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Two unaccompanied minors on a seven-hour bus trip were left stranded in South Auckland, despite having tickets to disembark near the Sky Tower.
Erin Alberino’s daughters, Brielle and Livy Owen, aged 13 and 12, took an InterCity bus from Bulls to Auckland to see their dad on Monday morning.
The girls’ father had bought them unaccompanied minor tickets, filling out the necessary forms online for the bus company to know exactly who they were and where they were going.
“The driver said he would be changing with another in Taupō and acknowledged the girls and knew they were unaccompanied minors, so he said he’d swap drivers and pass on all the info,” Alberino said.
Alberino had dropped her daughters off at the bus just after 10.30am, about seven hours later, she received a call from an unknown number in Manukau.
“I just got a call from some random lady and she said, ‘I got your daughters, they’re at the bus stop in Manukau’.”
Unaccompanied minors Brielle and Livy Owen were left stranded in South Auckland after a seven-hour bus journey meant to end near Sky City in Auckland City.
“And [my daughters] were like, ‘We’re lost, Mum,’ they were crying and I was like, ‘What the heck?’.”
The girls were supposed to exit the bus near Sky City in Auckland City, but were given their luggage in the south of the city.
“The driver said they were in Auckland, and then the girls have said they went ... downstairs and ... asked the driver, ‘Is this where we get off?’. And he said, ‘Auckland, yep, which one’s your bags?’.”
Alberino was “furious” as she claimed InterCity didn’t initially acknowledge the mistake.
“They [the girls] had no idea where they were, they had no idea what to do, their phones were flat, if they didn’t even know my phone number, what would they have done?”
Erin Alberino's daughters were supposed to be dropped off near Sky City in central Auckland but were instead stranded in Manukau. Photo / Michael Craig
A spokesperson for Entrada, InterCity’s parent company, told the Herald the safety of unaccompanied minors was of top priority and they were concerned to hear about the incident.
“We have been in contact with the family to apologise directly,” the spokesperson said.
“We are working with our team to understand exactly what occurred.”
The company was investigating and would take “any necessary steps to strengthen our processes once the review is complete”.
Alberino said her daughters are now safe with their father, but she won’t be sending them on a bus to Auckland again.
