Delta told father he had not picked up his unaccompanied child from an airport a week after her flight

• Delta Air Lines told the father of a child flying solo that she was never released from the gate.
• Richard Fritz was told a week after the flight when he went to check in for her return flight home.

Delta Air Lines told an unaccompanied child's father that his daughter had not been picked up from the airport a week after the flight because the airline's system failed to record that she had been collected.

Richard Fritz, from Detroit, Michigan, was told that his 13-year-old daughter was "never released" from the gate when he went to check her in for a flight back home to Burlington, Vermont in the spring.

"When I returned her to the airport a week later, the agent who was trying to check her in said 'our system says she is still waiting for you to pick her up at the gate from last week'," he told Insider.

Fritz said he asked why he or the child's mother was not called if the system indicated that she was still sitting at the gate for a week. He claims it is the second occasion that this had occurred after a similar incident two years ago.

"They laughed it off and said sometimes the system does not alert us if nobody picks up the child," he said. "I was given no explanation, just that they never released her at the gate. I've not heard back from Delta and I've tried to make complaints."

The father paid the $150 unaccompanied minor fee for each way and he has used its service to fly his daughter from Vermont to Michigan many times before. He claims that the airline is not consistent with its safety measures when he collects her from the airport.

"Sometimes they will check her bracelet number and ask me for a photo ID, other times she's just come off the plane and I've been allowed to take her," he said. "It makes me upset that somebody could have grabbed my daughter or taken off with her and nobody would have known."

Delta Air Lines did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.