Mom Claims American Airlines Lost Her 12-Year-Old Daughter In Miami Airport
She has a warning for other parents.
TikTok / GagliardiPhotography / Shutterstock One woman on TikTok has opened up about the fear she felt after she dropped her daughter at the airport for her American Airlines flight to see her father only to learn the airline ended up losing her child.
Any mother would be terrified to find out an airline lost their child, and this woman was no exception.
So she chose to call out the airline for not taking better care of her daughter.
In a TikTok video, the mom explains how American Airlines lost her daughter.
In a TikTok video, Monica aka @relativelymonica explained that her 12-year-old daughter was traveling as an unaccompanied minor to visit her father in Florida from Chattanooga, Tennessee.
She mentioned that her daughter had been on a flight to Miami from Chattanooga Airport at 6am.
“If you’re not familiar with unaccompanied minor flights, they have to wear a necklace that says they’re an unaccompanied minor. It’s got all their information, their boarding pass and the information of the parent picking them up.”
This is done so that the employees can make sure the unaccompanied child has safely reached where they need to go.
An hour after her flight landed, the mom learned her daughter was missing.
The mother explained that she got a call from an American Airlines manager of the airline who explained that her daughter was nowhere to be found. As a result, they had shut down the Miami terminal and were looking for the minor.
Monica explains, “It turns out the flight attendants waved her off the plane and said, ‘bye’.”
She claims that the flight attendants did not help her daughter find her dad, they simply let her leave the plane without directing her. Understandably, her daughter got lost and was unable to find her father.
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“So she’s going through the airport with that billboard on her that she was an unaccompanied minor in one of the largest human-trafficking hubs in the country,” Monica adds.
Fortunately, the girl eventually found her father.
While the dad was trying to get a gate pass to go look for his child, the 12-year-old was able to get in touch with him.
The father then had to direct the child to where he was over the phone instead of an airline staff member safely bringing her to him.
Monica's daughter was able to reach her father safely, but the mom was still shocked to learn that none of the airport employees or security helped her the entire time she was walking around the airport.
The woman concluded her story by sending a warning to other parents to be careful and vigilant of similar situations occurring to them or their children.
She said, “I don’t want this to happen to anybody else and if your child is flying an unaccompanied flight with American Airlines, then consider that. It’s not okay and it shouldn’t happen.”
Sanika Nalgirkar is a News & Entertainment Writer based in Seattle. She has a master's degree in Creative Writing. See more of her writing on her website.