Bob Collins[Update: The family was lying.]
From the “Nobody Tries Harder to Drive Customers Away than Airlines” file:
Olimpia Warsaw, who has Parkinson’s disease and diabetes and has trouble communicating, flew from Detroit to Chicago for her ex-husband’s funeral. The flight was late, the airline lost her baggage, and she missed part of the service.
After the funeral Claude Coltea took his mom to the airport, arranged for a wheelchair, and escorted her to the American Airlines gate for the flight home.
“I confirmed with the gate agent that the flight was on time. Everything was OK. She said, ‘Yup, all’s fine. We’ll take good care of your mom,'” Coltea tells CBS.
They didn’t. The flight was canceled.
American Airlines told a porter to take her back to the front of the airport.
She was offered a hotel room, but the airline wasn’t willing to take her there, and she couldn’t make her own transportation arrangements because she has difficulty communicating.
The porter’s shift was over. So he left her there. All night.
“She actually had to find a random passenger to help her out just to go to the bathroom because the porters had already left for the night,” Warsaw’s other son, Julian Coltea, told CBS Chicago.
The family panicked when she didn’t show up in Detroit.
“All we wanted was someone to pause and say, ‘You know what, can we just make sure this human being is safe and then we can all go home,'” Claude Coltea said. “Not one person did that.”
The airline apologized, but noted the porter isn’t an airline employee.
