A transgender father has accused Frontier Airlines of making a false child trafficking report against him because he had a different last name than his daughter who was traveling with him on a recent flight from Las Vegas.
The unnamed parent shared their story in a recent Reddit post following the alarming incident on July 19, which resulted in him having to publicly out himself in front of other passengers when police wanted proof that he was the child’s biological mother.
Passengers onboard the flight to San Francisco were delayed getting off the plane for what they were initially told was due to a problem with the jetbridge, but after nearly an hour of being ‘misled’ by the flight crew, they were told to sit back down in their assigned seats while law enforcement boarded the aircraft.
Police officers made a beeline to where the father and daughter were sitting and the parent was directed to the back of the aircraft while the officers spoke to their daughter out of earshot.
False accusation of child trafficking on my Frontier flight
byu/unknownprospekt infrontierairlines
At this point, the girl’s parent was informed of a child trafficking tipoff. Apparently, the police had taken the allegation as credible because when they looked at the passenger manifest, the last name of the parent did not match that of the child.
Using the pseudonym ‘unknownprospekt’, the parent said the officer “berated me and forced me to prove that I am my daughter’s biological mother.”
“In doing so, I was forced to publicly out myself as transgender in front of him, the flight attendants, and fellow passengers.”
In a letter sent to Frontier, the father wrote: “My daughter was finally allowed to join me after outing myself to his satisfaction. She was visibly terrified and is still traumatized by this incident. We both are.”
The police officer even allegedly said that the young girl “needs to be careful because she could be trafficked/kidnapped because of how pretty she is”.
After some digging, the parent discovered that the crew had made the tipoff while the flight was still in the air. However, they say that at the time, no one from Frontier apologized for the traumatic encounter and that correspondence from the airline was “extremely unsatisfactory.”
“As a marginalized individual, this false report made by your crew/airline was without a doubt based on discrimination and prejudice,” the child’s parent said in her letter to Frontier.
“I am a trans-masculine person traveling with my daughter. Can fathers not travel with their daughters? Can parents not have different last names than their children?”
“f anybody had taken just 10 seconds to look at my and my daughter’s faces, they would have seen that we look alike. We look related, because we are related. This could have been avoided if anyone within your crew would have spoken to us,” unknownprospekt wrote.
“Instead, we were made victims of discrimination and harassment. This is more than just a training flaw and the airline should be held responsible for the distress we experienced.”
Following contact with Frontier about what occurred on flight 4401, the father was offered just 10,000 Frontier Airline Miles as compensation – which is worth around $100.
It isn’t, however, just about compensation and the girl’s parent wants to carry out an investigation of how this situation was allowed to occur in an attempt to prevent similar false child trafficking reports in the future.
This isn’t the first time that Frontier Airlines has been accused of making a false child trafficking report and in 2021, a black woman was accused of trafficking her white adoptive sister on a Frontier Airlines flight from Denver to Dallas Fort Worth.
That incident occurred just weeks after a Delta Air Lines frequent flyer was accused of trafficking his special needs daughter by a flight attendant on a flight from Minneapolis to Houston.
In recent years, flight attendants at several US airlines have undergone child trafficking awareness training and flight crews are often encouraged to report their concerns.
In most cases, flight attendants are told not to try to investigate themselves but simply get law enforcement involved.
February 2017 marked one of the most high-profile success stories of this training when Alaska Airlines flight attendant Shelia Fedrick helped rescue a human trafficking victim on a flight from Seattle to San Francisco.
Fedrick became suspicious of an older, well-dressed man travelling with a young teenage girl who “looked like she had been through pure hell.”
Sheila left a note in the bathroom for the victim, and when the young girl wrote a reply asking for help, Fedrick was able to get in touch with law enforcement in San Francisco, who were waiting to arrest the perpetrator when the flight landed.
Sickening behavior by Frontier. This is nothing like the AS case cited. Pure discriminatory behavior by Frontier – no excuses.
It is not others responsibility for adults who don’t know what sex they think they are. Worse when you involve children in the mudpie. Get IDs stating you were born male or female but decided to have surgery to try to be a different sexual insinuation brought on by drugs and surgery. Carry the transgender card notified of such changes to provide proof that you bore children at one time in your life. Not my problem if some adults are heterophobic.
Just looking for a payoff lol. Transgender … You were born with a penis or a vagina. That’s what you are period!
Frontier Airlines is constantly in the news for its shoddy sub-standard operations and egregious ethics violations against the traveling public. Flying ultra low cost is costly to your mental health.
I’d pick protecting children every time over offending some adult and their sexual preferences/fantasies.
You know, when you pretend to be something that you are not, this is going to raise eyebrows. As long as a consenting adult doesn’t interfere with my right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness OR I’ll include rape, murder and incest, then hey.. do what you want and knock yourself out. Have a good time. I like and judge people on WHO they are…not WHAT they are. On the other hand, the old adage that if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and walks like a duck…it’s probably a duck might hold true in this case. The chromosome test doesn’t lie! Like “DaninMCI”, I’d look out for the kid first over the adult and it seems that most of the comments support that theory.
I agree with many others here. It is not my or the airlines problem that you have a mental illness. The safety of the child comes before all else
To the “offended” passenger, no you never were, are not now and never will be your daughter’s father or is it really your son.
It’s not will, it will end all this sillyness lol, society is going to hell with all this nonsense unfortunately but the comment is right on par
Your A Bunch Of Idiots, My Grandson Has A Different Last Name Then His Mother, That Doesn’t Make Her A Trafficker!!!
As a mandated reporter myself, we are always told to err on the side of caution. It wasn’t the different last name that gave the crew pause. It was the different last name an inconsistent gender. I understand transgender’s desire for privacy, but in certain circumstances, they need to alert someone that their ID gender is different from their presented gender to avoid this kind of incident.
Good for the airlines for trying to protect this child!! Children’s safety is far more important than hurting this MANS feelings! Dude needs to get over himself! He chose this “lifestyle.” It’s not normal people’s responsibility to go along with his sexual preferences, delusions, and kinks!