So, I might have been a little hasty when posting “Never Say Never.”
Truth be told, there are quite a few parenting situations where I say never, and many more which I emphatically state: “Never, ever, ever, EVER!”
At the top of the list: Putting my young child on a commercial airliner by herself and hoping she gets to her final destination without being traumatized… or worse.
A friend of mine from high school recently got divorced. Currently, he and his wife share custody of their 6-year-old son. However, my friend lives in Hilo, Hawaii, while his wife lives two islands over on Oahu. Consequently, their young son often flies solo on a direct interisland flight from Honolulu to Hilo and back. So far, there have been no major incidents to report. Still, I cringe every time I hear that K is off on yet another solo flight.
I attribute my facial tick to the number of times stories like Chloe Boyce’s make headlines.
The 9-year-old girl’s 15 minutes of “fame” is the direct result of a solo flight she took on Southwest Airlines earlier this month.
According to news reports, Chloe was flying as an unaccompanied minor from Nashville to New York, but ended up getting “lost” because of a series of unplanned events and lack of communication by Southwest employees.
Basically, when Chloe’s flight arrived in New York, she wasn’t on it.
“The flight arrived and my daughter didn’t get off,” Chloe’s mother told msnbc.com. “Someone went on the plane to see if she was there and my sister called me and said, ‘Where’s Chloe?’ The Southwest guys told her there were no unaccompanied minors on that flight.”
As it turns out Chloe’s flight made an extra stop in Cleveland due to bad weather and she was rebooked on another plane to New York. However, no one from Southwest called the girl’s mother to inform her of the switch. The airline also neglected to contact Chloe’s aunt, who was waiting at the gate in New York.
What ensued was a barrage of frantic phone calls from Chloe’s desperate mom to the airline. In the end, it took more than an hour for Southwest to track down the young girl and relay her whereabouts to her distressed mother.
That’s stress I can live without.
Letting my kid fly solo on a commercial aircraft: never.
Hopefully.
What about you?
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