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A US budget airline has apologised and offered travel vouchers worth £120 ($200) as compensation after a family's diabetic and 'slightly forgetful' mother was abandoned at an airport for hours.

Alice Vaticano was making the trip home to Denver, Colorado, from Newark, New Jersey, where she was visiting one of her daughters, when she became lost in transit.

The 85-year-old woman was dropped off at Newark Liberty International Airport, but was forgotten about once a skycap, who is employed by the airport, wheeled her to her departure gate.

Lost in transit: Alice Vaticano, 85, was forgotten about after a skycap wheeled her to her departure gate

Mrs Vaticano, who was flying alone, told Denver television channel CBS4 that she feared she was going to sit in the busy airport 'forever'.

She said: 'I was just sitting all day in a wheelchair. She pushed me there and left me.

'I didn't even know where I was.' 

Mrs Vaticano missed her four-hour flight and gave her other daughter a scare when she didn't arrive at Denver International Airport as scheduled.

Southwest Airlines eventually realised the situation and put Mrs Vaticano on a flight with a stopover in Chicago.

'What the heck happened?' Donna Vaticano isn't happy with the way her mother was treated

Southwest Airlines says a processing error at check-in led to Alice Vaticano being left off her flight

Mrs Vaticano was forgotten about because employees at the departure gate were not alerted to her special need – her wheelchair – due to a processing error that occurred when she checked in two hours before her scheduled departure, the Dallas-based airline explained. 

A Southwest Airlines employee noticed her as her flight departed and she arrived in Denver about four hours behind schedule, the airline said in a statement.

Donna Vaticano, who was waiting in Denver, said her elderly mother was not fed and went 11 hours without food.

She told CBS4: 'I want answers. What the heck happened?'

In a statement provided to MailOnline Travel, the airline said it has 'counselled' the skycap on its processes for customers who require special attention.