Casper, a 6-year-old boy flying by himself for the first time, was going to see his grandmother for Christmas. Despite supposedly being accompanied by a Spirit Airlines staff member at all times after his mother dropped him off at Philadelphia International Airport, he ended up in Orlando instead of Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers.
The child’s grandmother, Maria Ramos, was waiting for him at the airport and, to her surprise, only the boy’s bag made it to Fort Myers, but Casper was nowhere to be seen. “They told me, ‘No, he’s not on this flight. He missed his flight.’ I said, ‘No, he could not miss his flight because I have the check-in tag’”, Ramos told local media WINK News. “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.’”
In a statement to WINK News, the airline admitted the child was “incorrectly boarded on a flight to Orlando” and said he was “always under the care and supervision of a Spirit Team Member”. However, Ramos believes Casper might have been left by himself for the duration of the travel.
When the child finally called his grandmother to tell her he landed and asking where she was, she asked him to put an adult on to try and figure out what was going on. But, according to Ramos, Casper said there was nobody with him, leading her to believe he might have boarded the wrong plane because no airline employee was accompanying him.
While Orlando is about 4 hours away from Fort Myers and Ramos drove to pick her grandson up, she is still waiting for an explanation from the airline. Spirit Airlines offered to reimburse her for the cost of the road trip, but what Ramos wants is to find out how this could have happened.
And although the boy was reunited with his grandmother just a few hours later, despite Ramos trying to cheer him up, saying it was his very own Home Alone style Christmas adventure, Casper is now is terrified of flying and does not want to get on a plane ever again.
