Photo: DENVER, CO - SEPTEMBER 9: Frontier employees and executives physically pull a 46-ton Airbus A320 out of the Frontier Airlines hanger at Denver International Airport in Denver. The plane reveals the new paint scheme of the Frontier logo reverting to the stylized “F” to look like that from the logo first introduced in 1978. The iconic animals on the plane’s tale will stay and will be featured more prominently extending from the tale to the aft fuselage of the aircraft. (Kathryn Scott Osler/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
Frontier Airlines is under fire for the way they handled two unaccompanied minors after their flight was diverted.
According toToday, nine-year-old Carter Gray and seven-year-old Etta Gray were traveling without their parents on a Frontier Airlines flight from Des Moines to Orlando on July 22 when severe weather caused the plane to be diverted to Atlanta.
The children’s father, Chad Gray, toldTodaythat following the flight diversion, the airline made the decision to put their children in a hotel room with four other “unaccompanied minors” and an airline employee.
Gray told a local Atlanta CBS station that hecalled Frontier gate agents multiple timesand they weren’t picking up, and they transported the children to a Holiday Inn near theHartsfield-Jackson airportaround 2 a.m. Gray also claims that the children were transported to the hotel using an airline employee’s personal vehicle, where there was no booster seat for Etta.
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“I know they were a little frightened, scared and nervous,” Gray said onToday. “My son ended up sleeping with a boy five years older he did not know.”
He claims that no one from the airline ever contacted him or the children’s mother, and said that his son had to borrow another child’s cell phone to keep his parents updated.
“For Frontier to leave that messaging in the hands of a seven and nine-year-old to me is really unacceptable,” he said.
Alan Armstrong, a pilot who is representing the family as their attorney told CBS46 that he questions the airline’s policies in place surrounding the situation and their decision to fly out of Des Moines knowing flights were ground-stopped in Orlando.
“No one knew what to do,” Armstrong said. “The policies and procedures, taking children off airport premises around four in the morning…”
Gray wants to use this opportunity as a learning experience for other parents whose children are flying unaccompanied, and he toldTodayhe intends to make sure this doesn’t happen to other families.
“The biggest thing is for Frontier to have a clear policy and procedure moving forward if this scenario were to happen again,” Gray said.
A spokesperson for Frontier tells PEOPLE in a statement that providing a hotel room in this situation is “standard procedure,” and although it has been more than two weeks since the flight diversion, the first time the airline “learned of the family’s concerns was as a result of their lawyer calling media.”
source: people.com
