United "loses" 10-year-old girl on flight

[Iron_chet]

I am a bit suprised that any airline would allow UM on a connecting flight, especially through ORD.

The outsourcing was probably to a company that has a contract to move people in wheelchairs, special requests, etc which is fairly common.

The airline I work for had an incident of losing a UM when the person in the seat next to the kid walked her off the plane after telling her to put her jacket on which covered up the identifying tags she was wearing. The guy then called the media to let them know what happened.

Lapse by the flight attendant in forgetting the UM.

**** hit the fan and we discontinued the service for a few years until the process could be beefed up even more.

 

[X-Hack]

I guess he was performing a public service in a way, but what an asshole.

 

[RickStain]

<huge pet peeve mode on>

Yeah, that's a complete asshole move and proves nothing relevant. There is no such thing as a perfect safety bubble for children, and anyone can do something at any time if they want to. We just create arbitrary "this is okay, this is not" lines that make us feel better about the scary fact that if someone really wanted to, they could snatch our kid for whatever purposes they felt like pretty much at will.

Strangers snatching kids is so rare as to be unheard of, but we've got ourselves as a society worked up into a frenzy convinced that people are lurking around every corner ready to grab any unaccompanied kid.

Some facts:

1) Your kid is several orders of magnitude more likely to be killed by your swimming pool or the extra 10 mph you drive on the highway than a stranger.
2) If something horrible did happen to your kid at the hands of an adult, it would almost certainly be perpetrated by someone the child already knows and trusts.

We've got a whole generation of parents indulging in their irrational fears and refusing to teach their children any sense of independence or competency.

Every 10-year-old is different, but what skills are involved in getting on a connecting flight that a 10-year-old isn't capable of? Especially if you've taught the kid to handle himself on his own in public situations, they should be more than capable of it.

And the idea that they'll be traumatized if something goes wrong? Sorry, but that's the parent talking about their own emotions. A 4-year-old lost in the airport would be traumatized. A 10-year-old who gets stuck in an airport is probably going to be thinking about how awesome this is and maybe they'll make the news and tell all their friends a cool story.
<pet peeve rant mode off>

 

[User 11148]

Nobody ever said becoming a parent makes one more rational.

 

[RickStain]

Nobody ever said becoming a parent makes one more rational.

Agreed. But parenting to your emotional fears instead of reality is not doing your kids any favor. It's possible to say "This is what I feel, this is what I know to be true, and I'm acting on the latter" while still feeling the former.

 

[playthrough]

So, $99 gets your kid a wristband that assures (cough) he/she will be taken care of personally by the airline?

And we pay $25 for our luggage. Yeah, our kids are only worth four times our checked bags.

 

[Football_Bat]

When I was 10 and my brother was seven my aunt in Oklahoma put us both on a Greyhound bus home. We found our way just fine.

 

[Tom Petty]

i lost a 10-year-old girl once ... she ended up being downstairs playing wii. she almost was late for dinner.

Hopefully she had her cell phone.

eh, half the time that's lost upstairs in her bedroom.

 

[waterytart]

Nobody ever said becoming a parent makes one more rational.

Agreed. But parenting to your emotional fears instead of reality is not doing your kids any favor. It's possible to say "This is what I feel, this is what I know to be true, and I'm acting on the latter" while still feeling the former.

My 10-year-old:

Will never go to camp because s/he's not allowed to leave the house.
May go to day camp here in town.
May go to sleepaway camp here in town.
May go to sleepaway camp within a distance of x hours drive.
May fly to camp, if accompanied.
May fly unaccompanied to camp if it's a direct flight.
May fly unaccompanied to camp and change planes.
May hitchhike to camp.


I assume we'd all throw out the two extremes (though FB's aunt might be OK with that last one). Where your comfort level stops among the other choices depends on your income, your religion, the maturity of your particular 10-year-old, and other factors I'm too lazy to think of. I think different parents can have valid reasons for different choices.

 

[RickStain]

They can also have different lines within the continuum for bad reasons. It doesn't make them bad people or bad parents, but it is what it is.

 

[Iron_chet]

@Rick

I don't disagree with your overall point about overprotecting kids but bad stuff does happen.

Airports are a ****show for a lot of adults and I think a majority of 10 year olds would be overwhelmed in that environment.

Screw ups happens but UA's handling of it **** the bed.

 

[RickStain]

Glad we're all on the same page :)

 

[YGBFKM]

We need an unmoderated subboard for airline threads.

 

[Tom Petty]

We need an unmoderated subboard for airline threads.

it appears so.

 

[playthrough]

I'd put my kid on a plane without a second thought if I could hand her off to a flight attendant at the gate and know that same attendant would walk her off the ramp to a family member at the arriving gate (direct flight, please). But now? I don't think the airlines can possibly do this well without parents/guardians being able to go to gates. And they shouldn't have to. If I ran an airline, I'd want no part of the unaccompanied minor business. Much easier to deal with a million disgruntled business travelers.

 

[Double Down]

If this girl had made her flight OK, but racked up $8,000 in phone charges on her cell, I suspect we'd have a chorus of people here unloading on the parents for giving the girl a cell phone.

SportsJournalists.com: Where we tend to know best, especially after the fact.

 

[Tom Petty]

If this girl had made her flight OK, but racked up $8,000 in phone charges on her cell, I suspect we'd have a chorus of people here unloading on the parents for giving the girl a cell phone.

SportsJournalists.com: Where we tend to know best, especially after the fact.

my 10-year-old has a cell. i could give two ****s what (not you DD) a bunch of childless know-it-alls have to say about that fact.

 

[Smash Williams]

It does seem like the perfect situation for one of those pre-paid cell phones. Which doesn't mean the parents are at fault at all - they clearly aren't. But it could have saved them a touch of angst. Live and learn.

 

[buckweaver]

I'd put my kid on a plane without a second thought if I could hand her off to a flight attendant at the gate and know that same attendant would walk her off the ramp to a family member at the arriving gate (direct flight, please). But now? I don't think the airlines can possibly do this well without parents/guardians being able to go to gates. And they shouldn't have to. If I ran an airline, I'd want no part of the unaccompanied minor business. Much easier to deal with a million disgruntled business travelers.

According to the Southwest guidelines, parents/guardians can go to the gate. On both ends of the flight.

http://www.southwest.com/html/customer-service/family/unaccompanied-minors-pol.html

 

[Football_Bat]

We need an unmoderated subboard for airline threads.

it appears so.

Would never work. Boom-idji Airlines would lay a trap, and some Star-go carrier would take the bait.