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Spirit Airlines put six-year-old boy on the wrong flight alone
(www.independent.co.uk)
Kevin!!!!!
They call this the Spirit Quest. If he makes it home alive, he's considered a man.
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?
This is why the Canadian Cut is the canonical version of Home Alone 2.
An appropriate and artful use of Deepfake technology would be to replace trump with a different period correct actor.
Pauly Shore?
Actually, they should age up Macaulay Culkin.
Home Alone 7: Lost in Time.
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
That’s the spirit.
Airline loses 6 years of baggage....
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
I flew to Europe unaccompanied in the 90s at around age 12. They put a lanyard on you, you're first on the plane and last off, and a flight attendant takes you between connecting flights on a cart. There's very little unsupervised time. It's not like you can get off the plane.
I would imagine there's even more supervision, more technology as well, than when I did it. Which makes a fuckup like this fairly astounding.
Right? As an adult I couldn't get on the wrong flight if I tried. It's baffling that they wouldn't need to scan a wristband or ticket or whatever for an unaccompanied minor to 1) confirm & document their presence on the plane like everyone else and 2) make sure they are sent to the right fucking place. Also confusing because you'd think that when the first staff member shows up to the wrong gate with the kid and tries to hand them off, the flight crew would be like "wtf are you talking about, we dont have an unaccompanied minor schesuled on this flight?" I get that people make mistakes but this isn't some shit like accidentally "replying all" to an email distribution list. It's hard to fathom how something like this could happen if even the most basic and common sense procedures were followed.
I did it either domestically (US) or possibly US to Canada. All I remember is there was food, which made it way better than flying with my parents.
So yeah this can't happen. The parent has to hand the kid to an escort, who is with the kid until they are put on the plane and handed off to the flight attendant. Not to mention the kids ticket has to be scanned on boarding. This was not just one person making a mistake. This was more than one person making more than one mistake. Including the escort, the gate agent, and maybe the flight attendant on the plane the kid was boarded on. Not to mention the gate agent on the flight the kid was supposed to be on. Their computer should tell them they have an unaccompanied minor on the flight who has been checked in at the counter. They would know the kid wasn't on the plane and as they board very first.
So how did this happen. Well Spirit contracts most of their labor. So the ticket counter, the escort and the gate agent were all contract labor. Probably for the same company but maybe not. And all of them were probably fairly inexperienced, as soon as most people get experience they leave spirit contractors and get hired with a real airline with real benefits.
I was an escort many years ago (phrasing deliberate) and yeah. Some safeguards we had off the top of my head:
-
Parents stayed with the kid at the gate for their first flight. They were also told to stay at the airport until the plane left the ground, not just when the kid boarded or the plane left the gate (I only worked with kids on layovers and arriving from international flights who needed to go through customs)
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When kids had an extended layover, they had a supervised play room we'd take them to. When it was time for their next flight we would call their name, check their wristband to make sure it matched the paperwork (oh yeah, they got wristbands with name and flight info) and we would ask them where they're going (not "are you going to St. Louis?" but "where are you going?" and make sure they say St. Louis, Missouri, or something to that effect)
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At the gate, talk to the gate agent. Tell them you have Kevin, the UM (unaccompanied minor) going to St. Louis so everyone knows they have the right kid going to the right place, especially if there was a gate change and she thought you had Blake for the new flight at this gate going to Denver
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Board the plane with the kid, and introduce them to the flight attendant. Same deal: name and city. When they take the kid from there, they should sign the book and check the wristband just as we did
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When the kid is handed off to the parent (or whatever) on the other end, make sure the name and address matches their ID. This was typically only done on international arrivals (otherwise parents would meet at the gate and gate agents would do the handoff) but if anything didn't match we had to get in contact with whoever dropped the kid off at the beginning of the trip and get authorization. But I'll admit I bent that rule when a deaf teenager was going back to her boarding school and Mom put the school's address which of course didn't match the ID. The girl knew the woman picking her up already and was old enough to trust a little vs some 8-year-old who doesn't understand that Aunt Suzy has a restraining order
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.
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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?..
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 👍👍
When the US Parcel Service was first introduced, a few people mailed their children.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/brief-history-children-sent-through-mail-180959372/
The first case was an 8 month old baby being delivered to his grandparents a few miles away by the postal worker on his route.
A more extreme case was a 4 year old sent 73 miles; a cousin who was a clerk with the rail mail service apparently accompanied her.
One of my husband's ancestors was shipped across Texas by train as a child.
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.
Europe, Asia, the Americas... it's legal around the world.
I did it many times with my daughter when she was young.
You have to accompany your child to the gate, where the gate agent puts a lanyard with identification and destination around her neck.
Then, flight attendants personally accompany the child into the plane, seat her, and note what seat she's in.
I was not allowed to leave the gate until the plane was in the air.
You must designate an adult to pick the child up at the destination at the gate. They must have photo ID that matches the designation before the airline will release the child.
Children can only go on direct flights. They are not allowed on flights that change planes.
I always found the system safe and friendly. Most flights would have several kids flying alone, so the crew would usually seat them all together and would pay them a lot of attention during the flight.
Around age twelve or thirteen, they no longer count as an unaccompanied minor. At that point, they can just fly like any regular passenger. To me, that's the more sketchy situation. I'd rather see that happen around age sixteen or so.
Different Americans think different things. There's no way in hell I'd let my kid fly alone at six!
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this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2023
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