United Airlines Forgets 9-year-old at Chicago Airport
A United Airlines representative failed to put a 9-year-old boy, who was traveling alone, on a connecting flight home on Saturday, which meant that the boy was stranded for about 8 hours. The was on his way home from a trip to see his father, which is something he does many times every year.
Julien Reid had arrived at the Chicago O’Hare International Airport at about 11am after catching a 6am flight from San Francisco. A representative with United Airlines was suppose to ensure that he boarded a 1:50pm flight to Ottawa. This would have put him arriving home at 4:45pm, but the plane was delayed.
After seeing the delayed flight online, Genevieve Harte, the boy’s mom, arrived to pick Julien up at 5:35pm, the new arrival time, but she couldn’t find him anywhere. After Harte couldn’t find him and didn’t get any help from customer service, Julien happened to call her from his prepaid cell phone. He said that he was still in Chicago in a small airport room full of other kids, where they had been watching a film on a loop the whole day. He continued that they had given him McDonald’s, but since he is a vegetarian, he hadn’t really ate anything. Julien added that the other kids were yelled at for acting like kids.
Harte told her son to give his phone to the attendant watching them so that she could talk to them about the situation. This is when she was told that no one came to retrieve Julien and put him on his flight. On Monday while talking to a reporter, the boy said that he thought he wouldn’t make it home and would have to sleep there. He was happy to finally be on a flight home.
Megan McCarthy, a spokesperson for United Airlines, apologized for the incident and said that Julien was put on the next available flight. The carrier also refunded the child-care fee and gave the family ‘a goodwill gesture’, she added.
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