Flying with kids can be tricky at the best of times, but sending your child off on a flight on their own brings with it a very unique kind of worry for any parent. Despite availing of a special service to look after her 11-year-old daughter as she flew alone recently, US mum Corinne Chausse has learned the truth of this the hard way.
Chausse has spoken out to warn parents who allow their children to fly alone, after being 'lied to' by American Airline staff as to the whereabouts of daughter Maggie. Chausse had spent an extra $300 on a service that caters to looking after unaccompanied minors on flights.
The ordeal began last Monday, when Maggie was due to fly home to her native Charlotte from New York at approximately 8.50pm. The Chausse family discovered that the flight had been delayed due to bad weather and it was then diverted to Columbia.
At around 1.30am, Corinne received a phone call from Maggie telling her that she was being taken off the plane as the flight was cancelled. When the concerned mother then lost all contact with her daughter, she became understandably worried.
A phone call to American Airlines assured the Chausse family that the flight was going ahead, then, shortly after, that it was cancelled. An airline employee then sought to allay Corinne’s fears for Maggie, assuring her that the 11-year-old was safe and in a room for minors in Columbia Airport.
This would have calmed a ‘frantic’ Corinne down – if she didn’t receive a call from Maggie, just five minutes later, informing her that she was not in that room but actually still on the plane.
You think it's bad when an airline loses your luggage ??well thanks to the uniform incompetence of American Airlines,...
Posted by Corinne Chausse on Tuesday, February 16, 2016
As if this wasn’t bad enough, it also emerged that, in the nine hours Maggie spent on the plane, not one of the employees designated to look after her gave her even a morsel of food.
Maggie has, understandably, been turned off flying for life after her traumatic ordeal – and Corinne isn’t in the better of the experience either.
Speaking to Eyewitness News, Corinne urged parents everywhere to be careful when sending their kids off to fly alone, insisting that one can never be certain that their child is receiving the level of care they expect and pay for.
“I think parents need to know. Maybe this is ill-placed trust. It certainly is ill-placed money,” she said, of unaccompanied minor services.
Admitting that she doesn’t want to see any other family go through the same ordeal, she added: “They’re charging people $300 for it, and they need to examine where it failed because it failed drastically.”
Have you ever had a similar experience with this type of service?
