A US airline has apologised after an unaccompanied six-year-old boy ended up hundreds of miles away from his family after being placed on the wrong flight.
Casper was due to travel to Fort Myers, Florida, but instead landed in Orlando after an apparent blunder by staff at Spirit Airlines on Thursday.
His grandmother Maria Ramos was left horrified after the youngster failed to turn up at the arrivals gate in Southwest Florida International Airport.
"I ran inside the plane to the flight attendant and I asked her, 'Where's my grandson? He was handed over to you at Philadelphia?'" Ms Ramos told WINK-TV, a television station in Fort Myers.
She said the flight attendant told her: "No, I had no kids with me."
Casper then called her on the phone.
“He said ‘Mum, where are you? I don’t see you, I got out of the plane’. I said, ‘What do you mean you got out of the plane’. He said, ‘Yes, I’m here, I’ve landed, I’m at the airport,’” Ms Ramos said.
It then dawned on her that the boy had landed in the city of Orlando – a four-hour car journey from where she was.
Ms Ramos said budget airline Spirit Airlines has since offered to reimburse the cost of her drive.
She added: “I want them to call me. Let me know how my grandson ended up in Orlando. How did that happen? Did they get him off the plane? Did the flight attendant – after mum handed him with paperwork – let him go, and he jumped in the wrong plane by himself?”
A spokesperson for Spirit Airlines said: "We take the safety and responsibility of transporting all of our guests seriously and are conducting an internal investigation. We apologise to the family for this experience."
The incident has drawn online comparisons to the plot of the Christmas classic "Home Alone," where a young American child, portrayed by Macaulay Culkin, accidentally boards the wrong flight.
