Flying for any reason is a stressful time for anyone who isn’t used to it. Airports are extremely large, it’s easy to get lost or be late or any other number of issues. For a parent sending their child off the fly by themselves, that stress grows tenfold.
One mother received a call that her kid, who was flying on her own, was missing at the Miami airport, all thanks to the airline staff.
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A Tennessee mom had quite the scare recently.
Monica Gilliam from Chattanooga claims American Airlines lost her 12-year-old daughter who was flying alone to Miami in order to visit her father.
She documented the ordeal in a TikTok that’s now gone viral, racking up almost 2 million views.
It all began when she received a harrowing phone call.
“Almost an hour after her flight landed, I got a call from American Airlines,” she explains, “It was the American Airlines manager at Miami […] He says, ‘Your child is missing. We’ve shut down the terminal. We don’t know where she is’.”
Her daughter was confused while getting off the plane.
“It turns out that the flight attendants waved her off the plane and said ‘bye.’ And she said she didn’t know what to do, so she kept going because they were telling her bye. So, she kept walking.”
Thankfully, she found her dad just fine without any assistance.
However, Gilliam believes neither American Airlines nor the airport should have let her walk about by herself. In fact, AA has an unaccompanied minor service that’s required for all solo flyers between the ages of five and 14 that provides them with an escort.
That service has the child wear a tag that designates them as an unaccompanied minor.
“So, she [was] going through the airport with that billboard on her that she was an unaccompanied minor in one of the largest human trafficking hubs in the country,” Gilliam continued.
She’s now blasting American Airlines online.
“I don’t want this to happen to anybody else, and if your child is flying an unaccompanied flight with American Airlines, then consider that,” she said, letting this experience serve as a warning to others, “It’s not OK, and it shouldn’t happen.”
The airline has issued a response.
In a statement to People , they said they “care deeply about our young passengers” and they are “committed to providing a safe and pleasant travel experience for them.”
“We take these matters very seriously and are looking into what occurred. A member of our team has reached out to the customer to learn more about their experience.”
h/t: People
