A mother from Florida has accused American Airlines of “misplacing” her two young children and holding them in a jail-like room overnight without food, water, blankets or pillows when their flight got cancelled.
Amber Vencill filed a lawsuit in New York claiming that the airline was “reckless, careless, and negligent” toward her sons and broke its policies when the boys were supposed to be under their care.
“The worst part was they were in an airport; they could have been taken anywhere,” David Jaroslawicz, Ms Vencill’s attorney, told Insider.
He said that the boys now are scared to fly because they worry they would be “lost or abandoned.”
“They were in an airport with all sorts of nuts around,” he added.
Ms Vencill’s two sons, aged 10 and 12, were flying alone from Missouri to Syracuse, New York, with a layover in Charlotte, North Carolina, on 30 July 2022.
The boys, only identified as J.V. and R.V., were headed to meet Ms Vencill’s partner, identified only as Ted, and other family in New York, but their connecting flight in North Carolina was delayed several times before it was cancelled, according to the lawsuit obtained by the outlet.
American Airlines allegedly called Ted, who was listed to pick up the children once they arrived in Syracuse, and told him that the children would be on a flight the next day around 9am.
Yet, Ms Vencill was unsure what flight her sons would end up on, as the airline fed her different information, telling in an email at 11.30pm on 30 July that they would be travelling again at around 5pm the next day.
Ted was told that the two boys would be in a “nice room for unaccompanied minors where there were beds and their own bathroom,” Insider reports.
But, the lawsuit alleges that the boys were actually left to sleep in a “lost children’s room” that was “freezing” and “akin to a jail cell,” the lawsuit alleges.
The two children were given food and drink by an airport employee
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The two children allegedly slept on a sofa with the lights on in the room the entire time they were waiting for their new connecting flight.
Ms Vencill tried to get in touch with the airline while her sons were in the Charlotte Douglas International Airport but could not get through on the phone number provided, the lawsuit states.
The worried mother did,…
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