Spirit Airlines is apologizing after mistakenly putting a 6-year-old on the wrong flight.
The child was supposed to fly from Philadelphia International Airport to Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers on Thursday but was instead "incorrectly boarded" on a flight to Orlando International Airport, about 160 miles from his destination.
The boy's grandmother, Maria Ramos, told WINK-TV it was the 6-year-old's first time on an airplane. She was shocked when she arrived at the airport to pick him up and was told he "missed his flight."
"I said, 'No, he could not miss his flight because I have the check-in tag,'" Ramos told the outlet. "I ran inside the plane to the flight attendant and I asked her, 'Where's my grandson? He was handed over to you at Philadelphia?' She said, 'No, I had no kids with me.'"
Shortly after, Ramos got a call from her grandson, telling her he landed in Orlando. She jumped in her car and made the three-and-a-half hour drive to pick him up and take him back to her home to celebrate the Christmas holiday.
Ramos said Spirit has offered to reimburse her expenses for the drive to and from Orlando, but she just wants answers.
"I want them to call me. Let me know how my grandson ended up in Orlando," she told WINK. "How did that happen? Did they get him off the plane? The flight attendant – after mom handed him with paperwork – did she let him go by himself? He jumped in the wrong plane by himself?"
The airline did not explain how the boy was incorrectly boarded on another flight, but said an internal investigation is underway.
"The child was always under the care and supervision of a Spirit Team Member, and as soon as we discovered the error, we took immediate steps to communicate with the family and reconnect them," a Spirit spokesperson said in a statement. "We take the safety and responsibility of transporting all of our Guests seriously and are conducting an internal investigation. We apologize to the family for this experience."
According to Spirit's unaccompanied minor guidelines, children as young as 5 can fly alone under the supervision of an airline staff member. The person dropping off a child at the airport is expected to escort the child to the gate and must remain at the gate for 15 minutes after the flight takes off.