In a statement in late December, Frontier Airlines confirmed that a 16-year-old boy catching a flight in Tampa on December 22 “mistakenly boarded” a flight headed to San Juan, Puerto Rico thinking he was flying to Cleveland, CBS News reported.
Both flights were boarding at the same gate one after the other. The teen mistakenly boarded the first flight which was bound for San Juan, Frontier Airlines spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz told CBS News.
According to the airline, the boy was “immediately flown back to Tampa” aboard the same plane where he was put up for the night and sent to Cleveland the following day.
The airline offered its “sincere apologies” to the teen’s family for the error.
De la Cruz told CBS News that Frontier Airlines permits children 15 years or older to fly alone. However, the airline does not offer adult escorts to unaccompanied minors.
Just one week after the 16-year-old flew to Puerto Rico, a 6-year-old Philadephia boy, who was making his first plane trip to travel to southwest Florida to visit his grandmother over the Christmas break, was put on the wrong plane and landed in Orlando instead, 160 miles away from his destination.
His grandmother arrived at Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers, where she was informed by Spirit Airlines staff that her grandson was not aboard the flight.
The grandmother, Maria Ramos, told a local news outlet that she ran onto the plane and demanded to know where her grandson was. The flight attendant told Ramos that no children were traveling alone on the flight.
Ramos then received a call from her grandson, telling her that he had landed at the airport in Orlando.
Spirit Airlines said in a statement that the child remained under the supervision of an airline employee throughout the entire trip, despite incorrectly boarding the flight to Orlando. As soon as the mistake was discovered, Spirit contacted the family to let them know.
