Krista Loose
Logan Lose ended up on a Frontier Airlines flight to Puerto Rico instead of Ohio.
CNN –
A Florida teenager traveling alone was supposed to take a Frontier Airlines flight to visit his mother in Ohio, but ended up on a flight to Puerto Rico instead.
The 16-year-old passenger was scheduled to fly from Tampa to Cleveland on Dec. 22 but “erroneously boarded a different flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico,” Jennifer de la Cruz, director of corporate communications for Frontier, said in a statement to CNN.
The flights to Ohio and Puerto Rico departed from the same gate, according to de la Cruz, with the flight to Puerto Rico taking off first.
“Frontier has sincerely apologized to the family for the mistake,” de la Cruz said.
The mix-up followed a similar incident recently involving an unaccompanied six-year-old who boarded the wrong Spirit Airlines flight and arrived in Orlando instead of Ft. landed. Myers.
It was the first solo flight for teenager Logan, who suffers from a fear of flying, the teen's father, Ryan Lose, said in a telephone interview with CNN on Saturday.
The father said he and his now-wife, Krista, explained to the teen how to get to the gate.
But when Logan arrived at the gate in Tampa around 8 p.m., passengers were already boarding, Lose said.
“He went there and asked the lady if he was on the flight and they said 'yes,' and they also checked his bag to make sure it fit,” Lose said. “But Logan said they never scanned his ticket. Logan said they just took one look and said, 'Yeah, you're on the right flight,' and then he got on.”
“If they had scanned his boarding pass, they would have known my son was on the wrong plane,” Lose said.
CNN contacted Frontier on Saturday evening about Lose's claim but has not yet received a response.
Lose said they realized something was wrong when Logan's mother called around 8:30 p.m. to tell him her son had boarded, and they realized he had boarded a plane too early.
“That's when my 9-year-old son checked the flight status and saw that a flight to Puerto Rico had just departed from the same gate that Logan's Ohio flight departed from,” Lose said.
Lose told CNN they tried to call Logan to warn him that he was on the wrong plane, but his phone went straight to voicemail.
Lose said they contacted Frontier Airlines around 8:40 p.m. to let them know what happened and that his son was on the wrong flight.
The father said around 10:15 p.m. Frontier called and told him that Logan was indeed on the flight to Puerto Rico and that they would inform the pilot to keep an eye out for him.
De la Cruz said in the airline's statement that Logan was “immediately flown back to Tampa on the same aircraft and placed on a flight to Cleveland the next day.”
Lose said Logan returned to Tampa around 3:30 a.m. and left by plane for Cleveland at 7:45 a.m
“This whole ordeal has been stressful for everyone,” Lose told CNN.
Frontier said in the statement that it does not have an “unaccompanied minor program” to provide companions to minors. However, they allow children over 15 to fly alone.
While there are no Department of Transportation regulations governing travel by unaccompanied minors, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, airlines have specific procedures in place to protect children while traveling. However, most airlines allow a child age 15 to fly alone on domestic flights without the need to process unaccompanied minors, the agency said.