It is any parent’s nightmare.
Maribel Martinez of New York had arranged for her five-year-old son, Andy, to fly home unaccompanied on JetBlue from the Dominican Republic on August 17. But when she went to pick him up at Kennedy International Airport, she got the shock of her life.
Airline employees presented her with a boy who was clutching Andy’s passport and luggage. But he was not her child.
“Is this your son?” Martinez said she was asked, according to news reports on Thursday.
She replied, “No, this is not my child.”
Martinez, 38, told The Daily News, which initially reported the situation: “I thought he was kidnapped. I thought I would never see him again.”
The airline eventually found her son in Boston. JetBlue said it had put Andy on the wrong plane in a mix-up with another child who had also flown out of the Dominican Republic. “It was a total three hours before she found out he was OK and wasn’t kidnapped,” Martinez’s lawyer, Sanford Rubenstein, said in an interview on Friday.
Martinez said at a news conference that she had been on vacation with Andy in the Dominican Republic in July, but had to return to New York before he did. Her relatives took him to the airport in Santiago for his return flight.
It was unclear what happened to the other boy. Joseph Pentangelo, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates JFK, said two uniformed officers stayed with him and airline personnel near the boarding gate until the child was put on a flight to Boston.
In an emailed statement on Friday, JetBlue said two unaccompanied children of the same age had been booked from Cibao International Airport in Santiago on separate planes: Flight 924 to Boston and Flight 436 to New York. But each child boarded a flight to the wrong destination, the airline said.
“Upon learning of the error, our teams in JFK and Boston immediately took steps to assist the children in reaching their correct destinations,” the statement said. “While the children were always under the care and supervision of JetBlue crew members, we realise this situation was distressing for the families.”
The airline added, “We are also reviewing the incident with our leadership and Santiago airport team to prevent similar situations from occurring in the future.”
JetBlue declined to make an official available to answer questions on Friday. But the airline said it had refunded the tickets and offered each family a credit towards future JetBlue flights. Martinez was given $475 for the cost of the ticket and $2,100 for future travel, according to news reports.
The Transportation Department, which oversees consumer protection issues, said that it had no regulations for travel by unaccompanied minors, but that it was up to the airlines to devise their own policies.
Special procedures apply to children ages 5 to 11 who are flying alone, but they vary from airline to airline, the department said.
JetBlue said children at least five but younger than 14 could travel alone on its planes, but only on nonstop flights, and for a $100 fee.
Caitlin Harvey, a department spokeswoman, said the family might be able to pursue a civil action. “While we receive anecdotal reports about these types of incidents, we do not keep statistics on them,” she said in an email on Friday.
Rubenstein said he wanted an independent government agency to investigate before he decided on any litigation, and he had sent the Federal Aviation Administration a letter asking them to look into the matter.
“Any parent can understand the terrifying fear a mother goes through knowing that her child is missing,” he told The News.
