A 101-year-old woman has been frequently mistaken for an infant because an airline’s booking system was unable to compute her date of birth.
The woman, named only as Patricia, was born in 1922, but the American Airlines system apparently does not recognise that year, defaulting instead to 2022, the BBC reported.
The centenarian was left on one occasion without her reserved wheelchair at a terminal because airport staff had expected a baby instead.
Check-in staff and cabin crew were repeatedly surprised and expected the passenger to be carried on.
“It was funny that they thought I was only a little child and I’m an old lady,” said Patricia, a former nurse, who was travelling 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 the BBC cyber correspondent, Joe Tidy, who witnessed the latest mix-up on a flight between Chicago and Marquette, Michigan, on which the reporter was also travelling.
“The same thing happened last year and they were also expecting a child and not me.” This was despite her being booked as an adult ticket, not a child’s.
Patricia said she flew every year to visit family but that there had been confusion since she turned 100, despite the fact she travelled solo until the age of 97, when she required help from family members owing to trouble with her eyesight.
She hoped the airline would soon be able to compute her real age, adding: “I would like them to fix the computer as my poor daughter had to carry all our luggage and apparel almost a mile from one gate to the other.” The BBC said American Airlines had not responded to a request for comment.
Referring to a previous mix-up, Patricia and her daughter had to wait inside the plane as others disembarked, because a wheelchair had not been arranged for her.
Despite this, she was said to be looking forward to her next flight in the autumn, by which time she will be 102.