A Florida teenager attempted to fly alone from Tampa to Ohio last week, but somehow ended up instead on a flight to Puerto Rico, leaving Frontier Airlines officials scrambling to explain the mix up and offering apologies to the boy’s family for the error.
According to a report from NBC News, the teenager, Logan Lose, was supposed to board a flight on December 22nd from Tampa to Ohio to visit his mother. Lose, who suffers from anxiety and was flying alone, instead boarded a different flight that was departing from the same gate that was headed to the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. Somehow, neither Lose nor any of the crew recognized the mistake until after takeoff.
Specifically, it is not clear how Lose ended up on board the wrong flight without having his ticket scanned by Frontier personnel to ensure that he belonged on the flight. Lose’s father, Ryan, claims that Frontier employees somehow allowed his son to board the plane without ever scanning his ticket at all.
Ryan said, “He went up there and asked the lady if the flight was boarding, and they said, ‘yes,’ and they also checked his bag to make sure it fit. But Logan said they never scanned his ticket. Logan said they just glanced at it and said, ‘Yes, you’re on the right flight,’ and then he boarded.”
Frontier eventually got Lose to Cleveland on December 23rd, but not before causing a considerable amount of panic.
Ryan said that as soon as the plane landed in Puerto Rico with his son mistakenly aboard, he began receiving frantic text messages. “I could feel the fear in the text messages. I could feel how scared he was. My heart pretty much sank at that point because there was nothing I could do.”
In a statement provided to CNN, a Frontier spokesperson said that “Frontier has extended its sincere apologies to the family for the error,” but did not answer questions about how Lose was permitted to board the plane apparently without scanning his ticket.
This is the second such incident this holiday season, after Spirit Airlines somehow placed an unaccompanied 6-year-old passenger on the wrong flight December 21st.