A 10-year-old boy was left alone at El Prat International Airport on Wednesday, after his parents reportedly abandoned him upon discovering his passport had expired. The couple, determined not to miss their holiday flight, allegedly left their son in the terminal and boarded the plane without him, arranging for a relative to pick him up later.
The shocking incident came to light through a TikTok video posted by an air traffic coordinator at the airport, which has since been viewed over 300,000 times. “As a controller, I’ve seen a lot of things,” she said in the viral video, “but this has been completely surreal.”
According to her account, the boy was barred from boarding due to an expired passport and the absence of a visa. Rather than delay or cancel their travel plans, the parents opted to leave him behind in the terminal. “As a mother, I’m amazed,” she added, questioning how any parent could choose to fly off while their child remained stranded in a foreign airport.
Airport personnel discovered the boy alone and quickly notified police. Authorities tracked down the couple mid-flight and detained them upon landing. The child was reunited with his parents at the airport’s police station, though it remains unclear whether any formal charges have been filed.
The case has reignited concern about parental conduct and airline travel rules, drawing comparisons to a 2023 incident at Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport. In that case, a couple was arrested after attempting to abandon their infant at a check-in desk when told the baby required a separate boarding pass for a flight to Brussels.
Security footage from the Israeli incident showed stunned staff lifting a blanket from a pushchair on a conveyor belt, revealing the baby left behind. The parents were stopped at security, forced to retrieve the child, and later detained for questioning.
As airports continue to grapple with increasing summer travel chaos, aviation professionals say these rare but disturbing cases underline the need for better awareness and more accountability, when it comes to family travel logistics.
“Traveling with children requires more than just documents,” the Barcelona air traffic controller concluded. “It requires responsibility.”
