Airline negligence attorneys were astounded to learn that two young children traveling on their own was mistakenly put onto wrong Continental Express flights over the last weekend. According to an Associated Press news report, an 8-year-old College Station girl erroneously ended up in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and a 10-year-old Massachusetts girl was mistakenly sent to Newark, New Jersey after boarding planes operated by ExpressJet, which is under contract with Continental Express Airlines. After the airline accident Continental apologized to the children's families in a short statement that said the mix-up was simply "a miscommunication among staff."
What did the girls' families have to say? Wendy Babineaux, one of the moms, was livid, justifiably so. Her daughter, who was involved in this airline negligence case, was on a Continental Airline flight headed to Charlotte, North Carolina to see her dad. She was sent to Arkansas, back to Houston, then to Charlotte. Jonathan Kamens, the father of 10-year-old Miriam said he put his daughter on a Cleveland-bound flight in Boston to visit her grandparents. The girl ended up in New Jersey.
What the parents of both these children remarked is that they are first of all, appalled by Continental Airlines' utter incompetence and secondly, they are disgusted at the way the negligent airline handled these serious situations. Babineaux became worried when the girl's father called to find out where the child was and Kamens panicked when his father-in-law called to say Miriam had not arrived in Cleveland. For 45 minutes, no one could tell Kamens where his daughter was. Both parents believe that there was a complete breakdown in procedures at the airline and worse, the airline simply did not take it seriously! And what did the airline give Kamens for the hell he experienced for those 45 minutes? Well, they offered him a $75 refund.
Millions of children in the United States fly unaccompanied every year. Most children fly and reach their destination without any incident. However, airline flight errors such as these do happen from time to time. The questions that arise with these incidents are: How did it happen? Why did it happen? Were there any protocols or procedures that were breached by employees as they escorted these children?
According to Continental Express Airline's general rules and guidelines, children 8 and up are permitted to take a connecting flight and changing aircraft. Children below 8 may only be on direct flights. If they are between 8 and 11, they should be escorted by airline personnel to their connecting flight. A significant extra charge (between $75 and $100) is likely for this service. In Miriam's case, it seems that Continental merely offered to refund this service charge to her father as an apology for the airline negligence error.
The question that these Continental Airline accidents raise is also how airlines can be held accountable when such airline negligence or oversight occurs? Should the airline be fined? Should the airline be made to refund the entire ticket price? What if the child leaves the terminal and is lost or suffers personal injury? Right now, there seems to be no sense of accountability on the part of the airlines. If you paid an airline for the service of escorting your unaccompanied child, then, they owe you the duty of ensuring the child reaches his or her destination safely and was picked up by the right person. The thought of losing their child is probably the scariest any parent could be faced with. It is indeed shocking and appalling that Continental's employees brushed off these distraught parents' concerns. This airline seems to have the same policy, customer response and service for lost children that they do for lost baggage. I think that if an airline causes such chaos and emotional distress in the lives of their customers, they should be held accountable and made to face the consequences. What do you think? I'd love to hear from you.
SLS Consulting