Delta mix-up sends kids to wrong cities

By Ty Tagami

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A boy and girl flying separately under Delta Air Lines supervision Tuesday wound up at the wrong destinations when the airline accidentally swapped their paperwork.

The boy was ticketed for Boston and the girl was headed to Cleveland, but he wound up in Cleveland and she in Boston.

They both were flying under Delta' unaccompanied minor program and were routed through Minneapolis-St. Paul. That is where the paperwork  mix-up occurred, airline spokeswoman Susan Chana Elliott said.

"It was a unique situation," Chana Elliott said. "Once we discovered it, we reacted quickly to resolve it."

The guardians for both children were notified, and the kids were flown to their proper destinations later Tuesday, Chana Elliott said.

The Atlanta-based airline would not disclose the children's names or ages, but a Cleveland TV news station identified the Boston boy as Kieren Krenshaw, 9.

"It was just weird," Kieren said, according to WOIO-TV, the CBS affiliate in Cleveland.  "I was like, I'm suppose to be at Boston, not Cleveland ... it was just weird."

The boy was flying from Spokane to Boston to visit his grandparents, WOIO-TV reported. He had a layover in Minneapolis, said the boy's grandfather, Larry Kershaw, according to the TV station.

"We're paying them to check on him and be with him," Kershaw said. "They just threw him in the plane like anyone else ... didn't even ask his name to match the paperwork."

Delta tried to make up for its mistake, apologizing to the families, refunding the cost of the flights and giving the families an undisclosed amount of travel credit, Chana Elliott said.