@twoinanddone …yep…that’s what happened to the fur coat lady. Two flights were actually boarding in the same place. She turned the wrong way after she showed her boarding pass.
Honestly…it was a mistake that could easily happen back on the day. Not so easy now.
No, I did not misinterpret what they said. They clearly said they were accompanied by a chaparone throughout the flight from parental/family/trusted friend handoff till the moment they were picked up/met by parents/relatives/trusted adult friend at the destination.
I also had firsthand experience with this once when extended family paid for that service on top of the airline ticket for me to fly cross-country to visit my grandmother and some extended relatives on the West Coast at 8.
The chaparone who accompanied me on the westward flight was an airline pilot who spent the entire flight talking about his flying career from flying F-86 fighters in Korea till his airline flight along with many other things. Made the 6 hour flight go fast even with a stopover in Chicago’s Midway Airport. The one on my return trip spent most of the time discussing favorite childhood hobbies and places he’s visited or lived abroad for extended periods.
Granted, that was my only chaparoned experience as the next time I flew as a 10-11 year old, my extended family felt I was mature enough to no longer need the UAM chaparone service. From 10 on, I was treated no differently than adult passengers…and had no issues.
Granted, I’m the type of person who usually views getting lost not as something to be terrified about, but the start of a potentially great adventure which I can later look back upon with fondness or as source material for storytime with friends/creative writing.
You probably just happened to be seated next to a jump-seating or dead-heading pilot, and not a deliberately scheduled, dedicated chaperone. Planes commonly have airline staff who are nonrevving. The nonrevs might help out of kindness, but it’s not their job.
Do the math @cobrat . Pilots cost too much, plus it’s entirely out of the scope of their job description, to be an officially assigned nanny.
It boggles the mind to think that $100-150 would pay for hours of a pilot’s time to babysit an unaccompanied minor. Of course it didn’t.
Actually, I said WAS because he had retired not too long before he was employed as a chaparone accompanying 8 year old me. My impression is that he was doing that while collecting a retirement pension from the airline for 2+ decades of service with the airline.
Retired pilots usually get to fly at no cost after they retire. You probably just hit it lucky getting seated next to a retired pilot. Did this retire pilot actually accompany you from your parents to the plane seat…and then to your grandparents?
Even if that WAS the case…that was what…over 30 years ago…or so?
I could see a lawsuit if this were happening all the time with airlines. Sometimes it takes a lawsuit to shake up an industry’s negligent practices, for the good of all. But I’ve never heard of this happening before. Sounds like a one-off; a singular mistake. No reports of either child sustaining injury or damage, either. Lawsuit seems purposeless here.
I believe the mother who is threatening to sue is citing emotional distress. I’m sure it was very upsetting, but a lawsuit seems like a thinly veiled extortion attempt. S1 was put on the wrong bus home the first day of kindergarten. Yes, I was scared and upset when all of the kids disembarked, and he was not among them. He ride the wrong bus all the way back to the school - the principal called me and personally apologized - and I went and picked him up. No complaint filed, I accepted their apology and that was it. Today it seems like when anything goes wrong, a lawsuit is sure to follow.
RVM - Do we have the same child? S1 was put on the wrong bus home the first day of kindergarten too. It was a harrowing afternoon. The bus driver couldn’t get through to the dispatcher, I kept getting a busy signal when I called the school, and had to drive to the school with a screaming 2 year old to find out what happened. Once I knew where S1 was and that he was safe, I was just concerned that he’d never want to take the bus again. Fortunately, he was fine, he just thought his teacher (who called to apologize) was stupid for putting him on the wrong bus. I never considered filing a lawsuit.
It’s hellish enough when one is subjected to cross-country economy class travel as a paying passenger. Therefore, I am having a hard time envisaging a 60+ year old man, with male adult length legs, an airline pilot’s pension & free flight benefits for life, signing up willing to work for peanuts to sit in a cattle class seat for hours to babysit random young children cross-country, WITHOUT A DRINK. That’s a bona fide miracle.
Move over, St. Mother Theresa. You’ve got competition.
S1 was not at all upset - enjoyed the attention. He was the most famous kindergartener at his school, lol. The kindergarten teacher was a 30 year veteran who kept apologizing and saying this had never happened before. We had a very close rapport with the principal from that day forward.
My feeling is - mistakes happen. If there is no evil intent and everyone is ok and apologies have been made, then move on. Review procedures if needed, but no procedure is foolproof.
I remember getting on the bus to go home on the first day of first grade (no K). My mother had told me NOT to get on the bus if I didn’t see my brother, sisters and neighborhood kids. I had a green circle pinned to my dress as my bus was ‘green.’ Very high tech, no mix ups.
My own kids had a problem coming home on the first day. They were actually 6 & 7, starting second grade. They hadn’t ridden to school on that day because I had to register them, and it was a year round school so there were kids who were on other tracks who had been riding the bus, no one at ‘our’ stop. I went up to the top of the complex to the stop and waited. Waited. Waited. I think they showed up about 30 minutes later. The driver had gotten to the last stop and had two kids left over! He had to call and find out where they belonged and that took a while. I didn’t have a cell phone at that time, so I just waited. A few weeks later another girl started school on a different track. Then we switched back to our old school and she was the only one at this stop. I can see how the bus drivers get a little confused.
After my dad died, we sent my daughter out to visit my mom every summer starting at age 7. I believe 7 was the youngest age at that time for Unaccompanied Minors. It was a wonderful thing for both my mom and daughter to have that time together. D was very well-behaved and we only had her fly on a non-stop flight so there were no connections to worry about. I remember talking to her on the phone after she arrived at Grandma’s the very first time and she enthusiastically told me about this really nice lady named Ann who played Uno with her for the entire 3 1/2 hour flight. God bless Ann, wherever you are, for enduring 3 1/2 hours of Uno!
@rockvillemom - lol. I was put on the wrong bus the first day of kindergarten back in the 60’s. The bus driver ended up taking me back to her house, gave me a cookie and some milk and my mom came and picked me up… Then my youngest got put on the wrong bus the first day of his kindergarten! The driver tried to drop him off at the wrong house.My son wouldn’t get off so they took him back to school. By that time I had already called the school and told them my son didn’t get off the bus with his older brother. Mistakes happen.
When I went to first grade, the school I went to had buses A, B and C. I was assigned to bus B. I took bus A home because 5-yo me “already knew that I didn’t want a B in school.” Don’t know where I got that from! My family was frantic when I didn’t arrive home on the expected bus (and of course this was pre-cell phone) but luckily it all worked out since I’m here …
JetBlue screwed up and flew only two boys to the wrong city. Heck, that’s minor compared to flying an entire planeload of passengers to the wrong city.
This in today’s news:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/07/airasia-pilot-flies-melbourne-malaysia-navigation-error
My favourite part of the article is, “TERRAIN! TERRAIN!”
Lawsuit coming. Make no mistake about it. Multi-million dollar lawsuit will be settled out of court for a few hundred thousand dollars. Lawyers get their 1/3 for a hard day’s work. And everyone is happy.
The rest of us can expect airfares to rise to cover the cost of this and all the other settlements.
Did the kids look similar enough to each other’s passport photos that this was not detected at any stage?