AN Asian woman is blaming Qantas after waking up in Melbourne instead of Hong Kong after a flight from Los Angeles. She apparently thought she was boarding a Cathay plane in LA, according to a story today in Melbourne’s Sun Herald. The newspaper said that as the captain turned on the ‘fasten seatbelt’ sign and announced that the temperature in Melbourne was 8 degrees, the woman, who’d slept throughout the flight, jumped from her seat, screaming: “Melbourne? I’m supposed to be in Hong Kong. “How could you let me on a flight with the wrong boarding pass”. A Qantas staffer is quoted as saying that an electronic boarding pass reader in LA wasn’t working and ground staff the airline uses there had not detected that the woman did not have the right pass....
Oh my god, that same story was in The Advertiser on Tuesday, maybe Adelaide isn't such a sleepy city after all.
P.S All I can say about that lady - stupid biatch!!!! It may have been a bit more understandable if Qantas actually codeshared on that service but you think she would have noticed the abundance of Aussie FAs or at least a magazine???????? Maybe next time she will listen to the initial PA and save herself a lot of embarrassment.
Cheers
CC
Last edited by Cap10 Caveman : 9th July 2003 at 14:55.
Friend of mine was on SQ flight to Singapore out of Brisbane late last night and a woman tried to get through the customs barriers without any documentation at all. Became hysterical screaming that she had to get to Singapore. Eventually carted off by three police. Don't know the rest of the story but I wonder what happened to the lady from LA after she got off in Melbourne? Nah!
I think this is a very serious breach of security in the era of heightened alertness!
How many airline personnel must this person have passed – and not one of them picked up the error. Sure there were some technical issues, but the travelling public has the right to expect better from all airlines, including Qantas!
It also raises doubts about US security as well . . . when Cathay was one passenger short (presumably with luggage boarded) a quick check with the immigration people would determine whether she had passed into the ‘sterile’ area. It wouldn’t take long to work out that there was a passenger either in the sterile area or on a plane where she didn’t belong.
So did Qantas arrange a detention centre place - sorry hotel and onward flight - for her?
(On a similar vain, I knew a lass in the UK who booked to Melbourne via Lunn Poly - the type of place the bucket and spade brigade book through; unfortunately they booked her to Melbourne in Florida, birthplace of Jim Morrisson, and having been there, it is one of the earth's 5hitholes. Fortunately the timings were a give away - she claimed to be landing at about 3 hours after her departure, instead of a day later.)
From what I have read, there appears to have been (only?) two breaches of security. She had a valid boarding pass I assume but slipped onto the wrong flight?-so first was at the boarding gate with baording staff, and second on board the aircraft where passes should be rechecked by crew. Having said that, I have had a few instances where people have slipped through onto the wrong flights, it's obviously not always 100% certain that every detail has been checked?
I think you'll find that in the US there are no immigration checks on the way out of the country, only on the way in (at least that's how it was the last time I visited the place, about 12 months ago). That being the case, there is no way airline staff could have checked to see if the passenger had entered the sterile area as you suggested.
My understanding of this incident is that the Qantas and Cathay flights were both departing from the same gate, with the Qantas flight leaving earlier than Cathay. When the Qantas flight boarded, this passenger simply got up and boarded with the other passengers. Doesn't say much for the vigilance of the staff at the gate or the Qantas cabin staff, nor indeed the intelligence of the passenger concerned!
There is no outbound immigration checks at LAX. Qantas use Hallmark as there ground handler. Been to LAX many many times in the past 5 years. Trust me they aint the smartest ground staff on the Qantas network, and probably the lowest paid!
What seat did she sit in?! Surely something would have been picked up if a correct QF pax was trying to be seated with someone sitting in their seat?! Maybe not a full load.
"excuse me - this is my seat ..." "I'm sorry no it's mine , it says here" {shows boarding pass} "oh ok I'll just sit here next to you - scotch?"
There were 100 spare economy seats on the particular flight. As a result, she wasn't in anyones seat. Also she was on a United airlines ticket code-sharing on Cathay. The boarding passes for the two airlines look pretty much the same. Same colour and all.
And as Mid assist said. not always the brightest crayons in the box the ol' hallmark ground staff.
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