PARRISH, Fla. (WFLA) – It was the nightmare before Christmas for a couple of Florida parents after their son was flown 1,200 miles south to Puerto Rico rather than Cleveland.       

Logan Lose, 16, waved goodbye to his family last Friday at Tampa International Airport before boarding a flight to visit his mom for the holidays. When he got to the gate, he saw other passengers boarding and got in line.

His father Ryan Lose said the Frontier Airlines boarding agent checked his son’s baggage, looked at his boarding pass on his phone, and told him he could get on the jet.

“Logan said they didn’t scan it,” Lose said. “They would’ve known it was the wrong flight if they scanned the boarding pass.”

After landing in Puerto Rico, the 16-year-old texted his family in a panic.

“Help me please,” he said. “I’m so scared. They told me it was Ohio.”

“My first reaction was panic,” his father said. “He’s panicking, he’s scared, and I can’t be there to keep him safe.”

The confusion stemmed from the gate number, according to the boy’s family. The flight to Puerto Rico left about two hours before the one to Cleveland, with both jets boarding from the same gate.

Lose said his son was already anxious about flying alone for the first time, but still asked the right questions at the correct gate and presented his boarding pass.

“All they had to do was scan the boarding pass and he never boards,” Lose said. “Or if they did a head count [on the plane] they would’ve noticed he was not in a seat assigned to that flight.”

Jennifer de la Cruz, Frontier’s director of corporate communications, acknowledged the mistake.

“He was able to board as a result of an error on the part of the boarding agent,” De la Cruz said. “He was immediately flown back to Tampa on the same aircraft and accommodated on a flight to Cleveland the following day.”

She also said Frontier does not have a program for chaperoning unaccompanied minors, as passengers 15 and older are permitted to fly alone.

But Logan’s father said Frontier had initially denied that Logan was on the wrong flight, which made the situation worse.

“They kept brushing it off,” Lose said. “And when they did finally realize their mistake and said it looks like Logan did get on the other plane, they just said, ‘Oh sorry,’ and that was it.”

De la Cruz said the airline “extended its sincere apologies to the family for the error.”

Frontier also offered a $200 travel voucher, but Lose said it’s not nearly enough to compensate for the stress that was involved.

“They offered me a voucher to an airline that just lost my son,” Lose said. “I want accountability. These airlines are not being held accountable.”