(Image source from: CBS News)

A major airline - American Airlines is facing backlash for leaving nine minor disabled children stranded at an airport for hours together after their flight was delayed on Friday.

The children, who were coming back to Portland form a summer camp in Virginia, had to go through the painful experience after their layover from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Portland, Oreland was delayed for 13 hours.

According to the kids, they were not given proper meals, medication or even proper adult supervision. Parents of the children in Portland were irated after knowing how their children were treated by the airlines and demanded an explanation.

Eventually, parents had to shell out hundreds of dollars to get their children back home off the hook. 

The kids had spent a week at Camp New Friends, a specialist program for children with the genetic disorder called neurofibromatosis, in which tumors develop in the brain, spinal cord, nerves, and skin.

Kristie Hoyt, a mother of one of the claimed she had to contact the airline crew to find out what was happening to her kid as the airline did not update her. She also took to Facebook addressing the issue.

The children had to pass the night at the Charlotte airport's as there wasn't a decent bed or furniture. Hoyt said that her son and other children hadn't eaten a full meal after they left the camp at breakfast that morning. She said that the vending machines in the room were also not functioning. Many children in the group require medication with a full meal as they may suffer from seizures and migraines but were only given snacks.

The children were not even provided food onboard after waking up for a 6:00 a.m. flight the next morning. Hoyt says the children had to survive 24 hours without a full meal.

American Airlines have since issued a public statement of apology and attributed the overnight delay to a mechanical issue. Stating that they will meet the derived families individually, they wrote, "Our team is in the process of reaching out to the families involved and sincerely apologizes for this travel experience. We will be reviewing with our teams internally to understand how we can do better next time."

American spokesman Ross Feinstein in a statement told USA Today, "Unfortunately, after boarding Flight 1736 from Charlotte to Portland on Friday, the flight experienced a mechanical delay that caused it to remain in Charlotte overnight. The children were kept in our dedicated unaccompanied minor room where they were kept safe and comfortable in the care of American Airlines personnel at all times. They departed to Portland on Saturday morning."

By Sowmya Sangam