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Via View from the Wing, Frontier kicked a kid of merely twelve years from a recent flight for not paying the unaccompanied minor fee. The boy had been visiting his grandma and was traveling solo back to his home in Ohio.

The family and the airline were left pointing fingers at each other. The family maintained that they had paid the fee when they had booked the fare via a third-party OTA. Frontier, however, said they hadn’t actually paid it.

In any case, it’s ludicrous that they couldn’t have figured this issue out before they let the kid board the flight. And then to have the audacity to remove him because…policy?

Pay up, kid

While I understand the airline’s policy and business model of fee-ing you (to death) for everything, removing someone, especially a minor, seems like a major no-no. Even if the fee is policy, it seems a bit late to be worrying about it once you’re on the plane.

I don’t even know what the unaccompanied minor fee is for Frontier, but I don’t really care. Whether it is $25 or $250, the airline should have sorted things out long before the boy sat down on that aircraft.

Frontier finally released an apology to the family:

“We apologize to the parents for the inconvenience and confusion they encountered while their son was traveling with us last week. There was a customer service failure during this child’s travel experience with us in Tampa. At the time Frontier made every effort to contact the parents to notify them of this issue regarding fee collection in the absence of a guardian with the child at the airport. We have coached airport team members and ensured compliance with Frontier policy regarding unaccompanied minor travel.”

Wait….is that actually an apology?

At least he wasn’t beaten up and dragged off the plane.


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