Airline mistakes 101-year-old woman for baby
Monday, 29 April 2024
NEW YORK, Apr 28 (BBC): A 101-year-old woman keeps getting mistaken for a baby because of an error with an airline's booking system.
The problem occurs because American Airlines' systems apparently cannot compute that Patricia, who did not want to share her surname, was born in 1922, rather than 2022.
The BBC witnessed the latest mix-up, which she and the cabin crew were able to laugh off. "It was funny that they thought I was only a little child and I'm an old lady!" she said.
But the centenarian says she would like the glitch to be fixed as has caused her some problems in the past. For example, on one occasion, airport staff did not have transport ready for her inside the terminal as they were expecting a baby who could be carried.
The glitch the BBC witnessed happened when Patricia was flying between Chicago and Marquette, Michigan - a flight this reporter was also travelling on. Patricia was flying with her daughter, Kris.
"My daughter made the reservation online for the ticket and the computer at the airport thought my birth date was 2022 and not 1922," she told me.