Spirit Airlines apologized to a Puerto Rican family after one employee did not allow them to board a flight from Los Angeles to Puerto Rico because their toddler did not have a passport.
While speaking to CBS News, Marivi Roman Torres, who was traveling with her husband, Luís, and her 2-year-old son Alejandro, said the incident took place on April 25 at the Los Angeles International Airport ticket counter.
Torres said initially the Spirit Airlines ticketing agent asked to see her and her husband's passports because the flight was international.
"At first she told me this is an international flight," Roman Torres told CBS News. "I told her, no, Puerto Rico is not another country. It is a U.S. territory."
Torres and her husband showed their passports anyway, but the agent then asked to see the toddler's passport, the family then told the agent the boy didn't have one.
The family then asked the ticketing agent if they could talk to a supervisor to clarify, "Is there anyone else I can talk to? Can we call customer service together?" but she said the staff was "completely inflexible."
The agent then offered them either a refund or to reschedule the flight for a later date once the family could obtain a passport for the child.
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The family then managed to buy JetBlue tickets to Puerto Rico at a higher price, Torres told CBS News.
In a statement to CBS News, a spokesperson for Spirit Airlines said they "sincerely apologized" to the family for the inconvenience.
"In this specific case, an agent at LAX who is new to the position misunderstood the identification requirements," the airline added. "We are providing the agent with additional coaching and reiterating proper procedure."
Puerto Ricans are American citizens and therefore are not required to present a passport to travel between Puerto Rico and the U.S. mainland.
