Mother sues airline after staff fly 5-year-old boy to wrong city and present her with a different 'son'

[Larry Siegel]

Originally Posted by kevxu

Where did you dig this bit of history up from?

Half a century ago was 1966, and this lower end of working class urban peasant had no problem affording a domestic flight, nor did the other peasants I flew with. And you could even get deals on packages to Europe that made them affordable...otherwise I would never have been able to afford going to Europe in 1967.

And, yes, service was excellent. But then the passengers were much better behaved than Americans are now.

Airline Deregulation: The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics | Library of Economics and Liberty

If you could fly student standby, wanted to travel within California or Texas where competition was allowed, or could fly only when offered a special deal, flying before deregulation could be cheap. For run-of-the-mill travelers, however, a NY-LA roundtrip in the 1960s averaged about $2000 in today's money. Now you can occasionally get it for $200 and it is rarely over $400.

[Mightyqueen801]

Originally Posted by justinbro2002

Maybe people should not expect the airlines to be a babysitter and not stick a kid on a plane by himself.

This doesn't make any sense. Of course they expect this if it's a service that the airline offers, which it is.

As I said, my daughter flew as an unaccompanied minor at 12. The situation was that her friend's mom, a corporate meeting planner, had a huge sales meeting planned in Las Vegas. The friend was 12, like my daughter, and she had an infant son and a handicapped son in the middle. The husband stayed in NJ with the handicapped boy, and the daughter and baby went to Vegas. The mom's parents flew in from CA to take care of the baby while she worked.

The mom realized the 12-year-old would be bored to death with just her grandparents and the baby brother, so she asked if my daughter would like to go to Vegas with them. The only problem was that they were going on to CA for a few days after the meeting ended, so my daughter would have to fly home alone. So, she did. My friend turned her over to the airline in Vegas, and my daughter flew to EWR on her own. Her dad picked her up at the airport. He had to show ID to the attendant before the airline would release her to him.

She was fine, and liked the adventure. It helped her get experience for the future, as well. At 20, she got on a plane alone and flew to China to go to school.