Wrong airport

pjordan

I smell a large amount of BS on this one. https://www.independent.ie/world-news/i-knew-i-was-in-trouble-when-i-saw-a-mountaintop-covered-in-snow-man-travelling-to-sydney-australia-ends-up-in-sidney-montana-42331017.html

Either that or the guy is really too stupid to be allowed book his own flights or indeed even to be allowed fly (Interesting then how he tries to pass the blame on to someone else by criticising the similar airport codes!). Of course in the Online booking era I expect it's a common enough occurrence. But no more of the stories of some ladies who say they didn't realise they were pregnant until they gave birth in a toilet cubicle, one would have to question how suspicions didn't arise when he boards a flight in NY to Montana when he's supposed to be going to Australia. Then again some Americans are so insular and ignorant of the wider world that that might not cost them a thought and of course it's not limited to Americans

Atlantic Dawn

He should be in jail with that level of thickness. Did the lack of visa check not spark something? This is why the thick shouldn't travel.

DoctorEdgeWild

I booked TEN separate flights just last night, each one had about a dozen screens to click through, each one had the name of the Airport as well as the code, and what seemed like a million different opportunities to check/confirm/double check. Easy enough to get your dates wrong but your actual destinations?

artanevilla

It's not just the stupidity. It's the stupidity to go to the media and admit to it.

Allinall

How many paddies arrived in Geneva in 1990, thinking they were in Genoa for the Romania game?

magicbastarder

there are plenty of people in the world unobservant enough, for this to happen to occasionally.

a friend, who used to work for a (non-irish) airline, once got a phone call from her brother who had just landed in buenos aires, asking where was his connecting flight to rio. he'd asked her to book his flights for her, and through a miscommunication, she got him flights to argentina instead of brazil. and he got on the flight assuming there must be a connecting flight, with zero paperwork to suggest this.

on a vaguely related but non-aviation based tale, years ago i worked with a chap who spent three months learning spanish, preparing for a move to brazil. not the sharpest tool in the box.

The J Stands for Jay

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058283397/wrong-airport

I've seen worse: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2006/mar/30/theairlineindustry.travelnews

RainInSummer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120214250#Comment_120214250

If you make something idiot proof they'll just build a better idiot.

DoctorEdgeWild

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120214808#Comment_120214808

VERY good point!

plodder

It's Murphy's law. Once you design a system where people can make a mistake, then sooner or later someone will. Sidney spelled with an 'i' should have raised a red flag though.

On the other hand, Sydney in Nova Scotia has caught people out many times I believe

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39459471

Zaph

Had someone from our Paris office once board a flight to Dubai rather than Dublin. Only discovered her error when someone told her she was in his seat.

Locker10a

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120214263#Comment_120214263

Probably not many as in 1990 people didn’t book their own travel

L1011

Lad I know turned up with his mates at Washington DCA for a flight out of IAD. Too late to get to IAD.

It was Paddys Day and somehow they managed to pull some "Ah, we're Irish, its our special day (please ignore our UK passports as we're all Northern Irish Unionists, we're definitely Irish)" and got rebooked FOC. Very lucky it was a dual served destination!

pacelut

How about the french supporters:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/15368715/france-fans-romania-hungary-euro-2020-bucharest/

Or even worse:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/atheltic-bilbao-fans-arrived-at-budapest-829834

Allinall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120216857#Comment_120216857

There was loads, but it was by train.

Genoa in Italian is Genova.

Genova- Geneva. Irish on the piss…….

Donald Trump

There was an English female "comedian" who told a story about thinking she was booking a flight to somewhere in Spain and ending up in Costa Rica for a week.

retalivity

I know a guy who got married about 30mins outside Toronto, Ontario a few years back, and he told me that one of his friends who was coming to the wedding, ended up flying to Ontario, California instead after booking the wrong flight. I don't know this guy, but heard he was a bit thick, searched for 'Ontario', booked the flight and thought no more of it. The fact that its a regional airport outside LA, and you would need a connecting flight, as well as an ESTA and all that other jazz, didn't seem to register. He booked a flight from LA to Toronto the day after arriving.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120214264#Comment_120214264

Heard one about a Greek guy, who spoke no English, spending six months learning Irish online before coming here...

EchoIndia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120308828#Comment_120308828

Pretty unlikely in the real world IMO. But https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yu_Ming_Is_Ainm_Dom

HTCOne

There was the famous Northwest incident when a DC10 landed in BRU instead of FRA. Realised their mistake on short finals when they noticed the runways at BRU were the wrong colour (concrete). Elected to continue the landing.

Original cause was a strip mixup in London ACC by an assistant IIRC, but there was all kinds of discrepancies the crew didn't pick up on, like being descended early, having 9T more fuel than planned etc.

Eirjet landing at Eglington also comes to mind.

Nigel Fairservice

I'm remember reading about a couple in Birmingham, UK who booked a flight from Birmingham, Alabama to Las Vegas. Seemingly they only realised their mistake when they turned up to Birmingham Airport (BHX) for their flight.

Noxegon

Apropos of nothing, a few years ago a friend of mine travelled from Birmingham Alabama (BHM) to Birmingham England (BHX). Apparently it confused the heck out of the check in staff.

xper

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120217383#Comment_120217383

Many, many moons ago, my trip home from my J1 was from San Diego via Atlanta on Delta. What we didn't realise was that the first flight (727, boarded via the tail entrance stairs) had an intermediate stop, as was common in the US back in the day. Cue desperate beckoning to the flight attendant when the first announcement from the cockpit after departure welcomes us on "this flight to Ontario". Now I was into planes and had a good knowledge of geography but was still WTF? Canada? Fortunately assurances were soon forthcoming to the poor Irish kids.

Board Walker

I was looking at the screen in cork airport last month when the security guy was scaning tickets. a big long list of green then one red which read "wrong airport". How like?

jhegarty

Try getting a flight from Rome to Monaco and you end in Munich.

Chris_5339762

My mum booked flights years ago with Ryanair from "Kerry to Frankfurt". It was before I was clued into things.

Of course we landed in Hahn, a long way away. Because we'd never been to Frankfurt and google didn't exist it took us some bit of mapreading (and a local) to work out exactly where we were.

Hotblack Desiato

Could've been worse, could've been Frankfurt-Oder!

lordleitrim

Twice I've heard the flight attendant say "welcome to...." the incorrect city when we just landed. The 2 second silence is deafening before they correct themselves and we all laugh in relief! Both times they incorrectly mentioned the departing city rather than the arrival city which is a not impossible error if you are working multiple short hauls between the same point to points all day.

Also I've seen in DUB a couple of times where there are multiple flights to the same airport (eg LGW) by different airlines and have near identical departure times and a rushing passenger reading the monitor incorrectly arrives at the wrong gate and terminal and the boarding scanner rejects their pass. I feel for them as they'll most likely never make the correct gate in time if its in a different terminal once they realise their mistake!

Chris_5339762

Pre-pandemic I remember being in Stansted and there were two Ryanair flights leaving to Dublin from adjacent gates. One was on time, the other had been an hour delayed so both were boarding at the same time. I was on one of them and it was a simple case of checking the flight code but a lot of people did get a bit confused and I could see why, as the queues merged into one scrum and people just saw a flight to Dublin. The crew were quite clued in though and were helping.

Interestingly one plane took the Liverpool route and one plane took the Aberystwyth route.

EchoIndia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120324403#Comment_120324403

Even worse, it doesn't have an airport, other than a GA field.