United Airlines ‘Lost’ an Unaccompanied Little Girl, Refused to Help Parents Find Her

[n2doc]

Neetzan Zimmerman

The No Asshole Rule author Bob Sutton took to his blog yesterday to tell an incredible story about a fuck-up of staggering proportions involving United Airlines, breathtaking amounts of buck-passing, and a lost little girl.
In the abridged version of this story, Sutton's friends Annie and Perry Klebahn sent their 10-year-old daughter Phoebe to camp in Grand Rapids, which required her to fly as an unaccompanied minor aboard a United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Chicago.

In Chicago, a person from an unaccompanied minor service employed by United was supposed to greet Phoebe and take her to her next flight. That never happened.

This quote from Sutton's complaint letter to United's CEO details what did:

The attendants where busy and could not help her she told us. She told them she had a flight to catch to camp and they told her to wait. She asked three times to use a phone to call us and they told her to wait. When she missed the flight she asked if someone had called camp to make sure they knew and they told her "yes-we will take care of it". No one did. She was sad and scared and no one helped.

Eventually the camp called Phoebe's parents to inform them that their daughter was missing. They tried to get some answers from United, but were stonewalled at every turn.

more

http://gawker.com/5934706/united-airlines-lost-an-unaccompanied-little-girl-refused-to-help-parents-find-her

[NYC_SKP]

1. I cannot imagine sending my 10 year old all by herself to a city two thousand miles away with nobody

with nobody there to greet her.

A service provided by an airline or any other thing wouldn't do it for me.

It would have to be a relative or really reliable friend there-- not the word of an airline and especially not the word of United.

Poor girl!

Poor Phoebe!!!!!

[riderinthestorm]

2. Agreed! 10 years old is waaaayyyy too young to be making connecting flights, alone,

and at O'Hare?? One of the world's busiest airports, which is United's hub so they're always jammed???

NEVER.

Shame on United, bigger shame on the family for even doing this to Phoebe.

[mike_c]

27. that's why the airlines offer the service as a courtesy to passengers....

My daughter flew unaccompanied numerous times between the ages of 8 and 15. She was always supervised by airline employees.

[riderinthestorm]

29. Except of course, when it breaks down. Like in this case

Way too scary for me and my kids and I'd never risk it. YMMV

[PayAttentionFool]

3. The parents share in the blame too

it is their kid and they are legally responsible for her till she is 18.

IMHO at least 1 parent should have traveled with the kid.

[sakabatou]

5. Right...

I've made an unaccompanied flight before when I was that age. So how are they responsible? Wasn't the airline at fault this time?

[PayAttentionFool]

15. Both the parents and airline are at fault

yes the airline offered the service but the parents did entrust their kid to total stranges to watch them on a trip cross country.

Both are at fault but I place more blame on the parents.

Perhaps I am just old fashioned thinking that parents need to be responsible for their kids.

[matt819]

40. Yeah, you are old-fashioned

My kids, now in their 20s, traveled as unaccompanied minors repeatedly, in some cases internationally. I was pretty thorough in my arrangements, checked and double-checked every step of the way, made sure I was called or that I could call to check on status, etc. No problems. Kids felt pretty good about themselves. This was in the late 1990s and early 2000 - noting after 9/11.

I think the problems here were due solely to the airline farming out this job. Too many opportunities for buck-passing and crack-slipping. But this is a valid service airlines have been offering for years, and to blame the parents is offensive.

[backscatter712]

6. No, airlines provide escort services for unaccompanied minors.

No, not that kind of escort service, you perv!

I mean they have flight attendants and airline workers who watch over kids travelling without their parents. Yes, they charge a fee and are supposed to have responsible adults working for the airline making sure that the kids get from point A to point B and are released only to the designated adults on the tickets at the destination.

So in legal theory at least, the parents have done their job - they released their kid to the airline, who promised to provide adult supervision and get the kid to point B.

United fucked up, not the parents.

[PayAttentionFool]

17. If you think dumping a kid on a airplane to travel alone is OK

then go for it, dump your kid on a plane to travel alone and if something happens too bad so sad, you rolled the dice and took your chance with strangers who work for an airline.

Sure legally the airline is at fault but that still does not absolve the parents of any responsibility for the child.

[cali]

16. actually, they don't.

Children have been traveling as unaccompanied minors with guarantees from the airlines for decades and decades.

[PayAttentionFool]

18. OK so when the airline loses a kid like a peice of luggage

the parents of the kid need to STFU about it.

Eventually the kid will turn up or the airline will reimburse them, current rate is around $3000 now for lost luggage, so they can pocket the money and make another kid.

[uponit7771]

32. lol.....don't read this, you'll laugh and go to hell

[uponit7771]

30. ...you forgot the /sarcasm tag

[Marrah_G]

41. I would never have allowed my kids to fly alone

Mine was 17 the first time he flew alone and that was to boot camp.

There isn't anyplace they would need to go without me that is THAT important.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

4. Well thank goodness the dad got his miles back!

Too many assholes to count in this story.

[FarCenter]

7. If the dad has flown that many miles, he should know all about airline service standards.

Maybe they got the miles from a credit card, rather than by flying?

At least send the kid off with a prepaid cell phone.

[vanlassie]

8. Dad couldn't fly with his little girl?

Appalling parenting, or lack of...

[mfcorey1]

9. Unreal!!!!!!

[Strega Ribiera]

10. No way...

in hell would I allow my 10 year old daughter to travel cross country alone. Not happening. If the parents couldn't afford the price of 2 plane tickets, they should have driven her where she needed to go. I lay blame with the parents.

[DFW]

11. United is like this with adults, too

Last time we flew with them, a couple of years ago, we had come into Washington, Dulles, from France, on our way to Charleston, South Carolina. We had prepaid our hotel in Charleston. We checked in for the United flight to Charleston 3 hours before it was scheduled to leave. One hour before it was to leave, they canceled the flight, and said all later flights to Charleston were booked solid. Tough luck. They said they would help us find a hotel--that WE had to pay for--and TRY to get us to Charleston the next day.

I asked if they had flight going to near there. They said yes, to Columbia, SC in 3 hours. I asked if they could get our luggage transferred. No problem, they said. So three hours later we flew to Columbia. No luggage, and no United staff, just an airport employee who gave us some standard form to fill out, so they could give it to United in the morning. We took a $250 taxi in the middle of the night to Charleston. The next morning, I tried the United 800 number for baggage tracing. After a 45 minute wait, I hung up and took a taxi out to the Charleston airport where I knew United had live employees. There, in an unguarded area, for anyone to walk off with, was our luggage. I assembled it and found a taxi to take it back to our hotel. I haven't taken United since.

I fully believe that this story could have happened. Any airline SHOULD be able to transfer a ten-year-old UM. I wouldn't trust a United plane to take off nose first, especially if they promised to do so beforehand.

[crazylikafox]

12. I've had several similar experiences with United,

including driving to the airport to pick my own lost luggage out of the unguarded pile. I'll NEVER fly United again, unless I have absolutely no other choice.

[GObamaGO]

13. Parents should sue until they own the airline

WTF

[cbrer]

14. Fly the friendly skies

...

[PayAttentionFool]

20. The kind of parent who would put their kid alone on an airplane

Is the same type of parent who would strap a dog to the roof of a car.

[sakabatou]

23. You're comparing apples to humans.

[haele]

24. No, most times, its a custodial parent sending the child off to see a non-custodial parent -

To court-ordered visitation. My stepdaughter traveled unaccompanied minor since she was 9 to come out and see her father over the summers and the winter break (until her mom blew it two years later, we ended up with custody and had to send her out to see her mom for two weeks a year). Neither her father or her mother could afford the plane ticket or the time off to accompany her to see her other parent, as ordered by the court.
This is the primary reason nowadays why a parent might not be able to just drop everything and go with a child halfway across the country, then find someplace to kick around at for two weeks to a month while the child is occupied with the reason for the trip.

And it's not a new, sudden problem. Back in the 1960's and 70's, it was not unheard of to send a kid off to camp or to see the grandparents for the summer - I got lucky one year back in '70 when I was 11 years old and won a scholarship to a music camp located across the state; my folks sent me off via train with two young teens who were likewise unaccompanied - we were going to be picked up at the town when the train got there, and they only drove out to be at the end of camp concert and pick me up. It was a matter of time and cost.
Should my parents have said "sorry kiddo; at least you know you were talented enough you could have gone"...and let me miss the opportunity to learn more and get a serious musical background established that would have gotten me further than public school orchestra. At that time, it was very plausible I could have had a successful career as a professional musician and possibly a composer. A hand injury at 16 killed that career, but at the time, there was no way my parents would have known that, and to get a scholarship to this camp as basically a self-taught musician was a very prestigious event.

I see that as similar to this case - sending this girl to a summer camp unaccompanied could very well have been an issue in which the parents saved up enough to send their daughter to a special camp over the summer; or perhaps had a grandparent that paid for it as a treat or reward, and they just couldn't afford more than the one ticket and the $50 - $100 per trip it cost to pay for the attention of a "handler" when one sends a unaccompanied minor. This also happens often, and 9,999 out of 10,000 times, the airlines do not screw up this badly, and the child remains safe and sound.

Its not always "bad parenting" when something bad happens. The only bad parenting in this case I could see is that they didn't provide her with a cheap, basic Virgin Mobile phone to get ahold of them if something happened, like we did with the kidlet.

You (the metaphorical "you", not you personally) might be willing to tell your kid "no way am I letting you go to camp across the country" if it's within your abilities to at least send the child. And you might be able to justify it because you, your wife, or one of the grandparents can't take off work, buy a round-trip ticket and a hotel room for four weeks to hang out over the time the kid will be spending at "Camp Bio-physics-Ecology-Olympic-Swim-Team-Training-and-Fun" in the middle of the Adirondacks to ensure you are always there to hold their hands and ensure absolutely nothing happens to them. After all, your kid could just stay "at home" like the few of their friends who also have nothing better to do, go skate-boarding to the mall and play video games all August. It's so much safer, and probably just as educational.

Myself, I wouldn't necessarily call that good parenting - letting your kid hang around with nothing to do all summer.

Haele

[mike_c]

28. bingo....

My ex and I shared custody, but lived at opposite ends of the country. Our daughter flew many times, unaccompanied, without incident.

[virgogal]

34. Generations of kids didn't go away to camp,and they had good parents.Lack of money

was the factor and there are only so many camperships to go around.

These kids turned out okay.

[haele]

36. Sorry, that was a stereotype v stereotype rant -

Saying "you're a bad parent because you let you kid fly across country unaccompanied to camp" can be just as offensive as saying "you're a bad parent because you let your kid stay at home with nothing to do all summer."

My parents couldn't "send me to camp" - not even to a YMCA summer camp that almost all my friends were able to go to - until those times when was a scholarship involved, then they saved all year, dumpster dove to collect bottles and cans, and borrowed from relatives, and to get me out there and to also be able to come out and attend the "closing concert" each time it looked like I would be getting the scholarship.

But they damn well made sure that there was something major for me and my brother to do every summer when we were growing up.

Haele

[etherealtruth]

42. Thank you for posting this

You expressed this beautifully.

I I was trying to formulate a response containing the points you made. You did a far better job than I could/would have.

[RebelOne]

26. When I was 10 and 11 years old,

I would take the train alone from Miami to Philadelphia. There was always someone there to watch over me. And my parents were not the type to strap a dog to the roof of a car. There was always a relative to meet me at the train station in Philadelphia.

[Horse with no Name]

25. A friend recently flew across country

and she is an early-30's mother...looks respectable, etc.

After she was seated, there were 4 unaccompanied children brought to her surrounding seats. None were over the age of 9. She said that basically they were just left there in her care by the flight attendants.

She was really pretty unhappy with being the defacto sitter because this trip was a treat to get over the mental anguish of a long and traumatic divorce...but really, what is someone to do in that situation?

[Moonwalk]

33. What is one supposed to do? Easy. Get out your phone, call the police, and inform them....

...that the airline you are on has abandoned children that were put in its custody. Do it before the plane takes off. In fact, ask the kids for their parent's phone number and call them, too. Tell them to call their lawyers. Call the news. Do anything but do not let those attendants dump the kids on you--because doing so means that you are letting them be irresponsible--and I mean criminally irresponsible. Those attendants gave those kids into the care of a stranger--what if that stranger had been a child-molester or kidnapper? He/she could have befriended the kids and taken them off the plane to who-knows-where.

If you let people take advantage of you, you've no one to blame but yourself. And if you let them do so in order that they can ignore their responsibilities, then you are helping them to be irresponsible. Help them and the company they work for to be responsible. That is your job; not to be rooked into doing their job for them. Which doesn't mean you ignore the kids--it simply means that you make those who should have been watching over the kids pay for making you watch over them--and for recklessly putting those kids in a situation that could have been dangerous.

[bluestateguy]

31. Flying ain't like Pan-Am in the 1960's anymore

That's for sure.

[PuppyBismark]

35. In case you have not see this, United Also Breaks Guitars

This has been seen more than 12 million times, it seems United will never get it's act together:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="

" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[truebrit71]

37. Great video!

..

[BanzaiBonnie]

38. Do you think that background checks are done by the third party unaccompanied minor service

Of course it would be just the sort of organization a pedophile would target.

And what if a pedophile, working for the third party service, had just walked away with a child?

[treestar]

39. System breakdown

The airline has a system for unaccompanied minors, but like most things, there can be break downs. Somehow the attendants dropped the ball.