United Airlines Nearly Gave Teen The 'Home Alone 2' Treatment With The Wrong International Flight

A teen from North Carolina got the Kevin McCallister treatment over the weekend when United Airlines put him on the wrong connecting flight.

The comedy of errors began after 14-year-old Anton Berg arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey from Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina. He was set to take a connecting flight from Newark to Stockholm, Sweden, through Scandinavian airline SAS that codeshares with United. However, he was instead placed on a Eurowings flight to Düsseldorf, Germany, and no one realized the mistake until Anton brought it up on the plane before takeoff.

Eurowings also codeshares with United Airlines.

Berg’s mother, Brenda Berg, was livid at United Airlines' mixup and took to Twitter to explain the problems the entire process had been. She claims that despite her son being an experienced traveler on his own, United required he be registered as an unaccompanied minor. This meant that Anton couldn’t handle his own connection and was brought to a room for other unaccompanied minors before being brought to the wrong flight.

There have also been conflicting reports about what led to Berg being put on the wrong flight. According to his mother, Berg told her that nobody looked at his paperwork properly and just put him right on the plane with no double-check.

However, a rep for United Airlines told Business Insider that the mix-up occurred because a passenger with a similar name was supposed to be on the Düsseldorf flight. When final announcements came up and the passenger’s name was mentioned, the agent with Berg thought it was him and rushed Berg to the plane.

Attendants realized the mistake and were able to get the Eurowings’ flight back to the gate before takeoff. But by the time Berg was off the plane, the correct SAS flight had already departed. SAS was able to accommodate Berg for the mix-up with a connecting flight to Stockholm from Copenhagen.

United issued a statement to Business Insider:

The safety and well-being of all of our customers is our top priority, and we have been in frequent contact with the young man's family to confirm his safety and to apologize for this issue. Once Eurowings recognized that he had boarded the wrong aircraft in Newark, the plane returned to the gate — before taking off. Our staff then assisted the young customer to ensure that he boarded the correct rebooked flight later that evening. We have confirmed that this young customer safely reached his destination.

Eurowings has not responded to the mix-up and United refunded the unaccompanied minor fees.