United Airlines lost a ten-year-old girl and hardly seemed
to care. Phoebe Klebahn had plans to go to a camp in Michigan on June 30. Annie
and Perry Klebahn, Phoebe’s parents, say they waited anxiously for a phone call
from Phoebe saying that she arrived safely, but instead they got a call from
the camp saying that she never got there. The parents wrote a complaint letter to
United Airlines.
“According to the
letter, Annie Klebahn called a customer line which connected her with United’s
service centre in India. After a 20-minute wait, the person on the line told
the Klebahns that their daughter had arrived in Traverse City. When Annie
Klebahn got upset, she was put on hold again – for 10 minutes – and was then
told Phoebe was indeed in Chicago and had missed her connection.” -
CBC News.
The Unaccompanied Child Service in Chicago that was supposed
to help Phoebe get on her flight “forgot to show up.” That service costs an
extra $99. When Phoebe asked an airport attendant for help, she was told to
wait. She then asked three times to contact her parents, and she was told to
wait.
“The Klebahns said in their complaint letter they had never
been told “that United outsourced the unaccompanied minor services to a third
party vendor.”
When he [Perry Klebahn] begged the person to locate his
daughter, she said she was going off shift and could not help. He pleaded with
her, asking if she was a mother. When she said yes, he asked what would she do
if she couldn’t locate her child for 45 minutes. In 15 minutes, the employee
found Phoebe.” –
CBC News
Phoebe eventually was able to get on another flight to
Michigan, but it took three days for her bags to arrive. United Airlines said, “What the Klebahns describe is not the
service we aim to deliver to our customers. We
are redepositing the miles used to purchase the ticket back into Mr. Klebahn’s
account in addition to refunding the unaccompanied minor charge.”
My thoughts on this
are: They lost a child. Then when she asked for help and to contact her
parents, they told her to wait. The parents were scared anyway because their
daughter was going to another state by herself. Then they get a call from the
camp saying that she never showed up.
That is a parent’s worst nightmare. At that point they had no idea where their
daughter was.
They called United
Airlines and they were put on hold for twenty minutes. Nobody helped until
Perry Klebahn used his empathy parent powers. I honestly think that this is extremely
ridiculous. I can’t even imagine what Phoebe’s parents were going through.
Sources:
