Ooops - wrong destination

[barit1]

Man sues British Airways after booking mistake sends him Grenada instead of Granada | Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2014/06/23/man-sues-british-airways-after-booking-mistake-sends-him-grenada-instead/)

[PAXboy]

He'll be lucky! It's the same when people get SID and SYD and various other town/city names that appear more than once on the globe.

[crewmeal]

What amazes me about this is why didn't these pax realise they were boarding a longhaul 777 instead of a smaller 320/737. If they are seasoned travellers they should have also noted the flight number and destination at the gate. On the other hand how come there were two extra unaccounted pax on the Grenada flight? Also what happened to the Granada baggage when there were two 'no shows' for the flight?

This seems to have happened before but lessons haven't been learnt.

BBC News - Avios mix-up sees woman fly to Grenada, not Granada (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-24705723)

[Simplythebeast]

Had to be a Yank.
I dont suppose he thought it a bit odd that the flight from Gatwick to 'Granada' had cost him $4500!
No doubt he must have been watching the departures screens, and also must have seen the destination at the gate, but being a bit geographically challenged, didnt notice it was the wrong destination.
Best just blame the agent who sold him the tickets when he mispronounced his required destination then.
Smacks of Tomaytoes tomatoes to me.

[wiggy]

:ooh:On the other hand how come there were two extra unaccounted pax on the Grenada flight? Also what happened to the Granada baggage when there were two 'no shows' for the flight?


That's not what happened (well not according to the accounts I have read).

If the story is to be believed they got on the flight they were booked on. Their baggage (if any) would have travelled with them on that booked flight.

So...passengers, and bags were all where they should have been as far as the booking was concerned....... Problem was the booking was to Grenada......:ooh:

[ExXB]

"An airline agent in Florida" means what?

There is not enough information here to judge who could have made the mistake, but until we learn more I wouldn't let this guy loose in my mouth with sharp implements.

[Heathrow Harry]

a few years back at LHR T4 in January they were boarding a Nairobi flight and a Copenhagen flight down the same jetway with a split right at the end

Amazing how many people in large anoraks, big boots and scarves went the wrong way and how many in colourful E African shirts were also trying to fight their way onto the wrong plane

Brain dead.................

[edi_local]

I fail to see how BA are in any way to blame for this and I sincerely hope this man loses this case. BA have no obligation at all to get him back to LHR or to Granada at thier expense, no matter how much he insists. He paid to fly to Grenada and they got him there.

He booked, paid for and flew to Grenada. He may have wanted to go to Granada, but then he should have booked, paid for and indeed flown to Granada. The fact that these two destinations have similar names is irrelevant, passengers are responsible for making their bookings, or trusting a travel agent to do it for them. The airline will fly you to wherever you have a ticket for!

I refuse to believe that a travel agent booking wouldn't have shown a flight duration, I have never seen such a thing personally and I used to work on an airline ticket desk and saw all kinds of travel agent confirmations from the World Over. Every single one mentioned a flight duration, or at the very least a departure and arrival time, from that it's not hard to work out the flight duration.

This whole thing stinks of someone wanting to be rewarded for their own sheer stupidity. If I wanted a flight to BHX then I would make damn sure I didn't buy a ticket to BHM.

[Smoketrails]

"This whole thing stinks of someone wanting to be rewarded for their own sheer stupidity."

Ah, today's society!

[Phileas Fogg]

What amazes me about this is why didn't these pax realise they were boarding a longhaul 777 instead of a smaller 320/737.

You'll be surprised when boarding through an airbridge, one doesn't actually get to see what the exterior of the aircraft looks like:

AF BHX/CDG ... I'd sat in the cabin a while believing that I was on the scheduled BAe146, looked out of the window to see a wing below me with no engine(s) attached, upon checking the safety card I came to realise I was on a subchartered in MD80 series.

LX BHX/ZRH ... Believing it to be a BAe146 again it turned out to be a Helvetic F100.

CX HKG/CEB ... Scheduled to be an A340, looked out of the window to find only one engine attached to the wing, I was on an A330.

CX CEB/HKG ... Scheduled to be an A330 but this time the wing had two engines attached to it!

[DaveReidUK]

He may have wanted to go to Granada, but then he should have booked, paid for and indeed flown to Granada.Which he couldn't have done anyway from Gatwick ...

It all sounds a bit fishy to me.

[Heathrow Harry]

Apparently way back Garuda used a hub & spoke system in Indonesian domestic- you'd take a DC-10 (no less) at some god awful hour after midnight from Jakarta to somewhere like Macassar/Unjumg Pandang

You'd get into the "terminal" and be issued with a new boarding pass and there, lined up neatly on the tarmac was a line of F-27's and F-28's for onwards flights to the ends of the earth

Of course there was zero signage or information as to which was which and it was reasonably common to find people on completley the wrong flight - normally only discovered when you arrived at Ambon when you thought you were in Jayapura...........

They were pretty good at getting you back (a day late) and recovering the luggage (which always seemed to go to the right place - but only when you didn't...)

[barit1]

Or the ticketress in KATL who asked if a customer had a passport for the trip to New Mexico. :rolleyes:

[RedhillPhil]

When I was still working I did a one week exchange with the Platform Manager at Gare du Nord. It was staggering how many people came off a train having boarded it in London for Brussels.
It was also amazing how many times a train would depart followed by - anything up to fifteen minutes later - a person or persons from the adjacent empty train asking why the train hadn't left yet. Polite questioning along the lines of, "didn't you notice that you were the only person in the coach"? or "didn't you notice everyone else boarding the other train"? usually elicited a blank look.

[Simplythebeast]

Also have to love the Yanks who get off their train from London at Leeds and ask which way to Leeds Castle. Bless them.

[Phileas Fogg]

Also have to love the Yanks who get off their train from London at Leeds and ask which way to Leeds Castle. Bless them.

The other classic ... "Why did the Queen build her Windsor Castle so close to such a busy airport?"

[Hartington]

Back in the early 70s in a travel agency in Knightsbridge I was asked which tube to get to Edinburgh.

[RedhillPhil]

And of course there were the U.S. servicemen who turned up at Ely station from Lakenheath or Shippea Hill asking for the train to Liverpool, forgetting to add "Street". Fortunately the staff could understand but it was sometimes oh so tempting...........

[old,not bold]

Many years ago an elderly couple drove from Wolverhampton to Plymouth to catch the ro-ro ferry to Santander; their first excursion abroad.

They carefully followed the signs to the ferries, and joined a queue of cars.

Shortly afterwards they were waved on to the ferry; and a few minutes later it set off.

When someone knocked on the car window and asked for the fare, they were quite indignant when it was explained that they would be in Cornwall in about 3 minutes and not Santander in 24 hours.

[Jovirunner]

When in Newark a few years ago waiting for a connection to the West Coast of USA we didnt so much as get on the wrong plane as were getting concerned that a plane to our destination didnt exist despite there being a plane with the same flight no, & time on the departures board with a completely different destination to where we wanted to go and our tickets - we then found out Santa Ana airport is also referred to as John Wayne Airport.

[Phileas Fogg]

Many years ago an elderly couple drove from Wolverhampton to Plymouth to catch the ro-ro ferry to Santander; their first excursion abroad.

They carefully followed the signs to the ferries, and joined a queue of cars.

Shortly afterwards they were waved on to the ferry; and a few minutes later it set off.

When someone knocked on the car window and asked for the fare, they were quite indignant when it was explained that they would be in Cornwall in about 3 minutes and not Santander in 24 hours.

Many years ago a newly married couple drove to Plymouth to catch their honeymoon ferry crossing to the Channel Islands ... It was only when they tried to check-in at Plymouth docks they became informed that they should have been checking-in at Portsmouth docks.

Up at PLH airport we held a DHC7 JER/GCI departure on the runway whilst they were whisked out to board it in a Landrover :)

[Piltdown Man]

I would have thought that BA's gate system would have prevented a person with the wrong ticket from boarding the wrong aircraft. Therefore, I'll suggest this gentlemen and his wife went to the destination on their tickets. Which means he purchased a tickets for somewhere they didn't want to go. Therefore, they were sold by someone who may not have done their job properly. I would have thought a good ticket agent would not only have have confirmed the destination country but also in passing, ask what the traveller intended to do on arrival. Even if just to book a hotel, sell some currency or arrange an excursion. You would also have thought that a "professional" person would have put the cost and flight time through their own "credibility filter" and smelt something wrong. Or would this be the sort of dentist who looks in the wrong hole for somebody's teeth?

I've also seen similar in Europe. People thinking that their flight to Kristiansund was shorter than they expected, only to find they were a few miles short in Kristiansand. People arriving in Sandefjord and asking how they catch the bus to Olso, not realising that real airlines fly direct. Americans doing DIY flight itineraries, arriving at Gatwick and departing from that other well known London airport in Luton (at least they weren't in the London in Ontario).

Returning to the dentist, if I were BA, I'd tell him to go away.

[Phileas Fogg]

Some years ago I was associated with an airline that some might refer to as "Blue Paranoia", a new Captain was joining and needed a flight booking from FRA to FCO, "Paranoia" didn't trust me to book flights (and recharge) so their secretarial staff, bless them, booked this Captain something like a 6am departure from Frankfurt/Hahn :)

I didn't have too much time for this Captain, indeed he didn't last in the job very long, so I saw the amusing side of picturing him getting from Frankfurt to Hahn at something like 2am, but thereafter "Paranoia" and myself, at a meeting, agreed that I would do the flight bookings in the future.

[1oztoffee1]

Many moons ago a US couple boarded a flight from LAX to Oakland. They were a little surprised many hours later to be still in flight. Enquiring of the cabin crew what was happening they were told they were approaching Honolulu and would land within the hour!
The couple had boarded an Air NZ flight LAX to Auckland. The couple mistaking Auckland for Oakland had somehow managed not only to board with an incorrect boarding pass but had failed to see how they required passports for a short domestic flight that departed from the International terminal! ANZ were fined a huge amount but whether the immigration folk at LAX suffered at all is not known.

[ExXB]

Immigration folk at LAX? There are no 'immigration' checks on flights departing the US. Most airlines check passports at the gate and NZ's SOPs would require it.

This may be an urban myth ...

[DaveReidUK]

This may be an urban myth ...Not an urban myth, though not quite as described by the previous poster either.

It was an American college student returning from a holiday in Europe in 1985. He flew LHR-LAX on Air New Zealand and was meant to take a connecting flight to OAK, but due to a mix-up ended up with the rest of the ANZ transit passengers reboarding the original aircraft for the onward flight to AKL.

His ensuing 15 minutes of fame included an appearance on the Johnny Carson Show, recounting his adventure.

[malcolm380]

I was once on a BA flight to Milan, early morning departure from LHR, early 1982 I think it was, the aircraft was a Trident. There had been some system problem with check-in/boarding pass printing at Heathrow and there was a Munich flight departing at a similar time from an adjacent gate. We were sitting in our seats at the gate while the cabin crew TWICE did a head count and asked every row of Pax if they were travelling to Munich. No answer from anyone, most noticeably the pin-striped banker type in the row in front of me, who kept his head down in his Times. It was only as we were taxying to 10R and the Captain announced "Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen, and welcome to flight BAxxx (568 I think but can't be sure) to Milan, that said banker type exploded "Milan? Milan? I'm going to Munich!!" We pulled over when about 4th in line to depart, so he could be taken off the aircraft. I always wondered if the Munich aircraft pulled over as well.

[ExXB]

Squeezy flight from GVA to LGW. Crew counted an extra passenger before door closed. Announcement made, second announcement asking everyone to check their boarding cards for flight number destination. Flight number and destination repeated while everyone did same. Finally an announcement please have your boarding cards ready for inspection ... All of the above done in English only (U2 aircraft and crew)

They found the culprit, backpacker who spoke some English, headed for Luton which was boarding from adjacent gate.

[DocMartin]

I can't even begin to tell you how many times people / travel agents have mistakenly booked, and taken flights to the capital city of Jordan, Amman, when they really wanted to be traveling to the Sultanate of Oman. Magnificent!

[radeng]

I wouldn't trust travel agents at all. I told the company one that I wanted to go by train from Stockholm to Copenhagen.

'You can't do that' she said.

'Yes, I can. They have opened a bridge across the sea - the Oresund bridge. the trains and a road runs across it.'

'I'll get back to you'.

30 minutes later

'The train takes 24 hours and you have to change 4 times'

'Funny, that is not what SJ, the Swedish railway people say'

'Well, it does'.

'Don't bother', I said.

SJ were quite happy to take a booking over the 'phone and have the tickets ready for me to pick up at Stockholm station.....

Later, the amount of travel had decreased so the company went from a contract with the travel agent to individual ticket pricing. I pointed out that if I booked my flight direct with BA on my credit card, it cost £4.50. If the travel agent booked the flight (and they charged the full BA website price to us!) they charged £15 for doing it.......I was told to book direct.

Further back in time, when it was a big multinational before it got split up, the company changed travel agent - and overall business travel was in the £100's of thousands back in the 1980's. The new lot were more expensive, incompetent (got several wrong destinations for people) but had the advantage that they were owned by the wife of a main Board Director!

[barit1]

OK, I had the opposite experience. I was booking a round trip from home port to LAX leaving Sunday.

Now, my home airport was notorious for very high fares, such that we often shopped around for other fields within driving distance (there are several).

So, I made it known that I would be staying overnight the preceding Saturday in another city, and perhaps the agent should explore that opportunity. Agent thought a minute, said "You're staying Sat. night, right?"

"Yes"

"I'll call you right back" - which he did. "Here's what we'll do. We'll fly you to your Sat. location, buy the room, taxi, and meals, fly you back to home city to catch the LAX flight, then fly back home at the end of the week. And all this saves your company $400 or so compared to standard RT fare"!

Oy Vey! :ugh: