Mom fumes as United puts her son on flight to wrong country - New York Post

A 14-year-old boy traveling alone from North Carolina to Sweden was put on the wrong plane during a transfer at Newark Airport, where he alerted the crew on the Germany-bound flight right before takeoff, according to reports.

The comedy of errors involving three airlines began when Anton boarded a United flight on Sunday with a codeshare ticket booked on Scandinavian carrier SAS, which does not have direct service from Raleigh to Stockholm, his mom, Brenda Berg, told Business Insider.

The boy was supposed to be put on an SAS flight to Sweden — but United placed him on a plane operated by German low-cost airline Eurowings bound for Düsseldorf, according to the news outlet.

SAS and Eurowings both operate those flights as codeshares with United.

“We booked him through SAS to visit his grandparents in Sweden,” Berg told USA Today in an email.

“SAS does not have an unaccompanied minor program for a 14-year-old,” she said. “We intentionally booked a long layover in a domestic location, so it would be easy.”

An unaccompanied minor attendant was supposed to take Anton to SAS Flight SK904 to Stockholm, she added.

“According to my son, the UM agent took him from the UM room at Newark to the Eurowings flight to Germany that he boarded,” Berg continued.

“The United agent handed my son’s paperwork to the agent at the gate, who immediately moved him onto the plane, apparently without looking at this UM paperwork.”

When Anton realized he was on the wrong plane, he “contacted a flight attendant, and the plane was turned around,” his mom said.

SAS agents quickly rebooked Anton, but he had to wait more than five hours for the next flight to Stockholm, she said.

A frantic Berg detailed the unfolding fiasco on Twitter.

“@United @SAS my son is in the wrong plane!!! EWR you put him on a plane to Germany!!!!” she wrote.

“They are booking him through Copenhagen. He will have 7hours of additinal (sic) travel. Still NO one has called from @united. I finally got through to a rep after 52 minutes and i am back on hold. Warning to everyone. Never trust @United with your children,” she said in another tweet before finally getting hold of a United manager.

“Ironically, @United if you hadn’t accompanied him, this would never have happened. He wouldn’t have counted on you to know what you were doing. #NeverUnitedAir,” she added.

United’s UM policy states that “this service is required for children ages 5-14 who are traveling alone.”

For $150 each way, the program includes a wristband for a child to wear and special bag tags so United employees can clearly identify them as being unaccompanied.

“Unaccompanied minors can only travel on nonstop United or United Express flights and United does not offer unaccompanied minor service connecting to or from other airlines’ flights,” according to the policy.

A United spokesman told Business Insider that a 14-year-old flying alone would normally not be allowed when an international flight is involved, but that because the ticket was sold by SAS, the check-in agent decided to allow Anton onto the connecting flight with the airport escort service.

The teen’s paperwork contained the correct flight information, but there was a gate change before he arrived at Newark for the connecting flight and the Eurowings plane was sitting at the gate at that point.

The United rep said the flight to Germany was awaiting one more passenger, whose name was similar to Anton’s, and the person escorting the boy assumed the passenger being called on the public address system was the boy.

“The safety and well-being of all of our customers is our top priority, and we have been in frequent contact with the young man’s family to confirm his safety and to apologize for this issue,” United said in a statement.

“Once Eurowings recognized he had boarded the wrong aircraft in Newark, the plane returned to the gate — before taking off. Our staff then assisted the young customer to ensure that he boarded the correct rebooked flight later that evening. We have confirmed that this young customer safely reached his destination.”

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