45a261eb

6yr old UM on Spirit was sent PHL-MCO instead of PHL-RSW. His grandmother had to drive 4 hours to pick him up.

Happens more than we’d like to admit.
 

https://people.com/travel/united-air...-wrong-flight/

https://www.cntraveler.com/story/jet...27s%20John%20F

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/american-airlines-minor-wrong-state-b2144979.html

https://<a href="http://bobsutton.ty...miami-airport/

You had but one job to do...

Let me get this straight ... grandma could drive 4 hrs each way from Ft Myers to Orlando to pick up the 6 year old child, but wasn't willing to fly round trip to accompany him on the flight? Awesome parenting and grandparenting.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect the airline to perform the service you tell you they are capable of executing. Aside from a misconnect or diversion this is something the airline should be able to do with 100% accuracy. If not, don’t offer a UM service.

Airlines can not even guarantee your plane won’t crash with “100% accuracy,” yet you make that the standard for UMs?

Do anything enough times, and it will fail at some point. That’s life.

Correct.

No airline has executed their UM program without sending a kid to the wrong airport on occasion.

The good news is with the bad press SAVE is flat today. If I was working today I send another kid to Timbuktu! Buy while it's hot Boys and Girls!

As a parent of three young kids, there is no way in h-e-l-l that I would ever put one of them on an airline flight alone. I honestly think that it’s insane that there are people who do this.

Why didn't the parent or guardian on the PHL side escort them to the gate? As far as I know you can still get gate passes for things like this. No way I would drop off a 6 year old kid at the airport and hope for the best.

"Oh look, some blip on the radar headline that's happened dozens of times around the industry that has nothing to do with pilots. I better go on the ol' message board and post a link because surely this isn't the era of smart phones and social media where this kind of thing is force fed to every device, especially those who's chat and browsing history indicate it would be relevant to them. I'm sure it hasn't been meme'd to death in their own private chat groups, I oughta open up a whole new thread to make sure them boys know what's going on, and I'll look particularly industry-savvy by being the first person to mention it."

-AirBear ( probably)

The irony here is that the kid will almost certainly be sent home unaccompanied. Grandma can't spare a few hours to ensure the kid gets home safely.

I know this story can happen at any airline but the NK agents as a whole really do a lot of really dumb things that are a direct result of Miramar's love for cheap contract workers.

This is the root cause of the problem. Mom/Dad/whoever booked ticket, walked to the gate, that says Orlando, FL...

Boarding pass scanned, kid is validated on the manifest, good to board. Im not an NK guy, but I mean, most of the blame is not on yall.

This is still alive? Can't we discuss something relavent like how our practice Type Ride Oral stars the guy from Young Frankenstein and that teenage Avenger?

Too soon. Happened a couple of days ago. It'll die down by the time there's another Spirit passenger boarding area/on plane fight or schedule meltdown.

Is there a onboard video of the kid breaking down in tears as he finds out he's not going to Grandma's? Did Spirit loose the kid at MCO and have to get Mickey to help find him? This make a nice, happy ending story, even if its grandma having to haul butt up I-75 to make it so. A nice "Home Alone" type story at the right time of year. No ones hurt, kid get's a lolly pop and mom and dad probably get a couple freebies as a "Sorry we screwed up" peace offering.

Thats the thing about this story that makes no sense. Per Spirits U/M policies, a guardian or someone over the age of 15 must accompany the U/M to the gate. Then NK FA's handle the kid from gate to gate. Where a gaurdian must pick the the U/M up from the gate. Am I missing something? I'm not even sure how people get on the wrong airplane. But the parent or gaurdian had to have brought them to the wrong gate. Right?

Why isn't anyone addressing that the parents worked for an airline without adequate reserve grid language and had to abandon the child with grandma? At least the wrong flight was staffed over the holiday. By two two X list pilots.

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE CHILDREN!

Letting a 6 year old go anywhere with strangers is child abuse.

Letting me go anywhere alone is elder abuse.