Airline Comes Under Fire After Misplacing 6-Year-Old

(USNewsBreak.com) – Sometimes, parents must send their children on flights by themselves, and they trust the airline to ensure their child gets to the right destination. However, things can go wrong, and a 6-year-old boy recently ended up hundreds of miles from where his family expected him to land. Now, the airline has come under fire.

Maria Ramos went to Southwest Florida International Airport in south Fort Myers on Thursday, December 21, to pick up her 6-year-old grandson, Casper, to spend the holidays with her. However, she soon learned he wasn’t on the flight from Philadelphia as scheduled. Instead, he was more than 100 miles from Fort Myers in Orlando. He called her to let her know he landed, unaware he was in the wrong city.

Spirit puts 6-year-old on wrong flight; grandmother says airline's statement misleading https://t.co/TcAdXcZxCE

— UPI.com (@UPI) December 26, 2023

When Ramos questioned the airline, they told her he missed his flight. However, she had his checked bag information that contradicted the airline’s statement. Eventually, the airline found the boy in Orlando and apologized to the family, saying it “take[s] the safety and responsibility of transporting all of [its] Guests seriously.” The statement wasn’t enough for Ramos. She wants to know how her grandson ended up on the wrong flight. She made the four-hour round-trip drive to pick him up.

“Come on,” Ramos said in a statement, according to WINK News. “You have cameras all over this place … You’re telling me you don’t know what happened to Casper?” She then relayed her opinion that the boy didn’t have proper accompaniment — a flight attendant typically accompanies a minor child the entire time the airline has the child in transit.

Ramos is now considering taking legal action against the airline to get the answers she rightfully deserves. The airline reimbursed her for the trip to Orlando. In addition to reimbursing her for the drive to Orlando to pick Casper up, the airline has offered to pay for the boy’s return flight and a round-trip flight for her to accompany him home.