nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/0 … afe_a.html
Can you smell the lawsuit 
I must say as a Dad, I’d be pretty pissed…it is one thing for my bag not to make a flight but to misload a kid???
Comments blaming the parents are hilarious (more like rediculous!)!
For those acronym impaired I believe UM means Unaccompanied Minor would be my guess
Unfortunately, yes. Mistakes happen. The kid is okay. Now some stupid ass bottom feeder is going to sue on behalf of this dude for a ridiculous amount of money.
Look at this excerpt from the article:
Jonathan Kamens said he put his daughter, Miriam, on a Cleveland-bound flight at Logan Airport in Boston on Sunday to visit her grandparents.
If Kamens put his daughter on the plane, why didn’t he make sure she got on the right aircraft? Another article I read on this said there were two aircraft at the gate. If I was the father I would have made sure she got on the correct aircraft, especially if there were two aircraft there.
Remember what Shakespeare said about bottom feeders! 
Can parents accompany their kids past security without a ticket?
Gandering around usairways.com/awa/content/tr … inors.aspx seems like different airlines handle it differently? USAairways is specific in sayiing to get a gate access pass.
Southwest don’t mention this for departures but for arrivals, you can get an escort pass. southwest.com/travel_center/children.html
No mention at all for the airline in question for this thread
continental.com/web/en-US/co … fault.aspx
So, maybe it’s airline descretion whether you can take your child to the gate??? Nothing on TSA website that I could find.
Alan you’d be correct!!
In my very first job at IAD I was a wheelchair attendant. I’d help impaired people around the airport. I’d also from time to time escort UM’s all that said, every airline I can think of has a check and balance system in place to ensure that kids make it to their destination.
I’m thinking the good ol’ media was mistaken and perhaps dear ol’ Dad did NOT load the child OTHERWISE he’d be the dumb ass at fault for putting his daughter on the wrong flight to another destination.
P.S. In my opening to this thread, I had merely skimmed the article…did not read the line about Dad and loading 
Just find it sort of crazy 8)
Southwest’s policy
How do I escort my child through security?
At the ticket counter, please provide a valid form of identification and a copy of your child’s itinerary and request an “escort pass” that will give you access through security.
What do we do when we get to the gate?
Be sure to identify your child to the Customer Service Agent as an “Unaccompanied Minor” so that he/she will be able to preboard. Your child will be escorted onto the aircraft by a Southwest Airlines Employee before general boarding begins and will be introduced to the Flight Attendant as an Unaccompanied Minor.
Southwest also requires the parent to remain at the gate until the aircraft has departed
Do I have to stay at the airport until my child’s plane takes off?
Yes. You must wait within the gate area until your child’s flight is in the air. A Southwest Airlines Employee will let you know when you are able to leave the boarding area.
Source: Southwest Airlines
Wishing I was a UM on this flight:
airliners.net/photo/Continen … 1540069/M/
Or accompanied by family…just to be going here!!!
Regardless of Southwest’s policy, negotiating security at Logan is an absolute nightmare. I would not be surprised if the hassle of trying to get through with an escort pass is insurmountable. I very much doubt the father was able to see this kid all the way to the gate.
Absolutely. In fact, I’ve found that you can accompany anyone past security without a ticket. All you’d need to do is request a gate pass at the ticketing agent counter. I request this all the time when my SO flies out or back in on her own, as do her parents, as she is blind. The last time this wasn’t done (in fact, this turned out to be how we met) was that she landed in LAS for a change of planes to SLC. She requested assistance to the next gate, which she was taken to the right gate number, but wrong terminal altogether (and it didn’t help that the ‘assistance’ didn’t understand English well). Missed her flight, next one wasn’t for 4 1/2 hours, guide dog in two needed to do her duty, and there is no pet area at McCarran.
Long story short, she called me, I helped them out, and personally escorted them to the right gate. I continue to do so each time. This should work everywhere, except at KPIT, where they’ve done away with the whole ‘only ticketed passengers on the concourse’ bit. Anyone can go through security there.
BL.
I think what I highlighted is the reason you get past security, not just everybody can get through. Severe mobility disabilities, young children such as UM and the such will earn you a right to a gate pass.
Reason I know this is my sisters son (over 18 ) is disabled (not physically) and she cannot get through to assist him. Airlines will not provide an escort as their mentality was if he cannot handle travel at that age, then he shouldn’t travel alone (I agree with this myself).
I think wives (or husbands) that serve our country just recently got allowed to go through security if the person flying out **was in uniform **to spend the last few precious moments together before he served our country. That’s the closest I would say “anybody” can go through with a SO.
She needs to be more forceful in letting the airlines know what she wants. My grandmother was disabled (like your nephew not physically) and my mother was allowed gate access for her. That was on Southwest. And my grandmother was definitely over 18!
TWO SEPERATE INCIDENTS! Same airline.
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_lost_girls_continental
Continental Airlines said it has taken steps to ensure that proper procedures are followed after two unaccompanied girls were placed on wrong Continental Express flights over the weekend.
An 8-year-old College Station girl erroneously ended up in Fayetteville, Ark., and a 10-year-old Massachusetts girl was mistakenly sent to Newark, N.J., after boarding planes operated by ExpressJet, which is under contract with Continental.
Houston-based Continental said in a statement Tuesday that the mix-up was a “miscommunication among staff.”
“I have never seen so much incompetence in all my life,” Wendy Babineaux told the Houston Chronicle. Her daughter was headed to Charlotte, N.C., on Saturday to see her father. She was sent to Fayetteville, back to Houston and then to Charlotte.
Babineaux’s attorney, Wayne T. Rife, told The Associated Press Tuesday night that his client became worried when the girl’s father called to find out where their child was. He said his client is concerned about how Continental Airlines handled the situation.
“It was just a complete breakdown in the procedures that were supposed to be implemented,” Rife said. “And, in Mrs. Babineaux’s perspective, Continental, to this point, has not taken it seriously.”
On Sunday, Jonathan Kamens said he put his daughter, Miriam, on a Cleveland-bound flight at Logan Airport in Boston to visit her grandparents. He told WBZ-TV that shortly after the plane landed in Ohio, his father-in-law called saying she had not arrived.
Kamens said for 45 minutes no one could tell him where his daughter was. She was finally located unharmed in Newark.
Kamens said the number of people who failed to do their jobs is “mindboggling.”
Continental spokeswoman Kelly Cripe said in an e-mailed statement that in both instances flights with different destinations were being loaded at the same time from the same doorway and there was miscommunication among staff members.
“In both circumstances the children were supervised throughout the entire process and were rebooked and routed to the proper destinations on the same day,” Cripe said in the statement.
Kamens said on his blog that the airline offered him a $75 refund.
I can’t help but think that the girl probably was feeling like she was having an adventure-and-a-half!
I can assure you that the parents had somewhat different feelings.
Ya know David, I usually don’t get too wound up about your posts…but this one?
I don’t subscribe to the warrant of a lawsuit. However, CO was definitely negligent here and a lousy $75 refund doesn’t get it in my book. I’m the father of a 10 yo and a former AA employee. I’ve seen how the UM system is suposed to work, and if an airline screwed up like this with my son… CO needs to be kissing some serious ass with this family!
Even with Mr. Kamens standing at the jetway door, which is as far as he could go, he had no control over the agent escorting his daughter through the wrong door at the “fork in the road” beyond his view.
Yes it turned out okay. But as a parent, the emotional distress of the screw up would’ve put me in a…let’s just say a very intolerant state of mind…
Continental refunded the UM fee. That was the correct thing to do. Were I in leadership at Continental, I would go a step further and also refund the fare itself as a gesture of goodwill. Maybe even offer the family a free voucher for future travel.
If I was Mr Kamens and I saw two aircraft at the gate, I would want to make sure that my child was getting on the right aircraft. If I wasn’t sure, I would ask the gate agent to verify which aircraft was going where.
Does anybody know if Continental requires the person taking the UM to the gate to stay at the gate until the flight departs?
For something like this, it shouldn’t even be just a requirement of the airline. If I sent my SO on a flight, regardless of airline, I should be able to escort her to the gate, and stay at the gate until the aircraft pushes back and taxis out, if not until the jetway door closes.
It shouldn’t be an airline requirement, but a common sense requirement on the part of a parent, relative, or partner.
BL.
Or possibly the terror in the girls face when she didn’t see a recognizable face at Fayetteville AR! A lot of responsibility of getting “un-lost” being put on an 8 year old “when the system fails her”.
Be interesting to hear the kids side of the story on what they felt during their ordeals…
Do they get the extra EQM/RDM?
I always try to get the extra miles for a reroute. 