SLF asks: What do you guys in the front think of this?

[bestofpdx]

BBC story on passenger who boarded with incorrect boarding pass. (I can't post the URL, but it's on BBC's webpage now.)

[S.o.S.]

Hello bestofpdx and welcome to the cabin of PPRuNe. I se that you have been around a while but mostly reading.You cannot post links until you've posted a bit more so we know that you are not a 'bot' or other such.

As it happens, I had read that article myself today.
I was on a flight - but British Airways told me I wasn't

An extraordinary thing happened to me on a recent flight to Madrid: I unwittingly travelled under the wrong identity, becoming a potential security issue, and no-one realised.

[artee]

Originally Posted by S.o.S.

Hello bestofpdx and welcome to the cabin of PPRuNe. I se that you have been around a while but mostly reading.You cannot post links until you've posted a bit more so we know that you are not a 'bot' or other such.

As it happens, I had read that article myself today.
I was on a flight - but British Airways told me I wasn't

I had a slightly similar thing once. KL (I think), boarded, waiting to close doors and push back. The captain comes on the Tannoy "Would the 2 passengers on board who think they are traveling to Manila, and not Hong Kong, please make themselves known to cabin crew".

At least they were't flown to Hong Kong.

[Gne]

In the past week I've had four flights with BA (DXB/LHR, LHR/LIS, LIS/LHR and LHR/KUL) after many years not flying with them. On entry to the cabin for all those (BA) flights the CA at the door had no interest at all in my boarding pass, unlike my experience for flights with other airlines over many years.

Gne

[DaveReidUK]

On US domestic flights, you often used to hear the announcement "Welcome on board this flight to XXX with continuing service to YYY. If neither of those cities figure in your travel plans, please make yourself know to the cabin crew".

[JEM60]

Not only on domestic!. Coming Lax to LHR years ago with AA, Captain ' Good afternoon, Lords and Ladies, Movers and Shakers and miscellaneous people. Me and this airplane going to London, England, and if you are not going there, you are on the wrong plane!.'

[SWBKCB]

Two attempts to check in automatically that fail and she doesn't think to look at the paper work she's given? Shouldn't have happened, but no sense of personal respomsibility.

[ATSA1]

I read the story too, and I couldnt help wondering if the journalist was telling the whole story.
I always check my boarding pass, to make sure of the boarding time, seat allocation, etc..She says the name on the pass wasn't hers...and she didn't notice?
More to this story than meets the eye...

[Asturias56]

No, just the usual hectic rush with cabin baggage to get a space in the overhead lockers - shove the boarding pass at anyone who asks for it and keep going - I only ever look at it to see my seat number TBH.

And the ground staff are trying to move bodies as fast as possible - same for them. It's a well known phenomena that you "see" what you want to see - if someone shows you two pieces of paper with similar, but not identical names or numbers on it in the same format, your brain confirms they are the same.. I drove a car around for 5 months with the "wrong" number plates on it which didn't agree with the paperwork - and that passed two border checks, a police stop and two garage visits before it was noticed

[WHBM]

Don't really think anything of it, which could be as simple as picking up the wrong pass from the desk to hand over, and then accounting determining who was on the flight from the records of the gate card scanner.

What is dismaying is this journalism line that with the slightest admin issue we are all going to be murdered by a dangerous psychopath, plus the airline's attitude of cancelling all the rest of the fully paid trip (and keeping the money) through some such error of their own making, then denying it.