A teen exchange student flying home from the United States was left stranded at Los Angeles airport for 30 hours after airline staff withheld a hotel voucher because she was too young to book in alone - and kept her from its lounge because she was too young to be left alone around alcohol.
The girl told the Herald she felt alone and helpless after her flight was cancelled and she was left unaccompanied at the airport - and even more so after being guided out of the secure area to the public zone and left there in the hours after midnight.
The girl’s mum has spoken of being terribly worried for her daughter who called home afraid and sobbing with a cellphone battery that was running out.
The girl has since received an apology from Qantas, and a partial refund, and a further apology and compensation from the Southern Cross Cultural Exchange programme which said it has now changed a slew of practices to avoid a repeat incident.
The girl’s mum, who spoke anonymously to protect her daughter’s privacy, said the teen was returning to New Zealand in late November on a flight out of Los Angeles, via Sydney, to Wellington.
The journey home followed a four-month challenging but positive spell at a high school in the South-West of the US arranged through Southern Cross Cultural Exchange for around $15,000.
The teen’s flight into Los Angeles had left plenty of time to catch the connecting flight but “they delayed and delayed and then cancelled the flight”, the girl’s mum said.
“They were telling people they were going to book people into hotels but they told her she couldn’t be checked in because she was a minor.”
It was late into the evening at that stage and the girl faced the prospect of a night alone in Los Angeles airport with no information yet about when she might catch a flight home.
The girl’s mum said her daughter had asked Qantas staff at the lounge for help and was told she could not use it because she was unaccompanied and there was alcohol available.
The girl told the Herald she had been calling her mother and the flight agent to try and find the fastest way home, and was told a flight through Hawaii to Sydney and then Auckland was possible the next morning.
“I was told I needed to check in luggage,” the girl said and described a Qantas staff member leading her to, then leaving her at a luggage desk on the public side of the airport.
The girl’s mum said she couldn’t believe the airline staff had a 15-year-old standing in front of them that they then abandoned without knowing how she would be looked after and where she would stay overnight.
By now, midnight had passed and the airport was winding down. The girl was told she couldn’t recover her luggage until the following day.
“At this point, there was no one except the guy cleaning the floors and a few people asleep,” the girl said.
With her phone battery diminishing, she went in search of a plug so she could charge it - and then got lost in LAX.
The enormous airport is sprawled across 1400 hectares and is one of the world’s busiest with four terminals that moved 75 million passengers in 2023 through its average 1500 flights daily.
And the drama unfolded during the period in which traveller Hannah Kobayashi sparked alarm while going missing during a layover at LAX with speculation she had been kidnapped. Kobayashi later turned up unharmed in Mexico.
But the girl’s mum said the reason for the disappearance was not known at the time and added to the anxiety the family experienced.
The girl’s mum said she also sought assistance from Southern Cross Cultural Exchange staff who worked hard to connect with the booking agent, airline and airport - but were unsuccessful.
In her letter to the company, the girl’s mum wrote: “At the end of their shift, all staff including the airport and airline, left and went home, ultimately leaving my daughter without supervision or assistance for the entire night at the huge airport that is LAX.”
The girl’s mum told the Herald: “She was sobbing and crying. It was absolutely horrendous. I felt really powerless. I was extremely concerned about her safety.”
The girl was found wandering by a security guard and brought back to the main public area where she found a plug to charge her phone.
“Her and I stayed on the phone all night,” said her mum. The girl said: “It was pretty stressful - I was calling everybody because, I guess, I live in this airport now.”
When dawn came, the girl was able to check in again - although had no flight yet confirmed - and moved back to the secure side of the airport where she spent the day.
As the day went on, she was booked again on the same flight that was originally cancelled. After a few nerve-racking delays, the flight took off about 11pm.
In total, the girl’s mum calculated that her daughter had spent about 30 hours alone at LAX without direct, in-person, support from the airline she was flying with or the exchange programme that had arranged her travel.
Both Qantas and Southern Cross Cultural Exchange have since apologised and offered compensation totalling $3340.
It has emerged that one of the issues was switching travel across different carriers. It meant that a young person travelling alone wasn’t considered an “Unaccompanied Minor” by the airlines with which she travelled because she wasn’t travelling with them the entire route.
In a letter to the mum, the exchange programme’s outbound programme manager Isabelle Piairo said the girl’s experience had led to a raft of changes across the company.
“We understand that as a minor, staying in LAX Airport for 30 hours alone must have been distressing for her.”
Piairo said the company was shifting to prioritising travel with a single airline - and then travel time and layovers - when booking to meet airlines’ “strict” criteria for an “Unaccompanied Minor”. With the change, students booked with a single airline would then have access to lounges and other services if needed in case of delays and cancellations.
Other changes included making sure its US partner would work with the exchange programme to help students caught in flight cancellations and delays while still in the country. New systems meant that staff on the emergency phone roster had contacts for overseas partners.
She said it was a change it had communicated to staff and also students who were currently or soon to travel.
Piairo said the issue was one of concern for the exchange programme sector and it - along with other exchange programme businesses - would “push airlines to improve their treatment of all minor travellers” through a campaign led by industry sector group New Zealand Council for Intercultural Education.
“We have already submitted a complaint to Qantas for the inadequate on-the ground support that they provided [your daughter] as it is also their duty of care to support minors regardless of their official Unaccompanied Minor status.”
In a statement to the Herald, the company said it had put in place a range of changes to policies.
“We deeply regret the challenges [the girl] faced and are dedicated to learning from this situation to improve our services moving forward.”
A Qantas spokeswoman wrote to the teen’s mum to say: “I am so sorry that [your daughter] ended up spending the night at the terminal when her flight QF12 was delayed overnight. This would be daunting for someone so young and also uncomfortable. Please pass on our sincere apologies.”
The Los Angeles-Sydney-Wellington flight was refunded - a repayment of $1340.
In a statement to the Herald, the airline said: “We have sincerely apologised to the family and understand how upsetting this experience must have been.
“Qantas has procedures in place to take extra care of young travellers when they fly with us, however the booking was made by a travel agent who did not advise us that the customer was travelling without an adult.
“Even though our teams weren’t aware that she was travelling without an adult, we should have taken better care of her when the flight was disrupted.
“We are looking into why she was not provided accommodation in LA like other customers on the flight.”
David Fisher is based in Northland and has worked as a journalist for 35 years, winning multiple journalism awards including being twice named Reporter of the Year and being selected as one of a small number of Wolfson Press Fellows to Wolfson College, Cambridge. He joined the Herald in 2004.
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