Dad miffed WestJet policy fails again
Joel Kom and Sean Myers, Calgary Herald
Published: Tuesday, December 18, 2007
WestJet has suspended its program that allows unaccompanied minors to travel on its flights after a five-year-old girl left an airplane with a stranger last week.
The decision came as a Calgary father says his young son was also left alone to wander the airport in Comox, B.C., for 20 minutes in July.
"I just hit the roof on Saturday when I read in the paper this had happened again," said Greg Henry. "I was told when this happened to us that they had rewritten the flight attendant's handbook, that there was a new policy and flight attendants would be tested on it."
Henry's son William, who was seven years old at the time, flew to Comox to visit his grandmother on July 22. Henry said his son had flown unaccompanied eight times with WestJet without incident.
But this time William disembarked the plane on his own and walked across the tarmac to the terminal. The flight arrived 20 minutes early, so William wandered the terminal alone until his grandmother arrived.
Normally she would've had to show ID to a Westjet employee to claim her grandson, but she found him alone.
"It's a great service if they take care of him," said Henry, "but if it's not safe and the kids are not actually taken care of, then they shouldn't do it."
The airline has suspended the program while it investigates both the Edmonton girl's case and the program itself, said WestJet spokeswoman Gillian Bentley.
She did not immediately return a phone regarding the Henry case.
The investigation into the program is expected to wrap up today, said Bentley, and when it does, WestJet will look at reinstating the service.
WestJet will honour any bookings made under the program, Bentley said.
For an extra $50 per flight, the program allows an unaccompanied minor between five and 12 years old to be looked after by a WestJet attendant during the flight, as well as escorted off the plane once it lands.
The person registering the minor must provide contact information for both the person dropping off and picking up the minor.
An Edmonton couple were enraged last week after spending $100 for their five-year-old daughter to get special attention while she flew alone on a WestJet flight to Montreal.
Sara-Maude St-Louis was to be met by her birth father, Steve St-Louis, to spend the holidays with him.
But a man on the flight said the flight crew ignored Sara-Maude and when the plane touched down in Winnipeg, the little girl initially thought they had arrived in Montreal and was prepared to get off. He told her to stay put.
When the plane arrived in Montreal, the man helped Sara-Maude pack her belongings and put on her coat, then led her off the plane.
No one stopped them or queried the man, even though the girl had a large sign around her neck indicating she was an unaccompanied minor.
Bentley said she didn't want to speculate on what led to the girl being unnoticed, and she said she didn't know whether the investigations' results would be made public.
Air Canada has a similar program and doesn't have any changes to it.
Topic: I will Never Ever Fly Westjet!! (Read 2664 times)