United Airlines barred a 15-year-old boy from Richmond from boarding his flight home, leaving him stranded in a Connecticut airport for nearly 10 hours while his parents scrambled to find him a way back to B.C.
Victor Shmulevich was trying to fly home to YVR airport after finishing a summer program at Yale University. But when he approached the United agent at Bradley International Airport near Hartford, the man told him the airline doesn’t allow unaccompanied minors on connecting flights.
“I replied, well this ticket is booked in my name…The agent was like, ‘You can’t board I’m sorry,’ ” Shmulevich said. “I’m just there trying to not freak out because I have nowhere to go back to. I have no relatives in Connecticut.”
Victor phoned his parents, at 6 a.m. Vancouver time. His father told him to get back in line so he could talk directly to the agent, while his mother got on the phone with United. They all got the same response: United’s policy doesn’t allow minors to board flights alone.
“They say it’s a safety issue to let a minor on a connecting flight. But is it fine to leave minor miles away from home without any solution?” Victor’s mother, Alla, said.
“It’s ironic that since you’re a juvenile you can’t fly, but you have to solve the problem yourself,” Dmitry Shmulevich, Victor’s father, said.
The agent told Victor to go talk to Air Canada, the airline he flew in with and who the agent said booked his connecting ticket.
Victor walked over to the Air Canada counter, which didn’t open until 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time. It was 9 a.m. Luckily, he found an Air Canada agent walking around who agreed to help him even though the booth was closed.
The agent found a flight to Montreal, but was worried about booking Victor on it since the airport may not want to have a 15-year-old spend the night there alone while he waited to board a connecting flight to Vancouver.
Eventually, Dmitry got in touch with Air Canada on the phone, and his son was booked on a 6:30 p.m. Air Canada flight to Toronto. Victor made it back home to Richmond around 2 a.m. Pacific – 20 hours after the ordeal started.
“For me what’s most concerning is that [United] didn’t actually try to assist us,” he said. “They said sorry, you’ve got to deal with this by yourself. We can’t do anything.”
In a statement to CTV News, United re-iterated its policy that it does not allow unaccompanied minors to travel on itineraries with connecting flights, which was the case with Shmulevich.
“We are looking into the booking process further to determine how this passenger was able to purchase a ticket for a flight that was not part of our unaccompanied minor program,” a spokesperson for the airline wrote in an email.
Out of all Star Alliance airline members, United and Thai Airlines are the only two that place restrictions on 15-year-olds flying alone. Many others consider unaccompanied minors as children up to 12, and even then have services that allow the children to fly alone for a fee.
Alla says the family was offered $250 in travel vouchers by United after the incident—which the airline doubled to $500 after being contacted by CTV News. Alla, however, says the family won’t ever fly United again.
With a report from CTV Vancouver’s Allison Tanner.
