Frontier Airlines children passengers end up in another state

David Zalubowski / Associated
Press

• Two children flying alone were taken in a vehicle to a
  hotel room with a Frontier
  Airlines employee last month after severe weather diverted
  their Orlando-bound
  flight to Atlanta.
• The children’s parents told The Atlanta
  Journal-Constitution that Frontier Airlines customer
  service could not give them information and that they only
  heard from their children because another minor let the
  children borrow a cell phone that night. 
• Frontier Airlines said their employees followed
  “standard procedure” for the handling of unaccompanied minors
  flying alone, as they were attended to at all times by an
  employee and given a hotel room. 

Two children flying alone were taken in a vehicle to a hotel room
with other children and a Frontier Airlines employee last month
after severe weather diverted their flight to Atlanta, according
to the parents of the minors who spoke to the Orlando Sentinel. 

The two children, Carter Gray, 9, and Etta Gray, 7, traveled
unaccompanied on Frontier Airlines flight 1756 on July 22 from
Des Moines, Iowa to their hometown of Orlando, Florida, where
they were returning from a visit with their grandparents. The
flight, which was scheduled to arrive at 10:46 p.m. on July 22,
circled the Orlando International Airport
for 45 minutes before diverting to Atlanta because of the
stormy weather. 

The children’s mother was left waiting at the airport in Orlando,
completely in the dark as to what had happened to them.

“This was the first year I said okay, they’re old enough to fly
on their own, they know their phone number, they know their
address,” said Etta and Carter’s mother Jennifer Ignash, to the

Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Once the flight got
diverted, the mother said, “it was like, okay, panic.”

Ignash told The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution she was not able to learn anything about
her children’s whereabouts from Frontier’s customer service line
that evening and did not receive a call from a Frontier employee
until the next day. 

The parents only heard from their children when shortly after
midnight on July 23, an older unaccompanied minor on the flight

let Carter borrow his cell phone to call his father. 

“Without that child, we would have had zero idea where our
kids were,” Ignash
said to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 

Ignash
said her two children were then taken by a Frontier employee
using a personal vehicle to an Atlanta hotel room, where four
other unaccompanied children from the flight stayed in adjoining
rooms. 

“We never gave approval for that to happen,” Etta and
Carter’s father, Chad Gray,
said in an interview.

The parents retained an aviation attorney, Alan Armstrong of
Atlanta, who has been handling their public statements.
Armstrong’s would not confirm in a call with Business Insider if
the children’s parents are seeking legal action against Frontier,
but he did say he hopes to bring attention to a neglected
issue.

“The real thrust of this is to make Frontier and the entire
airline industry aware of the gross deficiencies in their
procedures for dealing with unaccompanied minors and children,”
Armstrong told Business Insider. 

For Frontier Airlines, the parent’s reaction to go to the media
has been surprising as they said their employees followed
standard protocol. 

“It has been more than two weeks since the flight diversion
but the family never contacted us,” said Frontier spokesperson
Jonathan Freed to Business Insider. “The first we learned of
their concerns was as a result of their lawyer calling
media.”

Freed said in a statement to Business Insider that, in
keeping with Frontier’s “standard procedure” for unaccompanied
minors, the children were accompanied at all times, placed in a
hotel room overnight, and provided with food. 

“We understand how an unexpected delay caused by weather
can be stressful for a parent and our goal is to help passengers
get to their destinations as quickly and safely as
possible.”

After providing the children with a breakfast voucher to
McDonald’s, Frontier continued the flight to Orlando the
following morning and the children landed safely in Orlando at 1
p.m on July 23.