Holiday Turbulence: Unaccompanied Minors Put On Wrong Flights

The holiday season is hectic enough without an airport mishap adding to it. Not one, but two families experienced an unexpected shift in their holiday stress when airlines put their unaccompanied minors on the wrong flights landing the children in a "Home Alone" type situation far from home.

Spirit Airlines recently put an unaccompanied 6-year-old on the wrong flight sending him hours away from his intended destination. Frontier Airlines did the same thing to a 16-year-old when he was expected in Cleveland but landed in Puerto Rico.

A teenager who was flying alone for the first time was put on the wrong flight and ended up far from his intended destination.

Logan Lose, 16, was supposed to be going from Tampa, Florida to Cleveland, Ohio during Christmas break to visit his mom but instead ended up more than 1,000 miles away in Puerto Rico.

Logan got on the wrong line and on the wrong flight without anyone from Frontier Airlines noticing. Logan's father, Ryan Lose said his son told him the airlines never scanned his boarding pass.

"They would've known it was the wrong flight if they scanned the boarding pass," Ryan said. "My first reaction was panic. He's panicking, he's scared, and I can't be there to keep him safe."

Part of the issue was that Logan's flight and the flight he ended up on were leaving from the same gate just two hours apart. Ryan said this could have been avoided if the airlines just scanned his son's boarding pass.

"All they had to do was scan the boarding pass and he never boards," Ryan said. "Or if they did a head count [on the plane] they would've noticed he was not in a seat assigned to that flight."

Frontier Airlines told USA Today in an email, "He was immediately flown back to Tampa on the same aircraft and accommodated on a flight to Cleveland the following day. Frontier has extended its sincere apologies to the family for the error."

Just days prior to Frontier Airlines' mix-up with Logan, Spirit Airlines put an unaccompanied 6-year-old on the wrong flight.

The minor was supposed to fly from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Fort Myers, Florida to visit his grandmother for the holidays and was "incorrectly boarded" on a flight to Orlando, more than 150 miles from his intended destination.

"On Dec. 21, an unaccompanied child traveling from Philadelphia (PHL) to Fort Myers (RSW) was incorrectly boarded on a flight to Orlando (MCO)," Spirit Airlines said in a statement. "The child was always under the care and supervision of a Spirit Team Member, and as soon as we discovered the error, we took immediate steps to communicate with the family and reconnect them."

Maria Ramos, grandmother to Casper, 6, told news outlet WINK News that she "ran inside the plane to the flight attendant" to ask, "Where's my grandson?" She was told by the flight attendant that she had no kids with her.

When airline employees realized Casper was mistakenly flown to Orlando, they put him on the phone with his grandmother and an airline worker sat with him while she drove four hours to Orlando to pick him up because she didn't want him put on another flight.

Spirit said they are "conducting an internal investigation" into how this incident happened.

"We take the safety and responsibility of transporting all of our guests seriously and are conducting an internal investigation," Thomas Fletcher, spokesperson, said in a statement. "We apologize to the family for this experience."

About a month before these two unfortunate incidents happened, American Airlines was smacked with a lawsuit over two unaccompanied minors who reportedly "spent the night on a sofa with the lights on" after their connecting flight was canceled. Their family had to call different airports to locate them.

"Nobody knew where they were," the lawyer representing the family told the media about the 12- and 14-year-old boys. "Finally, [the mother] got a nice woman at the airport who looked for the children and found them."

The two boys were flying from Missouri to Syracuse, New York, to meet their father during the summer of 2022 when the incident occurred. The lawsuit was filed on Oct. 31 and claims that a canceled connecting flight left the children alone in a cold room at the airport on July 31, 2022.

According to USA Today, the lawsuit claims the boys had a layover in Charlotte, and Amber Vencill, the boys' mom, paid an additional $150 for a staff member to see her sons through their flight.

The lawsuit alleges that American Airlines "lied" to Vencill about their policy and "lost their children."

American Airlines told USA Today in a statement, "The safety and comfort of our customers, including unaccompanied minors in our care, are our highest priorities and we're committed to providing a positive experience to everyone who travels with us. We have been in touch with Ms. Vencill directly and we are reviewing the details of the lawsuit."