Originally Posted by gengar

It flabbergasts me what else you expect a ten-year-old child to do in this situation. This particular child did everything I would reasonably expect her to do: find UA staff, tell them that she had a connecting flight, inform them that camp staff tasked with responsibility for her well-being were expecting her at the destination, and mention that her parents would also expect her to be arriving at the camp on that flight.

Originally Posted by legalalien

I think that part worked as intended. The child wasn't technically 'lost', as she did not just leave the plane by herself and did not wander around. But as far as her parents were concerned, she was 'lost', because she a) did not get to the destination; b) nobody called them or the destination; and c) nobody at United (seemingly) was willing to make any effort to find her.

Originally Posted by cordelli

While there is no excuse for United not meeting her at the plane, there's also no excuse for a ten year old, unless there is more to the story than the blog post, not to e able to make a phone call, find a policeman, security guard, or store clerk to help them call home.

I also don't believe the employee on the phone hung up the phone and fifteen minutes later in Chicago, found a ten year old child. Unless the child was in her office lobby, that's not at all remotely possible.

Yes, somebody should have been there, but there's so many gaping holes in this story it's just hard to believe any of it.

Originally Posted by Sprezzatura

http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_webl...idnt-care.html

Here is the headline: United was flying Phoebe as an unaccompanied minor on June 30th, from San Francisco to Chicago, with a transfer to Grand Rapids. No one showed-up in Chicago to help her transfer, so although her plane made it, she missed the connection. Most crucially, United employees consistently refused to take action to help assist or comfort Phoebe or to help her parents locate her despite their cries for help to numerous United employees.

Originally Posted by aviatorzz

What confuses me the most from the bullet points is this:



Granted their email system isn't the greatest, but I don't think I've ever had an issue filing a complaint.


Why was the camp making trips? Unless something has drastically changed, isn't UA obligated to deliver baggage?

As OP clearly told us, at that station they DO NOT deliver bags till the next day

And this part is laughable (at least about B6 and WN):



B6 is the sole reason why legislators decided to enact the DOT3 rule and WN ranks among the worst airlines to help in an irregular operation (read = this isn't towards their customer satisfaction score).

While it will never happen, I would love to hear the information from UAL's side. Always two sides to every story. Children tend to fear reprimand for their actions, so they find something they can blame it on. When I worked for the airlines, I would have an angry parent show up requesting to speak to a supervisor and after listening to the "how could you let my child miss a flight" and "I'm never putting my child on xxx airlines because you (pointing at me) made him/her miss the flight" I would meet the flight that had the child on it, talk to the F/A about the child and come to find out that they were so scared after their initial flight that they didn't want to fly on the next flight, or that the child didn't want to go on this trip because he/she thought it was stupid. As opposed to telling their parent(s), and in return getting reprimanded, it turns into "xxx airlines made me miss my flight!!!".

15+ years in the customer service industry, I have seen, heard, and smelled (bs) it all. If this is true, then shame on UAL for this. But, if there is another story to be heard and the real story comes back on the parent's as opposed to united, shame on the parents. I've seen it both ways. Take every story with a grain of salt until facts are presented, as opposed to a "friend's" one sided sob story.

Originally Posted by sandiegofun

It's simple to me. If you are going to charge the UM fee, do what you say. Otherwise, don't charge me the fee and I will get the phone and not pay the fee.

I just asked my 10 year old and he said that if no one met him on the connection he would look at his ticket and then look at the monitors and figure out where he need to go. I am happy that he knows how to do this but many UM's don't . (that was his emoticon)

If UA is going to charge, they should deliver. They seemingly didnt in this case. That isn't acceptable if the story is correct.

Originally Posted by LTBoston

But I 100% disagree that it's a good idea to go blithely forward assuming that because you paid a fee nothing bad can possibly happen. Are the parents correct on principle? Absolutely. Were they dumb to not have a contingency plan in place in case the airline did not follow through? I say yes.

Originally Posted by shortkidd

How can you have a contingency plan when you are at the mercy of the airline? The only thing they could have done was to give a 10yo a cell phone.

Personally I will not provide my 10yo with a cell phone. Also, there is no way I would allow my child under the age of 14 to travel without an adult.

Originally Posted by AquaDyne

Exactly. I flew UM at age 9 and my aircraft had an emergency landing en route, ultimately resulting in 6 hour delay. I did what I thought was right... told the FA that someone should call my mother. And that was the last I thought of it, and that any child should have to think of it. Turns out no one ever did, and when I did not arrive at my ultimate destination 6 hours later and frantic phone calls ensued, I was safely ensconced in the airline office in LAX. But to expect a child to do more than a one-time notification of a responsible adult providing the UM service is crazy.


And that's the key point here. Employees think that if they see the child "safe" they're keeping up their end of the bargain, but do not understand that any deviation from the "plan" ought to involve a notification of at least the responsible party for "pick up" if not others. This is a systematic failure in the procedures and should be fixed. To prevent the next lawsuit.

Originally Posted by LarkSFO

For the commitment I have seen from UA in executing on this service, they should raise the price to $250.

$99 is really very little money when they are accepting responsibility for your child...

Originally Posted by why fly

wow, whats the big deal so they lose a few kids? they deliver 99.9% of them.

Originally Posted by nnn

Obviously, United screwed up big time. But I can't imagine why a parent would hand a ten-year-old off to an airline without working out some way for the kid to reach the parents JUST IN CASE. Even if you're anti cell phone, just teach the kid how to call collect from a pay phone. Even if your kid isn't the brightest, last I checked, all you have to do is press 0.

Originally Posted by shortkidd

In this case I would have told my child to go to a UA Rep and ask them to call my parents. There has to be a rip cord somehow.