A mother of a 10-year-old child has called out American Airlines for canceling the child’s connecting flight without telling her parents.
The child traveled alone from Richmond, Virginia, to visit family in Boston on July 18 and had a connecting flight at John F. Kennedy airport in New York City.
Miesha Vargas, the girl’s mother, said she only learned the flight was canceled when her daughter called.
“She called me hysterically crying saying the flight was canceled, and I asked her to pass the phone to speak to a gate agent who said they would try to get another flight rebooked that same day,” she said.
The child was accompanied by an airline worker after she arrived at JFK at 11:30 am until she was booked on another flight at 8 pm.
Family members who were picking up the child from the Boston airport drove six hours to JFK, where they finally met up with her at 5 pm.
The airline didn’t know she had left the airport when the child’s father called a customer service agent.
The mother had prepared her daughter for a short layover between her flights and told her that her family was going to meet her in Boston.
“She was terrified and said she doesn’t want to fly again,” her mother said. “This experience has destroyed her love of traveling.”
Vargas said it was stressful knowing her daughter was stranded at the busy airport, and her husband was “furious” that the airline did not sign off for their daughter to be handed over to their family members.
“Our family said she was very quiet that night which is not her normal self, she is usually very chatty and bubbly but barely spoke.”
The child, who was flying alone for the first time, was given a voucher for lunch but AA told her that she would need to pay for dinner with her own money.
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