Do you know anyone who has ever boarded the wrong flight? I find it quite impossible for people to get on the wrong plane, specially all pax's boarding cards are checked at the gate before getting on the plane.

It's would be rather hilarious getting on the wrong plane. Imagine intending to go to New York, instead you end up in papua new guinea!! 

Arsenal@LHR

A friend of mine did it in an Iberia flight BCN-MAD, but before taking-off, he was called to the cockpit (by the loudspeaker), and told to leave the plane.

Didn't they check his tickets and boarding cards at the gate?

I have seen it twice at Hellinikon airport in Athens, because the passengers were transported to the aircraft with buses and, when many flights whose gates were next to each other were boarding at the same time, many passengers, especially old people would get on the wrong bus. But, in both cases that I withnessed, they were redirected by the ground staff that checked the boarding passes at the bottom of the stairs.

Yes, but it was the same company, and the same boarding hour, and I'm not sure if it was the same destination (of course was another flight no.!).
BCN-MAD is the busiest Iberia's route.

It has happened many times where I work. Or at least the airport where I used to work. Someone going to Norfolk ended up going to Hartford and there are many examples than that. there are also the passengers that don't speak english and therefore just see people boarding they fall into the queue and get on the wrong a/c.

I was in an Air Canada DC-9-30 at LGA to Montreal ready for door closing when a man ran up to the front. He was supposed to be on the Toronto flight next gate over. I don't know how that happened.

I was flying PIT-LGA and when they made the 'destination check' announcement the guy in the seat behind me yelled 'oh sh**, I'm on the wrong flight.' He jumped up and ran off!

Another story I heard is that a man was put on a BWIA flight to POS instead of a BA flight to LHR. The gate agents didn't realize until the flight was airborne!

Especially in the US it's more common that you think....

JH

POS iso LHR... and airborne?! That's great. Why is it that these things don't happen to me? Oh well... I think I know the answer!  

Emirates Skies

Of course everyone knows about the poor lad who was supposed to go to Okland, CA and ended up on a flight to Auckland, NZ. This happened a few years ago. Why didn't they catch that?

And recently, a team of German translators attending the UN conference, were supposed to go to Monterrey, MX and ended up in Monterey, CA in the U.S. Of course, that was the fault of the travel agent who booked them on the wrong flight from the beginning.

Aiports with busses get this alot. I wonder how Kevin did it on Home Alone!?    

One of the great benefits of UA's Gatereader is this problem is mostly eliminated.
My friend who flys for NW Airlink had a customer who insisted that she was in Lafayette IN, when in fact she bought a ticket to Lafayette LA. The states where clearly marked on her tkt and Interary but she thought that NW made a mistake. She didn't ask anyone until she deplaned in Louisiana and discovered that she was not in Indiana. She made NW pay for her mistake, they had to fly her back to MEM then to DTW to get to Indiana.

HA! Old ladies getting on the wrong planes...Auckland instead of Oakland...has anyone ever seen Airport {1970}? Mrs Quonsett trick hahaha...buy a ticket on the plane from Los Angeles to Las Vegas and instead fly to LaGuardia!!!

SixStarAnsett

LOL. 

Some of the stories you guys are telling me are quite funny if u ask me.

All these are really not that bad. Now the worst thing is not even the persons fault.

Just take America West for Example, this is clearly seen that they love to put CHILDREN to there wrong destination. Not ONCE, but TWICE within 2 weeks.. LOL


Stupid Airline with Stupid People!



LOL


Sorry, my little rant for the day...hehe

Aaron

I was at CDG in about 1993. I was supposed to be flying to STN with Air UK (Now KLMuk and Buzz). Most of the airport staff and ground handlers were on strike and so you had to find your own plane because all the screens were switched off and nobody was checking boarding cards at the gate. I got on a flight to Amsterdam but realised that all the seats had a KLM logo on the headrest cover so I realised way ahead of departure.

I remember reading about a woman who was supposed to fly from SNN to MAN but instead got on a plane to Minsk in Byelorus. When she arrived they arrested her and accused her of being a spy. Eventually I think Lufthansa flew her to Manchester as a PR excersise even though she wasn't booked on LH in the first place.

I remember that SNN/MAN one.. Apparantly, the Lady had asked directions for the "Manx" flight, as the flights in those days were operated by Manx Airlines : the reasoning was because of her accent they must have mistaken "Manx" for "Minsk" or "Minx" and she boarded the wrong flight...

Red faces all round at SNN that day !

This happens more frequently than you may think!

When on my school work experience week with Go-Fly at London Stansted I spent two days working on the gates as a boarding agent for Go.

I clearly remember checking people's passports and boarding passes before they boarded the flight, and in two days there were three mistakes...

1) This was my fault. When checking tickets on my first flight I accidently let someone slip through onto a Barcelona flight when they were intending to fly to Majorca. Luckily this was discovered before they reached the aircraft.

2) Another gate agent let someone through onto an Edinburgh flight when they were due to fly to Faro. This wasn't dicovered until AFTER the aircraft had pushed, and was ready to taxi. (It then pulled back onto stand to deplane the passenger).

3) I checked the passports of an elderly Italian couple who WANTED to travel to Rome. We were in the process of boarding a Naples flight. I could not convince them that they were trying to board the wrong aircraft, as they spoke little or no English. They just kept saying "Roma, Roma" and pointing to the aircraft! Eventually another gate agent pulled them away and attempted to explain.

(This was an easy mistake to make for a passneger who doesn't speak English. The two identical 737's {apart from fuselage colour, I know, before any keeno tried to catch me out!} were parked next to each other, and the two flights were due to board through the same gate area, just 20 minutes apart from each other.)

---

Also, another time I had boarded a Go flight to Glasgow, when the flight attendant picked up the PA and announced "Welcome on board this flight to Glasgow blah blah blah". After that no less than 7 seperate passengers got up and walked to the front of the aircraft, they wanted to fly to Edinburgh.

Don't the gate agents make final destination checks before closing the aircraft door. This is part of my routine as I close an airplane because even though UA's gatereaders are very accurate, and don't allow the wrong flight to be run through I still do a final check, just in case. As a result I have never had a misboarded customer in three years. Customers have come up to get on the wrong flight, but I've never seen the gate reader fail to catch the problem.

United Airlines, San Antonio, March 1999:

The two first flights of the day leave within five minutes, one to Denver the other to Chicago. The two gates are next to each other. I boarded after the final boarding call (as always) and was surprised that no one was at the gate door to check my boarding pass. I was more surprised no one was at the door of the aircraft. As I approached my seat I noticed someone sitting in it. We both looked at our boarding passes, I was in "C" while he was in "A". Though, there was a woman taking a "pre-flight" nap in "A". He shrugged his soldiers commenting that she must have taken his seat instead of her "B" seat. Rather than wake her up he sat in the "B" seat.

There weren't any preflight announcements as to where the ship was destined for or the flight number. About halfway to our destination one of the pilots came on the PA to give us the flights status (ie "Weather in Chicago is xx degrees and we should be arriving on time, etc."). The passenger that sat in the "B" seat that didn't want to wake the "A" seat passenger then asked me "did he say Chicago?" Turns out he was suppose to be on the Denver flight at the next gate. To make matters worse the flight attendents tried to blame him for getting on the wrong flight. Remembering how I boarded without anyone asking to see my boarding card or the absence of a preflight announcement I strongly disagreed and told the passenger not to accept their account. I also always thought there was a "head count" done before departing, which if done would have prevented him from getting on the wrong flight.

He was to make a connection in Denver that he obviously was going to miss and likely had to make alternate arrangements. I suggested he ask United to move him to first class for the duration of the trip for the embarrasing mix up.

I boarded a SLC-LAX Delta L-1011-500 flight and had verified the information a hundred times (flight number, destination) before actually boarding. I take my seat and the pilot several minutes later announces "our service today to Honolulu", no mention of LA, then announces it in Hawaiian. The pilot then said something to the effect 'make yourself comfortable for the flight over the Pacific', again no mention of LA in there anywhere. The lady next to me unbuckles her seatbelt (right before push) and runs to the front of the plane and informs a Flight Attendant that she's not going to Honoululu only to find out that it is stopping in Los Angeles. When she walked back to the seat she was so embarrased, her face was red because all the passengers were looking at her. I must admit though I was also beginning to wonder if I was on a non-stop.

We had this problem quite a few times last summer when I worked at OSL.

Once when I was at a Finnair gate for a flight to Helsinki, a couple of passengers attempted to board my flight when they were actually supposed to be on a Air Botnia flight leaving for Helsinki at approximately the same time.

Even funnier.. While boarding a Premiair flight to some Greek island, two passengers came to the gate to board, when they were supposed to be on a Britannia flight, leaving for the same destination. When I told them they were at the wrong gate and that they were booked on another flight, they started arguing with me!!! "Why does it matter which plane we get on?"

I've got 2 incidences for you. The first came when I was still with National(original) many years ago. We were in Panama City,Fl-National and Eastern both had very early morning flights. Quite often each of us would get each others' pax, because they had turned left instead of right and vice versa. The other came when my brother went hunting to Montana. He was in Billings leaving when it was blowing snow. Two planes parked nose to nose. One going to Bozman and the other I'm not sure. Anyway, it wasn't until they were airborne that a man on my brothers' plane realized he was going to Bozman instead of where he wanted even though announcements had been made.

In 1995(?), a friend of mine was supposed to go back home to Grande Prairie, Alberta from Edmonton Municipal (YXD), when he boarded a Canadian Airlines flight instead of a Canadian Regional Dash 8 flight. He told me that the gate agent didn't even bother to look closely and therefore tell him he was on the wrong flight - and a/c type, too! He boarded a CP flight bound for Vancouver, but he didn't realize that he was on the wrong flight until well after takeoff. An FA called for him over the PA, and that was when the mistake was realized. Canadian Airlines was able to put him in a hotel in Vancouver for the night and a free ticket home back to his intended destination. I'm sure he must've been embarrassed as hell.

What was interesting is that he not only boarded the wrong flight, he also boarded a 737-200 instead of a Dash 8!! I know it should've been obvious to him, but he did admit that he didn't know nearly as much about aircraft as I do. BTW, CP stopped flying 732s to Grande Prairie from Edmonton and Vancouver over ten years before.

LOL...my how quickly some are to condemn HP when said persons worked for HP thmeselves... 

Reminds me of an occurance early in my line training at Manchester (EGCC). On the stand ATC gave us a full clearance to Bombay, which was supposed to go to the 744 parked next to us and also requesting clearance!!

We informed the controller that whilst it was a very nice offer our passengers were rather hoping to go to Malaga!! He duly corrected himself.

So we could all have ended up in the wrong place!! Well, not really but you know what I mean.

LOL Mike! Should have thought before typing..hehe




Laters



Aaron

I saw a video years ago, can't remember the name, about a woman who was flying from the United States to Paris, slept through the Paris stop, and woke up when the plane reached its final destination of Tel Aviv. Other than that, I can't remember much if anything, as it was a definite "B" movie stinker.

You have to be a total DICK to get on the wrong flight.

Last year, a couple of pax who were booked to fly Sydney to Auckland on China Airlines ended up flying Sydney to Shanghai on Air China!!

Naturally, they were detained and interrogated before being allowed to fly back to AKL.

this happened to my friend.

He was boarding a TWA flight from Dulles to JFK to catch a CI flight to TPE that night.

TWA gate agent directed him to the wrong stair. (it was a commuter and a MD-80 sharing the same gate). The commuter to JFK should make left at stair case and go on the bus. The gate agent directed him to the MD-80. So he flew from Dulles to St Louis. He did not realize something a miss until he heard that attendent announced that they have landed at st louis.

So my friend was then put in contact in CI in LA. TWA flew him to LA and catch the CI flight to TPE from LAX. And of course non of his luggage made the connections.

When I worked for Canadi>n in PSP, we had a flight going to YYC. The gate areas were all out door patio style at the time. We did the boarding call and counted the correct number of coupons. However, once you went outside you had to climb the stairs to board our B737 aircraft. We had an older man who veered to the right and stepped out of line and he boarded America West Express dash 8 to PHX.
Well, we put him up at the Flamingo Hilton and sent him on our LAS to YYC flight the next day.

My father did it.
He was at DFW and the American terminal has certian gates with both A & B, and the jetway forks, so he walked down the gate, and ended up going left not right and got on a plane to Houston not LGA but realized his mistake during the pre-boarding call.

A friend of mine was working for LSG Sky Chefs in Munich. He had to deliver a missing Economy meal to a 767 bound for Miami. Since 1L was the only door still open he had to enter there and work all his way backwards to the rear galley.
You can imagine the rest: It took him a while back in the galley, he didn't notice the pushback, when he had forced his way back to the front of the aircraft they were already somewhere on the apron...
To not delay the flight any further they stopped right there, opened 1L and my friend jumped (!) onto another catering truck and was 'evacuated' safely! True story.

This past summer I was flying from Houston (IAH) to Lubbock, TX (LBB), but our flight was sharing the gate with a flight to Brownsville, TX and as I got in line to have my ticket checked and board; I heard the gate agent tell about half the people in front of me, "No, the flight to Brownville is boarding in about 15 more minutes. This is for the flight to Lubbock." And this was after multiple announcements that they were boarding only the Lubbock flight. So who knows what may have happened if it wasn't for the sharp gate agent.

Boarding the wrong flight can happen quite easliy especially if the person working at the boarding card processor is not doing their job properly.

At AF, it is not uncommon for the processor to go down half way through boarding, in which case we are forced to rip the boarding cards and manually input them.

In these cases, it is vital for the agent to double check flight numbers, dates, destination etc. Therefore, getting on the wrong flight, isnt as far off as it seems.

yes Ive seen it happen before

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is US flight 111 to Fort Lauderdale"...nothing happened

Same announcement a few moments later with more emphasis on "Fort Lauderdale"

Finally: "This flight is going to Fort Lauderdale, not West Palm Beach. Will the Jones family please report to the cabin door, you are on the wrong flight"

That was hilarious...

Greg

I put getting on the wrong flight right up there with the Florida voters that couldn't figure out a ballot.

Some shouldn't be allowed to fly, some shouldn't be allowed to vote.

I have a friend who didn't board the wrong flight, but almost went to the wrong city.
His ORD-SFO flight was delayed. There was a flight to San Jose leaving very shortly, and he called the CSR on the phone and being a good Mileage Plus Member got two seats for the flight.
They ran to gate and went up to board the plane. The gate agent asked for their passport, which brought the obvious question, "Why the hell do we need a passport to go to San Jose?"
If you can't guess where I'm going with this, you need to study some geography. Anyway, they quickly realized it was the wrong San Jose, and didn't board the flight.

Well, about 2 years ago, I was going to fly BSL-MAN on a spotting trip. We had to wait at a bus-gate for our drive out to the airplane. When the bus came, we just hopped in. We got out next to "our" airplane and started to board immediately. Just imagine: We were just about 30 pax boarding the wrong plane, and nobody from the crew checked even one boarding-pass. So we sat in this plane, waiting for our departure, and I saw that another bus stopped next to the plane. So the first passengers stepped into the airplane and one of them told the lady seated in front of him, that she was sitting on his seat. They compared the boarding-passes and the man thought that he was in the wrong plane.
Thats when everybody got a little confused. We were still loudly joking about this man getting into the wrong plane. A cabin-announcement was then made that this plane would go to LHR, not MAN. Ooops!! We all had to get out and the same busdriver then drove us to another plane. Needless to say that we first asked the cabin-crew if this one was going to MAN  

BTW: Airline was Crossair.

MIke

I read somewhere of a man who was supposed to fly China Airlines from Sydney to Auckland but instead ended up flying another similar sounding airline to mainland China. The Chinese detained him for a short time (no doubt they also asked some 'questions') before putting him on a flight back to Sydney.

I've heard of it happening quite a few times in the Madness that is the concourse C at CVG. Since it is just commuter, Comair concourse people take the gate out to the plane and then stairs up into the aircraft. In one pre 9/11 incident a mentally handicapped passenger bound for STL wandered around on the tarmack for literally over a half an hour before finally getting on a flight to ORF. Now that was an embarrasing whoopsie.  

Auckland instead of Oakland. LOL!
You have to really be pretty silly to do that sort of thing Air China instead of China Airlines. Drr.  

No, but before an NWA 3469 flight from GFK-MSP, I noticed that the board read 3496 and thats what the gate agent was saying. So I went and asked to make sure that it was the same flight (though there are only 2 gates at GFK, and the other flight number was nothing alike, GFK was not a place I wanted to be stuck in more than I had to be). The guy sheepishly got up and changed the number.

--dragogoalie-#88--

It happens occassionally - but agents usually catch it a few minutes after the pax boards.

HOWEVER.....three instances stand out in my memory at three different airlines I've worked for....

Several years ago working in Farmington, NM for United Express, a pax stepped off an EM2 Brasillia and came to the counter, angry saying he thought he was going to Farmington, CT. I looked back at the 30 seat aircraft which had just arrived from DEN, and asked the pax did he truly believe that THAT airplane was going to take him to Connecticut from Denver?

Once, working at the Durango, CO ski station for American Airlines, a spanish speaking passenger deplaned quite upset. None of us spoke spanish fluently enough to understand her concerns, which were beginning to border on hysteria. Eventually however, a spanish speaking agent from another carrier showed up and explained that the passenger was traveling to Durango, MEXICO. Her travel agent in MIA had booked her incorrectly through DFW to Colorado. Her first indication that she may not be where she was supposed to....the snow covered Rockies.

About three years ago working as a F/A on a Savannah turn out of ATL for AirTran, I noticed that after all of the passengers had deplaned at Savannah, a woman in her mid 30s was still sitting in her window seat in coach. I approached her to ask her if she needed assistance deplaning. She replied, "No, but what time our we continuing on to Fort Lauderdale?" Whoops. I told her to stay put...when up to the gate got her rebooked, upgraded back through ATL, and had her family contacted. Went back down and gave her all her new info...and then she began to get ANGRY with me. I explained that the signage at the gate in Atlanta said Savannah...the agent announced Savannah several times before she boarded, I announced Savannah at least three times prior to closing the aircraft door, and twice before takeoff, and that the pilot had also announced Savannah before departure. She seemed a bit humbled, and thanked me for the upgrade...away she went.

By the way - the most guilty parties when it comes to boarding the wrong flight....business men who "fly so much they don't need to listen to the announcements".

Travis

LOL 

Some of the cases here are really embarassing/funny. A lot of people who get on the wrong flight are first-time flyers, who don't really know the procedure of boarding a flight, or, they just haven't been in a situation like that before.

If in doubt, just ask an F/A or show your boarding card/ticket to them and it'l be sorted.

Arsenal@LHR

Several years ago working in Farmington, NM for United Express, a pax stepped off an EM2 Brasillia and came to the counter, angry saying he thought he was going to Farmington, CT. I looked back at the 30 seat aircraft which had just arrived from DEN, and asked the pax did he truly believe that THAT airplane was going to take him to Connecticut from Denver?

Not to mention the fact that there's no airport in Farmington CT  

Several years ago, Alaska Airlines offered one daily flight from Los Angeles (LAX) to San Jose, Ca. (SJC)

Many Costa Rican nationals live in the L.A. area, and would want to fly down to San Jose, Costa Rica (SJO) on their national carrier, Lacsa.

So they'd call directory assistance...and in very broken English, ask the operator for the number for "Lacsa Airlines."

The operator would think they said "Alaska Airlines" and give out the number to the carrier with the Eskimo on the tail!  

So they'd call, asking the reservations agent if they flew from L.A. to San Jose. The agent would answer yes, assuming they meant California. The callers were always overjoyed when they found out that they could fly all the way to San Jose for just $49.00 one way! And even better, somehow it was a REALLY short flight!

Consequently, there were more than just a few confused travelers showing up at the Lacsa counter at LAX expecting to take their 7pm flight to Costa Rica...only to find out their credit card bill showed "Alaska Airlines" and that they had a ticket to the Bay Area! Only a few didn't "get it" and actually jumped on the Alaska flight out of LAX, getting the surprise of their lives when they wound up in someplace other than Costa Rica!

I suppose it's very possible with Southwest, right? They still use those plastic boarding passes, don't they, that look the same no matter what flight you are boarding.

What's even funnier; when the pilot boards the wrong flight, or takes the wrong aircraft!  

I heard of a Chinese man trying to go to Vancouver, Canada from Toronto ending up in Treciera, Azores. The authorites put him in jail overnight, to take the return flight home after the crew had had minimum rest.
He didn't have a passport or speak any English so the Portuguese authorities did not know what to do with him or could translate to him what was going on.
I think he finally made it to YVR - or maybe hes still stuck on a rock in the mid-Atlantic.