Spirit Airlines has terminated a gate agent who accidentally put an unaccompanied six-year-old boy on the wrong plane, sending him to a different airport in Florida than the one where his aunt was waiting to collect him.
The viral incident took place just before Christmas when six-year-old Casper went on his first-ever flight from Philadephia to Southwest Florida International Airport to spend the holidays with his aunt.
Casper was taken into the care of Spirit, but the airline accidentally sent him to Orlando International Airport in an embarrassing mix-up that has cost one gate agent their job.
In an updated statement, Spirit Airlines told WINK News that a gate agent had escorted Casper to the wrong plane by mistake.
“We take the safety and responsibility of transporting all our Guests seriously, and we have policies and procedures in place to prevent this type of situation from happening,” a spokesperson for the ultra-low-cost carrier said.
“To better understand what occurred, we immediately launched a thorough internal investigation and discovered that a gate agent in Philadelphia (PHL) escorted the child to the incorrect aircraft,” the statement continued.
“This agent is no longer working with Spirit, and any individual whose actions resulted in the incorrect boarding will be held accountable for failing to follow our procedures,” the spokesperson added, suggesting there might be more terminations to come.
Spirit maintains that its procedures and policies should have prevented the mix-up and is currently “reiterating our procedures to the team” to prevent a repeat incident in the future.
Casper’s aunt, Maria Ramos, was sent on a four-hour drive to collect her nephew and Spirit only initially offered to cover the cost of gas for the journey.
Ramos hit out at the airline for failing to explain how Casper ended up on the wrong plane, although Spirit has now been in contact with his aunt. The family is still weighing up legal options following the blunder.
“This agent is no longer working with Spirit, and any individual whose actions resulted in the incorrect boarding will be held accountable for failing to follow our procedures,” the spokesperson added, suggesting there might be more terminations to come.”
You need to read between the lines. Spirit contracts ground handling at all cities except FLL. The only thing Spirit could do is tell the contractor “this person may no longer work our flights”. Did the contractor fire the employee? Most likely yes. PHL has been contracted out to Unifi for years, back to the days when they were DGS (Delta Global Services), a wholly owned DL subsidiary. But…. if Unifi has more than one carrier under contract at PHL, its possible they were simply moved to another contract. If you want to know if that person truly was fired, you need to ask the employer, not the contractor.