Family still stranded following Orlando-bound Frontier flight evacuation over mystery odor in Charlotte

ORLANDO, Fla - Days after a flight from Charlotte to Orlando had to be evacuated, people are still stuck in North Carolina.

Jorge Boria is one of those people.

"It's been a rough, stressful couple of days," Boria told FOX 35 in an exclusive interview. "I'm still shaking."

He was supposed to be surprising his brand-new wife with a trip to Puerto Rico. Instead, he got a different surprise altogether.

"This was not the way I thought I’d start my honeymoon," he said. 

He, his new bride, and his mother were some of the 226 passengers in the process boarding Frontier Airlines Flight 1759 to Orlando when Frontier says a strong odor was detected on the plane. We now know that was the smell of smoke.

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As a precaution, the airline says people were evacuated by both the jet bridge – and the evacuation slides.

"It felt like a stampede in that airplane because everybody's trying to squeeze through. People are running," said Boria. Kids are crying. My mother started crying. She's panicking."

His mom hurt her leg on the slide coming out of the plane. 

"She’s getting older, she’s getting more fragile," Boria said through tears.

"She really hurt herself. And she couldn't even walk."

That night, the family says they wound up sleeping on the floor at the airport, waiting for a new flight. 

They each got $15 meal vouchers, which he says didn’t wind up working.

And when Frontier rebooked their flights, they tried to put his wife on a separate plane from him and his mom.

"How am I going to let my wife go somewhere by herself? She was okay with what happened already. And I definitely wasn't going to leave my mom either," said Boria. "We were not splitting up. We came in this plane together. We're leaving in this plane together."

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Frontier finally rebooked them on an American Airlines flight that will get them to their destination together, though three days later than planned.

And Frontier paid for one night in a hotel. Because Boria declined to accept the flight they booked him on which separated his family, he had to stay an extra night, and says Frontier refused to cover the hotel stay for that night. 

A Frontier representative told FOX 35 anyone who opted to cancel their flight could request a full refund, and that everyone was given a $200 voucher for future use. 

But Boria says he won’t be flying Frontier again.

"I've never been through something like that. It was scary," said Boria. "It's really not right."

Frontier says far, it’s still investigating what caused the odor that led to the evacuation, and said it doesn’t have any more information to share about that just yet.