According to the letter, the family was shocked to find out that not only is there a third-party una

Annie and Perry Klebahn's joint travel regulations daughter, Phoebe, was flying alone from San Francisco to Traverse City, Mich. via Chicago on her way to camp in late June. However, according to the pair, no United staff showed up to help Phoebe make her connection in Chicago, so she missed her flight. According the the Klebahns' letter to United, which is available in Sutton's post, the couple only knew their daughter did not make it when her summer camp in Michigan called to say she hadn't arrived.
According to the letter, the family was shocked to find out that not only is there a third-party unaccompanied minor service that escorts the children, joint travel regulations but its representative had simply forgotten to show up for Phoebe. It took roughly an hour to locate the girl after it was discovered she was "missing." Apparently when the flight landed, she asked the flight attendants for help, but they told her they were busy and she needed to wait. She also asked thrice for access to a phone to call her parents, but was allegedly also told to wait.
Phoebe was placed on a flight to Traverse City four hours later. However, her bags didn't joint travel regulations fly with her. In the letter her parents describe the three-day process joint travel regulations involved in finally getting the girl's possessions to her.
"We estimate that we spent around 18 hours collectively on the phones, on hold, trying to track down Phoebe, her bags and our peace of mind," the parents wrote in the letter. Phoebe "never wants to fly United again."
In a statement to HuffPost Travel, United Airlines said: We reached out directly to the Klebahns to apologize and we are reviewing this matter. What the Klebahns describe is not the service we aim to deliver to our customers. We are redepositing the miles used to purchase the ticket back into Mr. Klebahn's joint travel regulations account in addition to refunding the unaccompanied minor charge. We certainly appreciate joint travel regulations their business and would like the opportunity to provide them a better travel experience in the future.
United isn't the only airline to get flak for issues involving unaccompanied minors. In 2010, Delta blamed a paperwork "swap" for sending two children to the wrong cities -- a boy ended up in Cleveland instead of Boston while a girl was sent to Boston instead of Cleveland. In that case, Delta apologized and sent the children to their final destinations at no cost, also issuing full refunds for their tickets and offering credits for future travel. In January of this year, a mother accused joint travel regulations Southwest Airlines of negligence for leaving her napping 15-year-old son on a St. Louis-bound plane after the flight landed in his final destination of Tulsa.
joint travel regulations Also curious is the case of the three kids who flew alone on a Southwest flight to Nashville in 2010, paying with babysitting money , while the airline asked no questions. And, there was the instance in July when an 11-year-old boy flew alone from Manchester, England to Rome on a Jet2 flight sans passport or boarding joint travel regulations pass .
Virgin Australia's unaccompanied minor policy came under fire recently, with the airline pledging to review its protocol after the public outcry against the practice of not allowing men to sit next to unaccompanied children .
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I have seen other children on flights that I have been on as well as my experience with my own children. I can't believe that United Airlines would allow for an unaccompanied minor to travel with a connecting flight and if they do, as a parent, I would not trust them to care for my child like I would. I think it is irresponsible for parents to think that they could get that kind of attentiveness for their children with a simple $50 or $100 fee. I also believe joint travel regulations it is irresponsible to even put your child on a plane without having a functioning cell phone in addition to a plan of action for that child in case the cell phone does not work and something has changed. We go over what to do in different joint travel regulations circumstances as well as how to handle any mishaps. We also tell them to NEVER leave the airplane or gate unless they are with a designated person or the person they know is picking them up. I feel confident that my sons could travel by themselves when they are old enough. My oldest has traveled many times alone since turning 14/15 without issues. Your children's maturity plays a role in deciding to put them on an airplane alone, no matter what their age. I would use this as a learning experience for everyone and the opportunity to open up communication lines with your children before they travel anywhere, alone or with you.
Each of our three sons have traveled unaccompanied on Southwest Airlines when they were around 10 or 11 years old. I have NEVER had an issue and they have never felt that they were without the ability to get help from Southwest employees if the need had occurred. We were always given passes to go to the gate with them and had to wait until the plane was in the air before we were allowed to leave. We were required to have a designated person meeting our boys at the gate at their destination and the airline would not let our children go with anyone before verifying their identity and matching joint travel regulations it to the name on the forms that we gave them. Besides the above rules, their policy, copied from their website, joint travel regulations also states: "UMs may only travel on nonstop or direct (makes one or more stops but does not require a change of planes or flight number) flights." As a parent of responsible children, I would NEVER put my children on a flight that entails them having joint travel regulations to leave the plane I put them on in the beginning. There is a lot of paperwork to complete. A lot of IDs that are checked. A lot of extra attention is given to unaccompanied minors on their flights. (continued below in next comment post)
This happened to my 14 yo son just last week! He's been flying for 10 years and is familiar with what to do so I thought he would be able to handle a short layover. He had dropped his cell phone in the airport and it broke. He called me from the gate before he took off on his first flight and I told him to find a flight joint travel regulations attendant and call me as soon as he landed. He was also told that they were busy. Eventually an attendant ushered him to an different concorse than he was supposed to fly out of and just left him there! United cancelled his flight and they expected him to stay in the airport from Thursday night until MONDAY when they rescheduled joint travel regulations his flight!!!! 3 days!!! joint travel regulations SERIOUSLY??? joint travel regulations I ended up jumping in my car and driving 6 hours to the airport to retrieve my son who was missing joint travel regulations for 4 hours!!!!! I had to call the local police to search for him after airport security had searched for 3 hours!!! I understand the whole "don't let your kid fly alone" bit and I will never make that mistake again but when a child asks to call his mommy, have a little common joint travel regulations courtesy! I'm certain the attendants would want the same in return if their child was missing!!! There's nothing worse than describing your child to the police! I will NEVER fly United again!!!
Might not be, but that's what their corporate culture and their employees consistently deliver. The last flight I took with them was to Tokyo. It was so shabby and ridiculous I almost felt sad for the airline.
Robert Sutton thought he was doing you a favor by "sharing" your experiences? joint travel regulations Who can fault that? Good friends are hard to find. However, joint travel regulations a good friend finds all the facts BEFORE taking a stand....before placing blame on others. Like I said in an earlier post....cell phone, note to airline joint travel regulations personnel (only if something goes wrong) joint travel regulations and numbers to call if in trouble. In a "reply" to my first post....the child was being sent to a camp (Interlochen) for her PASSION of the arts. Unless she is a savant....her passion can wait and she can be sent to a less prestigious camp or class to pursue it. Common sense. Stop projecting your guilt onto others. You made a mistake.....so, bid deal....just joint travel regulations learn from it and do your job as parents.... go the extra mile and make sure that your child is safe....that your child knows what to do if things aren't right. (that would be where the note would come in....letting them know she would miss her flight).
Your merger made you the largest airline in the world, and you won't have that status long unless joint travel regulations you can do more for your passengers (information). and the last thing that sticks in our minds about the vacation is the flight ordeal.
By the way, the last flight out to PIT had one of my Senior managers scheduled for that flight and I spoke with him while waiting, before the flight was canceled. He was one of the ones rescheduled for the 7 am flight, and from what I heard when I got back to work, was that he didn't joint travel regulations get out of ORD until late Monday night, not sure of the reason, but my flight left a half hour after his was supposed to. Was it because he couldn't secure his seat as we did?
It appeared there was no preparation for such a situation. There should have been someone from United standing there with the other 1000 people informing them of what their options could be. (continued)
Now, when the last flight to PIT was canceled, the woman at the desk gave out "discount" (yeah right) coupons to get a hotel room. I called the numbers on there and got the number for a local hotel not far from ORD, and called and booked a room. So now we are leaving the airport for the hotel, and went by "baggage claim #7" and low and behold, my wife's carryon bag was setting there.
The room basically cost us $70 per hour because all we could do was get a 3 hr. nap and had go back to the airport.