Ticket and Boarding Pass to Gdansk, flys to Malta
 

Polish father-of-five, 75, who caught wrong Ryanair flight at Leeds Airport and ended up 1,000 miles from home only realised he was in MALTA when the taxi driver didn’t understand him
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ded-Malta.html

Ooops!

Or this absolute classic. Scene: packed combined departure lounge in Bournemouth some 10 years ago with 2 x 737 worth of pax waiting to jet off to sunny climes. The place was heaving – maybe the 737s were both delayed – it was very, very busy! I was simply early awaiting another flight deadheading so I was watching on – relieved I was not part of the melee. The two 737s duly arrive to whisk said holiday makers off to sunny climes - one Ryanair 737 and one Thompson/TUI(?) 737 which were both turned round and were ready for boarding at exactly the same moment. The teams at the one Gate (you just walked out to your plane in them days – may be different now) went into a huddle and I could guess what the conversion was - “How do we get 2 plane-loads of pax on board asap without causing chaos? Anyone got any bright ideas?!”. After a few minutes conversation a lightbulb lit up above the Gate staff – clearly a solution had indeed been devised.

Over the Gate PA “Ladies and Gentlemen, Ryanair would like to announce that Flight 425 to “somewhere sunny” is ready for boarding and Thompson/TUI(?) would also like to announce that Flight 265A to “somewhere else sunny” is also now ready for boarding…...” and then it continued with the classic ending – as a very firm instruction “Would all passengers for “somewhere else sunny” note that you are in the blue aircraft! Thank you! - CLICK!”.

Well, that was it. The departure lounge erupted as everyone got up and piled out the Gate and 2 streams of eager pax headed for the 2 737’s and up the front stairs with an approx 50/50 split. So far so good, but I was counting off the seconds for the inevitable. Almost at the moment that the first pax reached the top of the 2 sets of steps, chaos ensued, as probably 1 in 5 of the pax were subsequently dispatched back down the stairs against the inbound flow of pax – clearly having been told by the increasingly frustrated cabin crew “No Sir/Madam, this flight is to “somewhere sunny”. For your flight to “somewhere else sunny” you need the OTHER blue aeroplane!!!!!!” - or the reciprocal instruction on the other 737. So there were now 3 flows; 2 from the gate to the 2 737’s and then a contraflow system between the 2 737’s! I have no idea if anyone actually ended up at the wrong destination – I suspect not – but the sorting out was a scene to behold! I bet there was a final PA on board each 737 once loaded just to check no strays had somehow made it on board the wrong aircraft! I felt so sorry for the respective cabin crews who, initially, must have thought the pax had gone completely and utterly nuts …. until they probably started to piece together just what the Gate staff must have said to cause such mayhem! Happy days, eh ... except not for the 2 sets of cabin crew on that particular day! H 'n' H

Are not all boarding passses scanned at time of boarding now. If the scanner used is not online to the backend database of the airline it raises questions around the security of the number and identity of passengers on board compared to passengers checked in on system. And hence the validity of the warning to immigration since passenger data now is preforwarded to receiving countries authorities. After all, the in the article alluded to airport security only checks that people have a boarding card or ticket somewhere for that day. Maybe they at the gate now just checks that passport name is like on boarding card, and the onboard count matches the boarded number from the gate, to improve ontime performance. Would be interesting to find out how often this happens on a company wide basis.

The real cracker is:

So you would deboard in Malta into Mediterranean sunshine, walk all the way through a terminal with nothing remotely Polish in it and only find out that you are not in Gdansk when you try to order a taxi in Polish? Quite surprising ignorance for a retired engineer.

To give the benefit of doubt to the poor chap, a miserable rainy winter morning in the Mediterranean is not all that different from a miserable rainy winter morning in the Baltic...
Obviously it was a bit too early in the morning for the unfortunate crewmember who was checking the boarding passes at the door.

Er was a 6.50 am flight. Think the diff in Temps he would have known.

OTOH it is out of his comfort zone so he may just have strguggled.

What about the business of counting heads before take off? Surely, if that had been done, there would have been a discrepancy?

A few years ago I boarded an Aer Lingus flight at Dublin for Gatwick. Chap sitting next to me was settling down, with seatbelt on, when another man arrived at the last minute. Both of them had a boarding pass showing the same seat number and some 'animated discussion' followed. After intervention by the cabin crew, it turned out that the seated man had a boarding pass for an entirely different Aer Lingus flight, that had left 30 mins beforehand. None of the boarding checks had picked this up, and, had the seat not been booked, the seated man would never have known his mistake until after takeoff. (Have no recollection where he had actually intended to go)

Not really. In my experience most Poles fly at least half a litre of vodka down. Perfectly understandable in such circumstances.

One day I checked in (with family) at LHR for flight to Trinidad. We were in a fully loaded bus speeding across tarmacs to embark for the Trini adventure when the Caribbean grannie next to me said: 'excuse me does this bus stop at Clapham' ?
Uhm, bit of a shock. I really checked to ensure I was on the right bus;....(she wasn't)...

What an entirely crass statement. As someone who flies in and out of Poland 10-12 times a year I have never found it like that. Amazing number of Poles arrested for issues on board flights vs Brits where alcohol is concerned, seems its the Brits with the issue.

and its impossible to get good egg and chips, too!

Same experience. I fly into and out of Poland at least once a week, usually more. While we are generalizing, I have more issues with Brits pissing off the rest of the pax with their loud drunk stag party behaviour than any Polish pax causing issues or being drunk on board or before boarding :rolleyes:.

No, they don't.

Quite a few years ago a group of us were flying to Dallas Fort Worth with BA, for some reason this day they were busing us out to the airplane. As standard we were late to check in and get through to the bus and we were with the stragglers. I was in the middle of the group walking up the stairs, when I got to the top the guy in front of me, who was part of my group handed over his boarding pass to the lovely FA. Looking quizzically at him, then at us. Then at the rest of the people from our bus walking down the very busy 747. Where are you going she asked? 'Dallas fort worth' he replied. 'Are you sure'? She asked. Being a member of HM finest, we generally know where we're going...sometimes. Only this flight wasn't going to Dallas, it was going to some part of the Caribbean, and now with a few extra pax wanting to stay on board. Unfortunately they wouldn't let us stay on board, and finally making it to Dallas. Followed by a few miserable weeks trudging around US training area dreaming about what could have been.

As a bit of a dinosaur, I always hold my boarding pass up in front of me as I board the aircraft. More often than not, it is ignored as I greet the cabin crew just inside the door. I know that some of them do check it, can see their eyes move from my face to boarding pass and back again. When it does not, I think “What else is not checked today?”

All Pax for the wrong Destination
 

Just happend to me once in my whole career as a pilot to have all pax on board for an other destination then the one I was planned to. Glad I did an announcement during taxi to the runway! We could resolve the problem quite quickly on the holding bay and get to the new destination without big delay. (Fuel was fortunately no problem)

Why? What's surprising?