“My daughter made the reservation online and the airport computer assumed that my date of birth was 2022, not 1922,” Patricia, who did not want to share her surname, told a BBC journalist on a flight between Chicago and Marquette. “The same thing happened last year and they were also waiting for a child,” she added, explaining that the seat was, despite everything, reserved for an adult.
Apparently, the airport’s computer system is incapable of processing such old birth dates. By default, it assigned one 100 years later.
“It was funny that they thought I was a small child when I was an old lady!”, he said. However, she would like the flaw to be corrected, as it has caused her problems before.
On another occasion, airport staff had not prepared the necessary transport to move around the terminal – a wheelchair – as they were expecting a baby, who could be carried. Patricia had to wait with her daughter, after all the passengers had already left the plane.
The retired nurse, who travels every year to visit her family and escape the cold winters, assured that in both situations the American Airlines employees were friendly and helpful.
However, I would like to see her true age recognized to make life easier for her daughter. “I wanted them to fix the system because my poor daughter had to carry all our luggage for almost a mile [1,6 quilómetros]between one boarding gate and the other”, he lamented.
