4 ms·
I had travel plans to visit a friend in Wisconsin in I believe 2018. My flight left at around 5:30am so I was a bit groggy when I got to the airport. I went to
by spcebar 6y ago
I had travel plans to visit a friend in Wisconsin in I believe 2018. My flight left at around 5:30am so I was a bit groggy when I got to the airport. I went to the counter to check-in and get my ticket, and couldn't remember where my connection was, so I told the woman at the counter my name and that I was flying to either Chicago or Detroit. She said "you're flying to Detroit, and your plane isn't leaving at 5:30, it's leaving at 5" (which was 10 minutes from now). I hauled ass to the security line and told a TSA agent that I was about to miss my plane. They hustled me to the front of the line, I took my belt and my shoes off and threw the contents of my pockets into a bin. I went through the body scanner, and ran to the gate, which, thankfully was within site of security. With my belt and shoes still in hand, I gave my ticket to the gate agent, who told me, you're in luck, they're right about to close the doors.
So I got on the plane, and, unrelated to the story, met a fellow who introduced me to AWK and Hacker News. In the last 10 minutes, I took out my phone to see what gate my connection would be at, and saw that it would not be in Detroit, but in Chicago. The woman at the check-in desk had given me a ticket to the wrong flight.
I told a flight attendant, "I'm on the wrong flight," and she said "what do you mean you're on the wrong flight?" I explained the situation, and she told me to speak to the gate agent when I got off the plane, and that they would sort it out. I got off the plane and started explaining the situation to the gate agent, and as he was trying to figure it out, a flight attendant came off the plane and said to him, "you better be giving this guy free miles, and free upgrades, and free drinks." They put me on a connecting flight from Detroit to Wisconsin and I got in a few hours early. All in all, an interesting experience and a fun story. They didn't give me and free miles or drinks though.
To this day I have no idea how I got on that plane--whether it was a colossal blunder by the gate agent or, if, perhaps, by some coincidence, another person by my name (which is a fairly common name) was supposed to be traveling to Detroit from that airport that day and missed their flight.