Just before Christmas
Fort Myers or Orlando? The main thing is Florida! Airline puts six-year-old on wrong plane
Instead of ending up with his grandmother, a six-year-old’s journey ended shortly before Christmas in Orlando, 250 kilometers away
© Markus Mainka / Imago Images
A six-year-old in the USA experiences an unexpected end to his trip shortly before Christmas. Only his luggage arrives at his actual destination in Florida – the boy ends up somewhere else entirely.
It sounds a bit like a script for a new “Kevin – Alone in New York” film, but Casper will remember the first plane ride in his young life for a long time. The six-year-old was supposed to fly alone from Philadelphia to Fort Myers on Thursday with the Spirit airline Florida, but only his luggage arrived there, causing his waiting grandmother to panic.
“The airline told me that he wasn’t on the flight and I told them that wasn’t possible because I have documents from his check-in,” Maria Ramos, the six-year-old’s grandmother, told the TV station “Wink News”. She then ran to the flight attendant on the plane and asked where her grandson was and whether he had been handed over to her in Philadelphia. “But she only said that she had no children on the flight,” said Ramos. The clarification followed shortly afterwards: Instead of Fort Myers, Casper landed in Orlando – in Florida, after all, but around 250 kilometers from his actual destination. After Casper contacted his grandmother, she made the four-hour drive to pick up her grandson.
Florida: Why was a six-year-old on the wrong plane?
The airline assured Ramos that it would cover the travel costs, but the grandmother wants her questions answered. “I want you to call me and explain to me how my grandson ended up in Orlando. Did they take him off the plane? Did the flight attendant just let him go off on his own after his mother handed him over? Is he on his own Got on the wrong plane?” It is still unclear how the six-year-old got on the wrong plane. “We take the safety of all our passengers very seriously and will investigate the incident internally,” a Spirit Airline spokesman assured the TV station. However, Casper was under observation throughout his entire journey and was looked after by a team member.
Casper’s case is not an isolated case in the USA – even if these incidents are rare. In 2016, a mother sued JetBlue Airways after the airline mixed up two children at an airport in the Dominican Republic. As Maribel Martinez at John F. Kennedy in new York When she went to pick up her five-year-old son, an unknown child was waiting for her. Her son landed at the airport in Boston instead. The legal dispute was settled by agreement that same year.
In 2019, a plane turned around in Newark, North Carolina, just at the last second. There, a 14-year-old from United Airlines was put on a plane to Germany instead of his connecting flight to Sweden. The plane returned to the gate after flight attendants noticed the error.
Sources:Wink news, Washington Post, AP