85-Year-Old Woman Stranded, Nearly Hospitalized Due to MCO Airline Negligence - Inside the Magic

Comments for 85-Year-Old Woman Stranded, Nearly Hospitalized Due to MCO Airline Negligence

frontier airlines planes on tarmac

Credit: ABC

43 Comments

  1. S1

    Gender is a social construct using m*n and w***n should never be normalized anymore. Change society and end hate….

    1. iknowmygender

      choose a gender

      1. VLM

        No, and you can’t make me. Care to explain precisely what it has to do with this article, snowflake?

    2. AH

      Gender is what you were born as. Some people are mental, like you.

    3. Top G

      You are nutty.

  2. Deborah

    We saw Alaska Airlines do nothing for their passengers who needed assistance at SEATAC when porters abandoned wheelchairs in a customer service line when their flights were cancelled. Nothing! For hours & hours. We were stranded there for 15 hrs but at least we had mobility. UNACCEPTABLE

    1. Deborah

      Tough beans, we need to be responsible for ourselves and our family members, stop blaming and take responsibility.

      1. Joe

        Who the h*** are you? They paid for an offered service and were abandoned at the connecting city.

        1. Chris

          Doesn’t say anywhere that this was a connecting flight (and there are very few of those in Orlando). In fact, it said the granddaughter could not take her grandmother through security, which definitely suggests it is an originating flight. It seems the woman was abandoned not only by Frontier but also by her family.

      2. VLM

        Blame is fairly placed when one pays for a service and DOESN’T RECEIVE IT. Because, you know, THAT’S FRAUD.

    2. Cheryl Turner

      Orlando airport is one of the worst for getting help when your in a wheelchair. They park you in the main aisle way so you get to wait for help to push you through security and then to the plane. I waited for 45 min for someone to get me Finally had to struggle and get myself through security and to the plane or I would of been stranded. It’s horrible getting help there.

      1. Wb

        Cheap airline. Cheap state

    3. In March at DFW I was “abandoned” st my next gate to wait one hour for my flight. The escort delivered me a seating area and left with the wheelchair after checking his iPad. About ten minutes later, I received a text saying my flight was canceled! The stress began! I’m 75 snd walking challenged! Tried getting help finally called my travel companion going in another direction- I was a short plane ride from home. This began a two hour fiasco to get assistance including my friend calling DFW’s AIRPORT MANAGER to request a wheelchair and an escort. Forty five minutes later another call was made and manager finally arrived stating she had already been there but I had left!
      Fortunately, another passenger had stopped to see if he could help me, he spoke up and said he had been with md and she had not been there! I was told flights to my home airport were canceled- I
      Could not get on a flight for two days. After 45 minutes they agreed to place me in a hotel but I would need to return the next day for stand by! I was sent in a cab with no suitcase. To a hotel with no eating facilities and a confirmed economy ticket for two days later ( I was flying non discounted First Class!) My brother called for the hotel’s address and advised he’d see me the next am! He picked me up at
      11:00am and we headed for home- after locating my luggage which somehow had flown home with no planes flying! I arrived home by 2:00 pm and my suitcase was sitting at my home airport! No apologies or compensation was offered! This was the final straw in a series of “First Class” fiascos with
      AA over four flights including being hit by another wheelchair customer while boarding
      In Miami at an outside ramp! I have been flying AA for over fifty years and I have NEVER received this unacceptable service until beginning August 2021 with a flight to Orlando. I fly again in September and I using United! To date, they have not been discussed regarding these issues. I have TSA
      Pre-check and always request assistance when booking. This lack of service is uncalled for! Customer Service has still not returned calls and emails from the hitting assistance much less this last incident!

  3. Lou

    The family should know the granddaughter has to get security pass from the airline. Granddaughter should not have left her until someone came to get her. Family should have been on the phone way before 13 hours!

    1. Leggwork

      100%

    2. VLM

      How would she know she even COULD get a gate pass, if the airline never told them?

      1. Dawn

        I asked when I was dropping a friend off that was in need of a wheelchair. I used my brain and mentioned that she needed assistance and if they had a temporary pass I would be able to take her. They were more than happy to let me push her through to her departing plane.

  4. Allyson

    This is the worst airport I’ve ever been to! I live in ATL, the hub of Delta airlines, and this airport is absolutely nothing but a problem with rude staff that are not willing to help PERIOD. I absolutely hate having to fly here when we come to Disney!

    1. Deborah

      People should be responsible for themselves and family

      1. Joe

        Get lost Debbie.

      2. Lora

        As Joe said, get lost Debbie. I suppose even though they paid for a service, you believe they should learn to fly the plane to take care of their family too. Get real.

      3. VLM

        And airlines should be responsible for providing the services they PROMISE IN WRITING to provide. Do you work for the airline, Debbie? Is that your problem?

    2. sbs

      I wouldn’t give Disney one cent of my money

      1. Dawn

        Has NOTHING to do with Disney….

  5. Momma

    Frontier did the same thing to my daughter at the same airport. 10 years or so again. Fortunately MCO stepped up to help us. Frontier promised us new tickets to any of their destinations in an email later and never mailed us the vouchers.

  6. Diane

    I am sorry that this happened to your mom however why did it take you 14!hours to discover that your mom did not make it to her destination. Why didn’t she have a cellphone on her to make a phone call or have a cell phone with gps on it to keep track of her. Sorry but you all can’t be just blaming someone else. Yes communication broke down and she wasn’t taken care of but I also place blame on everyone in the airport who saw her and did not take action to help her.
    May your mo
    Get stronger everyday.

  7. AirlineEmployee

    Most people don’t know this, but the airlines aren’t actually the ones that get the wheel chairs and push them. It’s a completely separate contracted company. At most airports it’s a company called “Prospect.”

    When a passenger is identified as needing a wheel chair, the airline employees request a Prospect agent to come and wheel the person. Many times I have seen passengers and airline employees sitting there waiting for Prospect to show up.

    1. Anotherairlineemployee

      ^^This.

    2. AH

      Years ago I flew into MCO on SW airlines, and after being pushed up the ramp by a SW employee, they offered to wheel me to baggage. Maybe things have changed since then.

  8. Ann

    Don’t blame this and Walt Disney World so they had nothing to do with it it all lands on frontier airlines……And if I was that family I’d be getting a lawyer posthaste

  9. sbs

    It’s Frontier Airlines. I wouldn’t expect anything less.. or more.

  10. Phil

    SUE

  11. Chea’

    This is horrible but blame should spread across the board. The airline is definitely wrong as well as the family for the same reasons others mentioned but also what about the lady? Why did she just sit there for that long especially after have had clearly missed her flight? I know she is older but my 90 yo grandmother wouldn’t have waited 15 minutes without flagging someone down lol. I really wonder if she literally just sat there for all that time. Her family wouldn’t have let her fly alone if she wasn’t lucid and capable enough of handling it without them so why did she just sit there for all that time? Idk her so maybe she wasn’t capable but I would assume she was since she was left there without her family.

    1. VLM

      You’ve clearly never tried to deal with getting assistance at an airport. Here’s a reality check for you: airports in general are the WORST for customer service. They’ll spend HOURS telling you, “Oh, any minute now…” but if you kick up too much of a fuss trying to get what’s been promised to you, they call TSA to throw you out. Nowhere does it say that the woman did NOTHING. It says she couldn’t GET HELP for 14 hours of airport and airline stonewalling.

      Try again when you have some grasp of reality.

    2. Chris

      100% agree. We don’t have all the info, but the family seems to be pretty quick to blame Frontier but not recognize their own failings.

  12. Jessica Ramirez

    I actually watched this situation go down. I was sitting close by smh… crazy!!

    1. VLM

      Why don’t YOU “think about what you’re saying”? Who’s going to jump in when there’s constantly someone hovering around the victim, promising the moon but never delivering? Not you, probably; you’re going to assume it’s “taken care of.” Because, you know, in a reasonable place, it WOULD be.

  13. Chris

    What is unclear from this story is where the elderly woman was left. Based on the statement that the granddaughter could not wheel her through security (and it did not say anywhere that she made it through security and nobody was on the other side to get her to her gate), I would assume it must have been before the security lines. If that is the case, why did she not wait with her grandmother until someone came to get her? I sure wouldn’t leave a frail family member to wait on their own and would have been there until someone came to actually take her to the gate (and would have waited until I saw her get through security, but that’s just me).

    Frontier was partially at fault, but they share the blame with the woman’s family who also seem to have abandoned her at the airport.

  14. Rick

    She was traveling in the air traffic control system by herself. Why are we talking about whether she’s 85 years old? She was traveling by herself. I travel by myself all the time and get stuck places for 12 hours. I need to deal with it. If she’s a person that’s not capable of dealing with something, you shouldn’t put her in an airport and drop her off, give her 20 bucks, and wish her the best of luck getting to the end of the line. Things just don’t work out that way and you can’t blame everybody else. She was traveling by herself. Did I mention the fact that she was traveling by herself? And the people that shoved her in the airport and then waited for her to come out the other end are complaining that somebody somewhere didn’t do something right. Whatever happened to self responsibility? Either travel with her, or don’t have her travel at all, if she’s not capable of traveling by herself and getting stuck somewhere for 12 hours?

  15. Frances

    The request and the service of a wheelchair is free the airline provides the wheelchair and a third company does the service. The gate pass is issued by the airline not TSA, and Prospect is not the actual third party right now is either Bags or ABM. My dad is 96 and still travels but we never leave until the plane leaves why? Cause anything can happen. Is our responsibility to make sure our family members save we shouldn’t put that on anyone’s shoulders, and I have witnessed family members dropping them off with bags and everything and say oh it’s your job cause I paid for the service again the SERVICE IS FREE they only work for tips. And that service starts when the passenger has dropped their bags (which I do for my dad) and are ready to go to the gates. I always get a gate pass and wheel him all the way to the gates.

    1. Dawn

      This!! This is exactly how it is done. I have done this for my mother and a friend of mine, both needed a wheelchair. So I ask for a pass and take them to their departure gates myself. Then wait with them until they are boarded. It’s quite simple…. that way if something happens, I am right there.

  16. E.M Berry

    This exact thing happened to my sister and I .
    Frontier did not care

  17. The sad thing is whether or not the family paid for the right kind of assistance, many people both airline employees, airport employees, and travelers walked by this old woman in a wheelchair and no one asked her if she needed help. I am sure at some point she looked distressed and literally no one took notice and just walked right by her.

    This is the kind of society we have become where we don’t want to take care of or even think about other people. If this was your mother or grandmother you might have arranged things differently but this family didn’t and the old lady shouldn’t be the one to suffer because of it.

    Even when you pay for services, the airlines don’t always get it right. When I was 9 years old I was travelling from San Diego to Toledo on an airplane alone. We had a layover in Pittsburgh which is a gigantic airport. An airline employee was supposed to walk me to the gate for my next plane. Instead she pointed, and said go that way, and made sure I got on their indoor tram/subway looking mode of transportation. When I got to the other end I was super confused and it turns out that she put me on the wrong tram. I missed my connecting flight and spent 3 hours in Pittsburgh which caused me to miss my connecting flight in Detroit.

    By the time I arrived to Toledo it was 9 hours later than I was supposed to and the airport was closed. They would not let us inside. They stopped the small plane, dumped our luggage in the snow, and I was left to walk, with my luggage and no luggage cart around the entire building from the runway all the way to the parking lot where my aunt was panicked. I have not flown since I was 22 years old and I don’t plan to ever fly again.

Comments are closed.