JetBlue Allegedly Tried To Pay Mom Off After Losing Her Son For Three Hours

Gaby Del Valle

Published Sep 12, 2016

Modified Sep 13, 2016

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Gaby Del Valle

Published Sep 12, 2016

Modified Sep 13, 2016

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JetBlue allegedly tried to preempt a lawsuit by offering to pay off a woman whose child they placed on the wrong flight and lost for more than three hours, the Daily News reports.

Maribel Martinez booked her five-year-old son, Andy Martinez Mercado, a ticket on a JetBlue flight from Santiago, Dominican Republic to JFK on August 17th, and paid an additional $100 fee for an airline representative to escort him onto the plane. But when the flight arrived in JFK, the airline presented a different child to Martinez—the two children had somehow swapped passports, and the airline had placed Andy on a flight to Boston and sent a different child to JFK in his place.

Martinez allegedly received a call from JetBlue's corporate headquarters on September 3rd, two days after the incident made news. An airline supervisor named Joanne spoke to Martinez through a Spanish-language translator.

"She apologized for what happened and said she was a mother, too, and felt bad about what happened," Martinez told the News. "They wanted to give me a gift of $10,000 for what happened." JetBlue had already refunded her $475 for her son's flight and had given her a $2,100 credit for future flights, but Martinez says her family won't be flying with the airline again.

Martinez told them to speak to her high profile attorney, Sanford Rubenstein, who had previously said the airline's employees "should be ashamed of themselves" after the initial incident. Rubenstein claims the airline was probably trying to get Martinez to sign a document releasing JetBlue from any damages and wrote a letter to Joanne Geraghty, JetBlue's general counsel, ordering the airline to not have further contact with his client.

JetBlue did not respond to a request for comment on the $10,000 overture.

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Gaby Del Valle

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