“WOIO TV reports that Delta Airlines accidentally put a girl bound for Cleveland on a Boston flight last night, and stuck a boy bound for Boston on a Cleveland plane.”

“The situation is a very serious one,” said Delta Airlines spokesman Paul Skrbec.  Yes!  Somebody actually gets that what parents want when something like this happens is for someone from the airline to at least pretend that the situation is serious!

’nuff said.

I asked him for additional details about what they are investigating, but he was unable to provide any at this time.  He did, however, say that I would be notified when the investigation is complete, and I hope they’ll give me more details then.

My guess, and my hope, is that what they are investigating is how two different planes could take off with the wrong number of passengers, and how a passenger could go down a ramp onto the tarmac and then not get on the plane without anyone noticing.  That issue is relevant not only to the correct routing of unaccompanied minors, but also to travel security.

Here’s what I sent to the DOT through their Web form:

Gate agent in Boston put my unaccompanied daughter on the wrong plane — two planes were boarding from the same gate, one to Cleveland one to Newark, and they put her on the Newark plane instead of the Cleveland plane.

No one on the Cleveland flight noticed she was missing, even though she was listed on their manifest.

No one on the Newark flight noticed that she didn’t belong there, even though she wasn’t listed on their manifest.

Upon her arrival, no one in Newark noticed that she was in the wrong place. They called my in-laws in Cleveland and told them to come pick her up at the airport, without even noticing that the paperwork they got their phone number from said she was supposed to be in Cleveland.

My daughter sat for hours in Newark before *I* told the folks in Cleveland to check for her in Newark. If I hadn’t remembered that there was a Newark flight boarding from the same gate, realized that she was probably put on the wrong flight, and told them to look in Newark for her, who know show many hours it would have been before someone from Continental realized what was going on.

You probably saw the story in the news — it made local and national media all over the country. You can read more about it on my blog at http://blog.kamens.brookline.ma.us/~jik/wordpress/tag/cleveland-or-newark/?order=ASC.

I don’t think airlines should be allowed to board multiple flights from the same gate at the same time.

If what Continental did didn’t violate any FAA or DOT regulations, then clearly some new regulations need to be enacted. A screwup of this magnitude needs to be punishable by fines or some other enforcement action.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Here’s what I sent the TSA in email:

Subject: Security implications of unaccompanied minor put on wrong flight

Greetings,

On June 14, 2009, Continental Airlines put my unaccompanied minor daughter on the wrong flight. She was flying from Boston to Cleveland. There were two planes boarding from the same gate at the same time, and the gate agent put my daughter on the Newark-bound flight instead of the Cleveland-bound flight. The Cleveland-bound flight crew did not notice that she was missing, despite the fact that she was listed on their manifest, and the Newark-bound flight crew did not notice they had an extra passenger, despite the fact that she was not listed on their manifest.

You can also read all the details about what happened and the aftermath on my blog at http://blog.kamens.brookline.ma.us/~jik/wordpress/tag/cleveland-or-newark/?order=ASC.

You’ve probably heard about this already, since it made all the local and national media. I am continuing to field calls from the media, and I would like to be able to tell them that the TSA takes seriously the transportation security issues related to this incident. In particular:

• Apparently, a passenger with a legitimate ticket and boarding pass can go through the gate, go down a ramp onto the tarmac, and not board their flight, without anyone noticing that they’re missing. Forget about unaccompanied minors. What if a terrorist does this, ducks behind a pillar, jetway or luggage cart on the tarmac, and then changes quickly into the maintenance overalls he had hidden in his carry-on bag? Presto, he now has complete, unfettered access to the entire tarmac.
• Apparently, a passenger with a ticket for one flight can board another flight without anyone on the flight crew noticing that they don’t belong there. I leave the security implications of this to your imagination.

If these things can occur, then it seems clear that there is a hole in the security procedures in place at our nation’s airports. What is the TSA going to do about it?

Sincerely,

Jonathan Kamens

Ms. [named elided],

Continental’s response to the incident that happened to my daughter, and to another little girl a day before my daughter, and to who knows how many other children who didn’t make the news, is inadequate.

“Reinforcing procedures” does not fix anything.  “Reinforcing procedures” is a cop-out which means, “We aren’t going to change anything, we know that it’s going to keep happening, and we don’t care, because we expect that most of the time it won’t make the news, and when it does, our PR flacks will be able to weather the storm for a few days, after which it’ll blow over and we’ll be back to business as usual.”

I have decades of experience in root cause analysis and process engineering.  I can assure from a position of expertise you that there is no doubt whatsoever that it’s going to happen again if you don’t change your procedures.  However, if you don’t believe me, perhaps you’ll believe the case study on this incident done by a process engineering consultant just down the road from you in Houston.  Maybe someone at Continental should give him a call and hire him for a few days to help you do the right thing!

There are a number of simple, trivial changes that Continental could make to its policies and procedures which would make it virtually impossible for an incident like this to recur (see, for example, the ones my wife came up with off the top of her head).  But of course, changes cost money, and if there’s anything huge corporations like Continental are good at, it’s finding rationalizations for not spending money!  Continental is choosing saving money over protecting the safety and security of its passengers and our nation’s airports.  This is simply unacceptable.

I’m not just going to go away.  I will continue to fight to ensure that what happened to my daughter will never happen to anyone else’s child. For example:

• I will do my best to convince those who represent me in Washington that if Continental is unwilling to voluntarily do the right thing to ensure safety and security, the government must step in and compel them to do so (see, for example, this letter I sent this morning to Sen. John Kerry’s office).
• I will use all of the media contacts I collected while the local and national media were covering this incident, to get the word out that Continental does not intend to do anything substantial to prevent recurrences.  Yes, most of them will probably shrug their shoulders and do nothing, but you never know who might decide there’s a story that needs to be told.
• I will continue to publicize this incident, and Continental’s response to it, on my blog, which gets thousands of hits per day.

In light of this, I sincerely hope that Continental reconsiders its decision not to make changes to prevent incidents such as this one from recurring.

Please understand that the ire in this letter is directed not at you, but rather at the people at Continental who make the policies you are are responsible for communicating to customers.  I know that you are just doing your job, and I appreciate it.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Kamens

Subject: Progress on regulation related to airlines’ handling of unaccompanied minors

Ms. [elided],

I’m writing to check in with you on the status of Senator Kerry’s efforts to prevent what happened to my daughter on June 14 — being put on the wrong flight by Continental Airlines, following by no one at the airline realizing what had happened until I pointed it out to them several hours later — from happening to any other unaccompanied minors flying in the United States.

I also wanted to provide you with an update of my attempts to get Continental to recognize without any government intervention that changes to their procedures are required to ensure that this does not happen again.

On June 18, I wrote to my contact at Continental and asked her, “Can you give me an update on the progress of your investigation into what happened to M and the steps you will be taking to ensure that it does not happen again?”

Yesterday, she responded via email as follows: “We understand your continued interest in this matter and assure you that our documentation and procedures for this type of travel are very effective, but we are reinforcing to staff members the need for them to closely adhere to procedures.”

In other words, “We aren’t going to change anything, and please stop asking.”

Any safety / security procedures which fail to take into account the simple fact that people make mistakes are guaranteed to fail.  As we’ve discussed, a failure of the specific procedures under discussion here has implications not only for the safety of unaccompanied minors, but also for airport security.  Continental’s head-in-the-sand, we-don’t-need-to-fix-anything attitude is simply unacceptable.  If they are unable to acknowledge that there is a problem they need to fix, and that “reinforcing procedures” isn’t going to fix it, then the government must step in and force them to do the right thing.

Do DOT or FAA regulations require airline passenger manifests to accurately reflect the passengers actually on the plane?

Are the airlines required to report incidents like this to the DOT or FAA?

Is the DOT or FAA authorized and required to investigate such incidents?

Is the DOT or FAA empowered to compel airlines to modify their procedures when an investigation determines that they are not sufficient to ensure the safety and security of passengers and airports?

Is the DOT or FAA empowered to issue fines against airlines whose procedures are insufficient or who fail to follow them, thereby endangering the safety and security of passengers and airports?

I am not asking these questions rhetorically.  I am really asking for your help in determining whether the laws and regulations currently in place are sufficient to prevent what happened to my daughter on June 14, and to another little girl a day before that, and to many other children who never made it onto the news.  If so, then I want to know what steps the DOT or FAA is taking to enforce those laws and regulations with respect to those specific incidents.  Otherwise, I want to know what steps Senator Kerry is taking to ensure that the laws and regulations are amended as needed.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Kamens

Ms. [elided],

Now that the hubbub surrounding what happened to my daughter on Sunday has died down, I wanted to write to you and thank you, personally, for how you handled things.

During all of our conversations, you remained calm and poised despite a great deal of provocation from me. I yelled a lot and made quite a few demands, and while I think that everything I said was justified, I know that many people on the other end of such a tirade would have reacted with defensiveness and hostility. Instead, you were consistently clam and apologetic. The way you handled yourself proved that there is at least one person at Continental who knows how to do her job well.

I was especially impressed by the fact that you stated repeatedly that you weren’t going to say that you “understood what I went through,” since never having gone through it yourself you couldn’t possibly understand it. While that may be a somewhat trite cliché, it was the right thing to say in these circumstances, and I appreciated it.

I would also like to pass on to you, on behalf of my father-in-law, commendations for the Continental staff in Cleveland, who were helpful and courteous throughout our ordeal. In particular, my father mentioned that [elided] (I may not have the names spelled exactly correctly) stayed past the end of his shift to ensure that M arrived OK and also offered to return to the airport on June 28 to ensure that her return trip is uneventful. My in-laws wanted it to be noted that [elided] was also extremely helpful, as was a customer service person whose name was “[elided] or something like that” (I’m sorry we didn’t get the full name).

I would be grateful if you would pass on this email both to your own supervisor so that he or she can make note of your excellent handling of this incident, as well as to the supervisors of these other employees who performed well in our time of crisis.

I would like to post this letter on my blog to give public recognition to you and the others who performed well, but I of course do not want to publish anyone’s names without their consent, so please let me know if this would be OK. If you do get permission from the other people mentioned above for their names to be published, please let me know their correct spellings — I really hate it when people misspell my name, and I would really prefer not to do it to someone else.

There are a couple of loose ends that I hope you can help me tie up, but I will write to you about those under separate cover so that they don’t get lost in the shuffle.

Thanks,

Jonathan Kamens

There isn’t really much if any new information in the article, but clearly Shannon will being sincere when she told me that she was going to keep the pressure on Continental to force them to make real changes to their procedures.  I’m very pleased to see this.  Way to go, Shannon!

• CBS Early Show video
• NBC Today show video: Wendy Babineaux live phone interview; story about my daughter cribbed from local affiliate; story about both girls
• Fox & Friends: I appeared live but don’t have video and can’t find it online.  If you’ve got it, please let me know!
• ABC Good Morning America: They interviewed me, but I didn’t see the story on TV, can’t find it on their Web site, and can’t find anyone who saw it.  Don’t know if they just didn’t run it or what.  If you can shed any light, please let me know!
• CNN: They tried to get me for an interview but it didn’t work out.  My in-laws were interviewed, and they said they actually saw the story run on CNN, but I didn’t see it, don’t have a recording of it and can’t find it anywhere on the CNN Web site.  If you saw it or have access to the video, please let me know!

Anything I missed?