There is a story coming out today on a number of different news sites stating that United put a 14-year-old passenger on the wrong connecting flight. He was set to go to Stockholm on SAS but ended up on a Eurowings flight to Düsseldorf. Those two flights board next to each other and the gate agents are the same contract staff for both airlines
However, when I read through them, something does not add up.
From the Yahoo News! story:
A parent is blaming “the idiots” at United Airlines for putting his 14-year-old son on the wrong international flight, which would have taken him to Germany, instead of his intended destination, Sweden.
The young boy, Anton Berg, flew as an “unaccompanied minor” on June 30 with United Airlines from Raleigh, Durham, N.C. to Newark, N.J. From there, his connecting flight was supposed to take him directly to his destination, Stockholm, with Scandinavian Airlines, but he got on a flight to Dusseldorf, operated by Eurowings, instead.
So a 14-year-old traveling alone as an unaccompanied minor was put on the wrong connecting flight. Per the same article, United has apologized:
United Airlines has since refunded the $150 fee charged for directing the unaccompanied minor. In a statement provided to Yahoo Lifestyle, a representative said that the airline has “been in frequent contact with the young man’s family to confirm his safety and to apologize for this issue.”
What doesn’t add up is that the story and United’s unaccompanied minor policy don’t match. Add on top of that, the child was connecting onto a partner flight that was being serviced by a contract set of agents and things really get complicated.
From United’s website:
Our unaccompanied minor service is for children who are 5-14 years old and traveling without a parent, legal guardian or someone who is at least 18 years old. These young travelers also need to follow certain requirements for their safety:
- Unaccompanied minors can only travel on nonstop United or United Express® flights. They can’t use our unaccompanied minor service on codeshare flights and other flights operated by our partner airlines.
- United does not offer unaccompanied minor service connecting to or from other airlines’ flights.
- Children younger than 5 can’t travel as unaccompanied minors, even if they’re flying with an older unaccompanied child.
- Unaccompanied minor service is not available for children older than 14. Young adults ages 15 to 17 can travel alone on any United- or United Express®-operated flight.
- It costs $150 each way for every two children traveling using the unaccompanied minor service.
The unaccompanied minor “service” is really a fee to make sure that your child makes it from your care to the care of whoever is picking them up from their destination. It is not an escort/babysitting service making sure your kid gets on the correct flight. In this particular case, it sounds like the parents skirted the rules of the program to try and get United to connect their son onto an SAS flight, which is not permitted for an unaccompanied minor (it says so directly in the policy). In fact, part of the reason the airlines don’t offer connections anymore is exactly this scenario, a potentially lost child somewhere in the process.
Once the minor was in the care of the contract agents for SAS and Eurowings, there was another breakdown where it was not understood what flight the child should be on. He was inadvertently directed to the Eurowings flight by their staff, not United’s.
The whole story comes down to the parents trying to be slick and skirt the unaccompanied minor rules and having it backfire. Rather than just roll with the punches they blame the airlines (and really focus on the wrong one in my opinion). The contract staff for the two European carriers screwed up and they need to fix whatever flaw they have that let them issue a boarding pass for the wrong flight.
I agree with you completely. How did an airline issue or a boarding pass for a person that wasn’t booked on the flight? Or did they issue the SAS boarding pass and let the kid on the Eurowings flight unintentionally?
Lots of questions here, but I agree that the parents skirted the rules (how United didn’t pick up on that and say “no” that’s not our policy will remain a mystery, at least for now), and the wrong airline/staff are being blamed here.
Great post, as always!
Greetings! I read your musings with interest, now about a year after this incident. Since I am the father of Anton and quite intimately aware of exactly what happened, I can assure you that there’s nothing fishy about the story, nor did his parents – me being one of them, obviously – try to be slick or skirt any rules.
The situation arose because Anton’s ticket to Sweden (from Raleigh-Durham via Newark to Stockholm Arlanda) was booked with SAS. The US leg up to EWR was serviced by United (a SAS codeshare partner). Anton was 14 at the time and at that age, SAS allows passengers to travel alone and w/o an unaccompanied minor service (in fact SAS does not offer that for kids 14 years and older).
When I helped Anton check in at RDU, United noticed that he was flying by himself. The issue they ran in to was that United requires a 14 year old to either fly with an adult (18+) or using their unaccompanied minor service. So these two code share partners have two incompatible, non-overlapping policies.
The way United solved the conundrum was to require us to buy an unaccompanied minor service for Anton, where they consequently “hosted and guided” him at EWR, between him arriving on the United flight and until departing on the SAS flight. This is unusual because normally the unaccompanied minor service cannot “straddle” two different airlines, but United felt this was an exception as they, and we, were in a bind.
Hi Christer, I appreciate the comment. I don’t doubt that there was nothing nefarious going on, but simply a misunderstanding of the rules and the policies between the two carriers.