San Antonio Woman Lets Her Daughter Fly for the First Time Unaccompanied. Then Delta Reroutes the Plane: ’They Didn’t Contact ANYONE??

Most airlines nowadays offer services for safely assisting unaccompanied minors. The way this usually works is that an approved adult checks the child in and accompanies them to the gate.

Airline employees then escort the child onto the plane, where the flight crew monitors them during the flight. When they arrive, the child is released to another approved adult.

Sounds simple enough.

According to one mom on TikTok, however, that’s not how Delta handled it. She says that during a recent trip her 13-year-old daughter took, everything that could have possibly gone wrong did.

How Did Delta Allegedly Handle This Unaccompanied Minor?

In her two-part video series, which got over 580,000 views, TikTok creator Lizzie (@fiercelizzie) details the experience.

“There was a lot of confusion and questions on my last post about my daughter flying unaccompanied with Delta and Delta completely screwed the freaking pooch,” Lizzie says.

Before posting the full story, Lizzie had first shared a photo that read, “My daughter took an unaccompanied minor flight with Delta and they treated her like lost luggage.”

She explains that while her daughter is not new to flying, this was her first time using an unaccompanied minor service.

“For the past 10 years she’s been flying to her dad’s house, but usually one of her parents flies her there, drops her off, and then flies back,” Lizzie says.

This time, they decided to try the service because her daughter is 13 and already has plenty of flight experience.

“We did not expect it to go so wrong,” she says.

The First Red Flags Allegedly Came At Check-In

Lizzie says they booked her daughter on a direct Delta flight.

“The way the flight works is one parent checks the child in, walks them to the gate, child gets on the plane, and the other parent is waiting at the gate for the child to get off the plane,” she explains.

But at the airport in San Antonio, Lizzie says Delta did not have the information for the person who was supposed to pick her daughter up, even though her dad had already entered it when he bought the ticket.

“So we had to give it to them again,” she says. “That’s red flag No. 1.”

The second red flag, according to Lizzie, was that the ticket did not show any information about who was dropping the child off or picking her up.

“These red flags will come back into play later on in the story,” she says.

Then The Plane Rerouted

Lizzie says her daughter sat in the back with another unaccompanied minor, near the flight attendants, and that the crew knew the children were traveling alone.

“The problem came when there was weather issues,” she says.

According to Lizzie, the plane could not land in Atlanta and was rerouted to Birmingham, Alabama.

“When the plane was rerouted, none of our guardians were contacted,” she says. “We got an automated text that said your flight is being rerouted, but no one actually contacted us to tell us what was gonna happen with our child.”

At that point, Lizzie was in Texas, the girl’s dad was in Georgia, and her daughter was in Alabama.

“What are we going to do?” she says.

They Sat On The Tarmac For Hours

Lizzie says the plane then sat on the tarmac for almost five hours.

“For those five hours, no one had a clue what was going on,” she says. “We didn’t know if they were gonna get off the plane. We didn’t know if she was gonna be let off the plane because she was a minor.”

Lizzie says the girl’s dad, who was waiting at the airport in Atlanta, tried to get in contact with someone in Birmingham. According to her, Delta staff at the desk in Atlanta told him they could not get anyone on the phone there.

“Excuse me. What?” Lizzie says.

She says she was able to stay in contact with her daughter, but her daughter did not know what was happening either.

Finally, the girl told Lizzie they were getting off the plane.

Then Delta Allegedly Tried To Rebook Her

“I need to know what is happening with my child,” Lizzie says in the second part.

She says she spoke to a flight attendant, but the flight attendant could only tell her that she would walk her daughter off the plane and hand her to someone else.

“And then they will call you,” Lizzie recalls being told.

According to Lizzie, no one called.

She says her daughter’s dad finally reached someone in Birmingham and asked Delta to hold her there so he could drive two hours and pick her up. Lizzie says Delta refused.

“They said, we have to put your daughter on a different flight,” she says.

At one point, Lizzie says Delta staff used her daughter’s cellphone to call her dad and get approval to put her on another flight.

“He never verified his identity, and he had no other option,” she says.

Lizzie says her daughter was in the airport for around 45 minutes to an hour before the new flight.

“Nobody ever offered to let her buy food?” she says.

She also says no one asked whether her daughter needed to use the bathroom, even though she had already been on a two-hour flight and then sat on the tarmac for hours.

“No food, no bathroom in between the flights,” Lizzie says.

According to the Department of Transportation (DOT), airlines must provide snacks and drinking water no later than two hours after the start of a tarmac delay. The DOT says airlines do not have to serve full meals, but they do need enough food and drinking water to provide a serving to all passengers on board.

Lizzie says the new flight did not solve the problem either. Her daughter boarded, sat for another hour, then the plane returned to the gate.

Delta Allegedly Used The Teen’s Phone Again

Lizzie says Delta still had not contacted the parents directly.

Several times, she says, she tried to call her daughter, only for her daughter to say she could not talk or not answer at all.

“She was like, ‘I’m so sorry, I couldn’t talk. They had to use my phone to contact the other unaccompanied minor’s mom,’” Lizzie recalls.

That stunned her.

“The Delta staff, instead of using their own phone, used my 13-year-old daughter’s phone, told her to hang up with me so that they could call this other mom,” Lizzie says.

At one point, her daughter told her they were taking her to “a secluded place.”

Her dad then left Atlanta and drove to Birmingham.

Lizzie says her daughter sounded like she was on the verge of tears.

“This is a stressful situation for an adult,” she says. “Imagine being a kid, being told what to do by strangers who are not even treating you like a human being.”

She learned where they had taken her daughter.

“She was in an office with literally the woman who handles lost baggage,” Lizzie says.

Lizzie says the worker told her there was “literally no food” except a vending machine. Later, someone from arrivals named Miss CJ took it upon herself to buy pizza for Lizzie’s daughter and the other unaccompanied minor.

“God bless her soul,” Lizzie says.

Has This Happened To Any Other Delta Unaccompanied Minor Travelers?

Most reviews of unaccompanied minor programs online are positive, but some travelers have reported concerns.

In one Reddit post on r/Delta, a passenger said they were seated next to an unaccompanied minor who was about 5 years old. The passenger said the child sat in the window seat, while they and their friend sat in the middle and aisle.

“I found the whole experience frustrating for me but also unsafe for the child,” they wrote.

According to that passenger, the flight attendants did not have a clear visual on the child during the flight, and the child ended up needing help with snacks, his backpack, his seatbelt, the TV, and the bathroom.

“At this point it was a full-fledged babysitting job,” they wrote.

Another commenter said they flew as an unaccompanied minor years ago. They remembered being told to use the call button if they needed anything. However, they recall not being supervised during the flight to the extent they expected.

Commenters Were Appalled

In the comments under Lizzie’s videos, viewers were upset by the story.

“This is giving me anxiety, my child father lives in another state and I will never allow her to fly unaccompanied,” one commenter wrote. “Your post just solidified that for me.”

Another viewer had a very different memory of flying alone as a child.

“I flew unaccompanied minor for years and years and they in fact did babysit me,” they wrote. “Including a flight that was extremely delayed due to weather and I was so scared and the flight attendant made me feel safe and calm!”

Someone else said their own child had a much smoother experience.

“My 8 year old flew unaccompanied several times,” they wrote. “I don’t recall if her tickets said unaccompanied but we had to fill out a ton of paperwork and they put it all around her neck. They were always really great. They really dropped the ball.”

@fiercelizzie

“Were you expecting them to babysit your child?!” Um yes, that is exactly the service we paid for. Whether or not you like the idea of an unaccompanied minor flight, it’s a service that does exist and many families rely on. And it should be better than what @delta provides our family on Sunday. IMO, 13 is generally old enough for a flight like this and 13 is also still a child that would be overwhelmed with a situation like this. Most adults would be too! The main problems here in part 1 are the lack of communication, and why tf does Delta not have parents information in the system/on the ticket?? More problems coming in part 2. ?

♬ original sound – Lizzie | Birth Ed ?✨

The Mary Sue has reached out to Lizzie and Delta via contact form.

Have a tip we should know? [email protected]