4 ms·

Once I accidentally got on the wrong plane, because two flights at adjacent gates were boarding at the same time. Apparently the boarding pass scanner didn't ev

Once I accidentally got on the wrong plane, because two flights at adjacent gates were boarding at the same time. Apparently the boarding pass scanner didn't even check that the flight matched! It turned out that the person who actually had my seat on that flight was really late and so we didn't find out until just before the plane left the game. Fortunately I was able to rush over and make it onto my actual flight. But it would have been awkward if the other passenger hadn't made it at all...

victorbjorklund 3y ago
I always secretly hope I get on the wrong plane and end up somewhere fun. It does seem like it can happen from time to time since Ryanair now always informs "if you are on the wrong plane tell us!".
- adamcharnock 3y ago
  I once (accidentally) tried this when travelling around Australia many years ago. The gate changed at the last minute and I didn’t notice, so tried to board the wrong place. As soon as they scanned my boarding pass all hell broke loose. Flashing red lights, sirens going off, the whole works. They were very nice about it, but yeah, that particular system made it impossible not to notice.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - ibejoeb 3y ago
    Hmm, that's odd. A few years ago, Australia didn't even check ID.
    - mkl 3y ago
      There's no mention of ID, just boarding pass. I'm pretty sure similar checks in NZ would catch wrong plane boarding (there's usually someone checking boarding passes on the plane too), with no ID check anywhere.
      - ibejoeb 3y ago
        I mean that I'm surprised that there was a fuss over boarding at the wrong gate. If you had a ticket, regardless of the name on it, you could walk into the airport, go to the gate, and get on a flight. It's a different situation, but things were generally pretty casual, and I just don't recall there being anything dramatic about a simple gate mixup.
        jermaustin1 3y ago
        Interestingly I just watched a funny sketch video about the difference between Australian and US Airport security [1]. Definitely not a serious comparison, I doubt that Australian airports are nearly as lax as the video makes it seem. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyJ00uqp670 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyJ00uqp670
        ibejoeb 3y ago
        Accurate. But when you get off the plane in Tassie there's the k-9 search...
        averageRoyalty 3y ago
        Bring all the drugs you want, but don't you dare bring a banana.
        rmccue 3y ago
        I mean, the passing the bag through without scanning is facetious, but Australian (domestic) security is much lighter than the US. You don’t need ID, you don’t need a ticket, and until recently it was only metal detectors everywhere rather than full body scanners. Also, it wouldn’t be uncommon to joke around (although there are some hard-asses); if they legitimately did recognise a YouTube, I could see them getting a selfie together.
        Thorrez 3y ago
        They wouldn't notice if you buy a ticket to one city but get on a flight to a different city?
- xenospn 3y ago
  I know a guy who ended up in San Jose, Costa Rica instead of California.
  - lostlogin 3y ago
    I was told of an Auckland/Oakland clusterfuck. Think that was on buying a ticket and somehow hot noticing the vast price difference.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      Sometimes you do everything right and the pilot screws up. https://www.thelocal.de/20190325/british-airways-flight-ends-up-in-edinburgh-instead-of-dsseldorf https://www.thelocal.de/20190325/british-airways-flight-ends...
      - mr_mitm 3y ago
        The article says the pilot was handed the wrong paperwork, so somebody else screwed up.
        bombcar 3y ago
        The pilot is like the captain on the boat, it may be someone else’s fault but it’s his responsibility. (I think this is why many pilots say on the intercoms before pushback as to where the plane is going, if they say Birmingham and the entire plane bursts into screaming and crying, then they know … they got it right ;) ).
        lostlogin 3y ago
        This would be a neat variant of the scream test.
      - t0mas88 3y ago
        That's a dispatch screw-up before departure, not a pilot. That plane will have been on a valid flight plan but to the wrong place, there is no way for the flight crew to go to a completely different place than the flight plan. Because the air traffic control computers also have the flight plan. So their instructions are going towards the filed destination. Any discrepancy would be noticed on both sides very quickly because you get instructions that don't fit the plan. The one thing the crew can screw up during the flight is landing at an airport right next to the destination when on a visual approach. By visually confusing the two airports. There are procedures to avoid it, but it still happens.
- chrismcb 3y ago
  If you want to go someplace fun, just book a ticket to someplace fun. I actually got in the wrong plane once. But I was already heading someplace fun, and I'm glad I didn't end up going somewhere I didn't want to go. I was in another country catching a connecting flight. My gate was changed but I didn't notice. I got in the plane. They let me. I was sitting in my seat when a gate agent came and got me.
abrookewood 3y ago
I've nearly done this as well. Late night stop over in Singapore, went to the wrong gate, flight attendent waved me through despite the pass 'not scanning' and it was only a senior person who waved me down to check that stopped me - I was already strolling to the flight.
- bombcar 3y ago
  This is the importance of working right each time. If the digital scanner makes mistakes even 1% of the time, the gate checkers will learn to ignore it when it squeaks.
  - krisoft 3y ago
    Also the "not scanning because you are not holding it right" should be a very different error from the "this did scan and no, you are at the wrong gate".
magicalhippo 3y ago
A family member managed to do this. Both flights were packed, but somehow their seat was empty in the other flight, so didn't notice. Both flights were going to Cyprus, one to Greek side other to Turkish side, boarding at the same time from adjacent gates... Great move British Airways! The plane they should have gotten on got delayed for many hours because they had a missing passenger so had to remove the stowed luggage[0] after giving up waiting. However they somehow didn't catch the extra passenger in the other plane. Now this wasn't too long after the tumultuous events[1] in 1974, and so tension was still high between the two sides. So when my family member naively tried to cross the border to get to where they were going, they were assumed to be a spy and got held for interrogation. After a couple of days of really intense interrogation they got to cross the buffer zone[2], being told in no uncertain terms never ever to come back to the Turkish side. [0]: edit I'm pretty sure this was before the Lockerbie bombing, in any case I do recall my parents telling me they were worried about the "surprise luggage" being a bomb. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_invasion_of_Cyprus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_invasion_of_Cyprus [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Buffer_Zone_in_Cyprus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Buffer_Zone_in_...
- NeoTar 3y ago
  Interesting, because I believe today there are not regularly scheduled flights to TRNC, except from Türkiye() - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ercan_International_Airport#International_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ercan_International_Airport#In... ( although I have heard that there is a workaround whereby flights, typically charter-flights, will 'fly' to an airport in Southern Türkiye, and then vary their flight-plan to redirect to Ercan airport instead).
  - t0mas88 3y ago
    This isn't as sketchy as it sounds. There is an official procedure for "in flight replanning" that's pre-approved by local aviation authorities. It can be used to stretch the range of a fight in case of good weather while having options for worst case weather. For example you can plan Tel Aviv to Antwerp, while selling Tel Aviv to Amsterdam (this is on the edge for maximum range of a 737 with full capacity), then re-plan to Amsterdam if all conditions meet the rules. There are two parts of fuel planning that make this work. The first is that you need for example 5% of the trip fuel for contingency. That's 5% of the full 8 hour trip on takeoff but that becomes 5% of the 1 hour (past Antwerp to Amsterdam) at the re-planning moment. The second is diversion fuel to fly to an alternate airport in case you cannot land at the destination. At the departure moment weather for the destination is more uncertain (because it's still 8 hours into the future). That means your chances of diverting are higher and if it's a big storm system you can't be diverting to a very nearby airport (Rotterdam is 10 min flight away and fine for a 737). So you need to plan for holding and a diversion to something an hour away. Now in flight you get near Antwerp, you're only an hour from Amsterdam (where you really want to go), you have accurate destination weather and you re-plan that one hour. With Rotterdam as an alternate (in case the airport closes for a non-weather related reason). Contingency is 5% of that 1 hour, and typically you will have saved some fuel in the first 7 hours due to shortcuts because it's "plan for the worst" at departure time but reality is more favourable. Now your calculations for the 1 hour extra all meet the rules, so you go there. Maybe 1% of the cases with very bad weather and exceptional circumstances you may end up in Antwerp instead of Amsterdam. Then you re-fuel there and make the short hop to Amsterdam afterwards. An hour or 2 delay on a bad weather day isn't really unheard of for passengers.
lb1lf 3y ago
I came within a cat's whisker of being flown from Molde, Norway to Oslo rather than to my intended destination of Bergen when I was a teen. Molde Airport is a very small affair, a handful of flights every day, and no such fancy thing as boarding tunnels; rather, you were just passed through at the gate and let onto the apron, where a plane would be waiting. Only on that day, there were TWO planes waiting, one hidden from view behind a hangar - but both were from then national flag carrier Braathens. So, I get out from my gate as the very last passenger, having bought a standby ticket, so no pax to follow, lemmings style, to my plane. Walking over to single plane in view, I board and find my seat on the nearly empty flight, door closes, pre-departure briefing, taxiing towards runway. And then they announce that estimated flight time to Oslo will be 45 minutes. Uh, Oslo? So, I call for a stewardess, who suggests that whatever I may need, just wait until we're airborne. 'Uh, that's kind of the point - I am going to BERGEN, not Oslo.' She runs off to alert the captain, and a minute or two later, a truck with boarding stairs come zipping alongside, I disembark, get driven over to the plane to Bergen and as I board the correct plane, a guy is getting off the Bergen-bound plane and is driven over to the plane I had just left. As we both had stumbled onto the wrong plane, the tally matched the expected numbers and all seemed normal - until they'd announced where we were actually going, that is.
- zoomablemind 3y ago
  Cool memory. Almost a screenplay. Alter-you, a fork on life path. No doubt, you live the right one!
- mandeepj 3y ago
  > She runs off to alert the captain, and a minute or two later, a truck with boarding stairs come zipping alongside That may not happen nowadays, even at small airports
  - EGreg 3y ago
    [flagged]
cozzyd 3y ago
Kevin McAllister?
- RattlesnakeJake 3y ago
  I came here just to look for this comment.
dawnerd 3y ago
Had a flight where the pilots on multiple announcements said the wrong destination and I was about to jump off. I knew I went through the right gate but definitely confusing. Pilots caught their mistake and had a good laugh.
sokoloff 3y ago
We had a company executive get-together outside of London a few years ago, so many of us were flying out the same evening on different flights from Boston. I knew my ticket was Delta and on an A330, so when we all left the lounge to go to our flights, I glanced outside, saw the Delta A330 and the sign that said London, so I queued up and kept chatting with colleagues. Boarding scan rejected my boarding pass with a red light and loud buzz and I had to walk-of-shame in front of my colleagues down to my actual gate (which was leaving around an hour and a half later, IIRC).

victorbjorklund 3y ago

I always secretly hope I get on the wrong plane and end up somewhere fun. It does seem like it can happen from time to time since Ryanair now always informs "if you are on the wrong plane tell us!".

adamcharnock 3y ago
I once (accidentally) tried this when travelling around Australia many years ago. The gate changed at the last minute and I didn’t notice, so tried to board the wrong place. As soon as they scanned my boarding pass all hell broke loose. Flashing red lights, sirens going off, the whole works. They were very nice about it, but yeah, that particular system made it impossible not to notice.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ibejoeb 3y ago
  Hmm, that's odd. A few years ago, Australia didn't even check ID.
  - mkl 3y ago
    There's no mention of ID, just boarding pass. I'm pretty sure similar checks in NZ would catch wrong plane boarding (there's usually someone checking boarding passes on the plane too), with no ID check anywhere.
    - ibejoeb 3y ago
      I mean that I'm surprised that there was a fuss over boarding at the wrong gate. If you had a ticket, regardless of the name on it, you could walk into the airport, go to the gate, and get on a flight. It's a different situation, but things were generally pretty casual, and I just don't recall there being anything dramatic about a simple gate mixup.
      - jermaustin1 3y ago
        Interestingly I just watched a funny sketch video about the difference between Australian and US Airport security [1]. Definitely not a serious comparison, I doubt that Australian airports are nearly as lax as the video makes it seem. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyJ00uqp670 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyJ00uqp670
        ibejoeb 3y ago
        Accurate. But when you get off the plane in Tassie there's the k-9 search...
        averageRoyalty 3y ago
        Bring all the drugs you want, but don't you dare bring a banana.
        rmccue 3y ago
        I mean, the passing the bag through without scanning is facetious, but Australian (domestic) security is much lighter than the US. You don’t need ID, you don’t need a ticket, and until recently it was only metal detectors everywhere rather than full body scanners. Also, it wouldn’t be uncommon to joke around (although there are some hard-asses); if they legitimately did recognise a YouTube, I could see them getting a selfie together.
      - Thorrez 3y ago
        They wouldn't notice if you buy a ticket to one city but get on a flight to a different city?
xenospn 3y ago
I know a guy who ended up in San Jose, Costa Rica instead of California.
- lostlogin 3y ago
  I was told of an Auckland/Oakland clusterfuck. Think that was on buying a ticket and somehow hot noticing the vast price difference.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Sometimes you do everything right and the pilot screws up. https://www.thelocal.de/20190325/british-airways-flight-ends-up-in-edinburgh-instead-of-dsseldorf https://www.thelocal.de/20190325/british-airways-flight-ends...
    - mr_mitm 3y ago
      The article says the pilot was handed the wrong paperwork, so somebody else screwed up.
      - bombcar 3y ago
        The pilot is like the captain on the boat, it may be someone else’s fault but it’s his responsibility. (I think this is why many pilots say on the intercoms before pushback as to where the plane is going, if they say Birmingham and the entire plane bursts into screaming and crying, then they know … they got it right ;) ).
        lostlogin 3y ago
        This would be a neat variant of the scream test.
    - t0mas88 3y ago
      That's a dispatch screw-up before departure, not a pilot. That plane will have been on a valid flight plan but to the wrong place, there is no way for the flight crew to go to a completely different place than the flight plan. Because the air traffic control computers also have the flight plan. So their instructions are going towards the filed destination. Any discrepancy would be noticed on both sides very quickly because you get instructions that don't fit the plan. The one thing the crew can screw up during the flight is landing at an airport right next to the destination when on a visual approach. By visually confusing the two airports. There are procedures to avoid it, but it still happens.
chrismcb 3y ago
If you want to go someplace fun, just book a ticket to someplace fun. I actually got in the wrong plane once. But I was already heading someplace fun, and I'm glad I didn't end up going somewhere I didn't want to go. I was in another country catching a connecting flight. My gate was changed but I didn't notice. I got in the plane. They let me. I was sitting in my seat when a gate agent came and got me.

abrookewood 3y ago

I've nearly done this as well. Late night stop over in Singapore, went to the wrong gate, flight attendent waved me through despite the pass 'not scanning' and it was only a senior person who waved me down to check that stopped me - I was already strolling to the flight.

bombcar 3y ago
This is the importance of working right each time. If the digital scanner makes mistakes even 1% of the time, the gate checkers will learn to ignore it when it squeaks.
- krisoft 3y ago
  Also the "not scanning because you are not holding it right" should be a very different error from the "this did scan and no, you are at the wrong gate".

magicalhippo 3y ago

A family member managed to do this. Both flights were packed, but somehow their seat was empty in the other flight, so didn't notice. Both flights were going to Cyprus, one to Greek side other to Turkish side, boarding at the same time from adjacent gates... Great move British Airways! The plane they should have gotten on got delayed for many hours because they had a missing passenger so had to remove the stowed luggage[0] after giving up waiting. However they somehow didn't catch the extra passenger in the other plane. Now this wasn't too long after the tumultuous events[1] in 1974, and so tension was still high between the two sides. So when my family member naively tried to cross the border to get to where they were going, they were assumed to be a spy and got held for interrogation. After a couple of days of really intense interrogation they got to cross the buffer zone[2], being told in no uncertain terms never ever to come back to the Turkish side. [0]: edit I'm pretty sure this was before the Lockerbie bombing, in any case I do recall my parents telling me they were worried about the "surprise luggage" being a bomb. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_invasion_of_Cyprus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_invasion_of_Cyprus [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Buffer_Zone_in_Cyprus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Buffer_Zone_in_...

NeoTar 3y ago
Interesting, because I believe today there are not regularly scheduled flights to TRNC, except from Türkiye() - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ercan_International_Airport#International_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ercan_International_Airport#In... ( although I have heard that there is a workaround whereby flights, typically charter-flights, will 'fly' to an airport in Southern Türkiye, and then vary their flight-plan to redirect to Ercan airport instead).
- t0mas88 3y ago
  This isn't as sketchy as it sounds. There is an official procedure for "in flight replanning" that's pre-approved by local aviation authorities. It can be used to stretch the range of a fight in case of good weather while having options for worst case weather. For example you can plan Tel Aviv to Antwerp, while selling Tel Aviv to Amsterdam (this is on the edge for maximum range of a 737 with full capacity), then re-plan to Amsterdam if all conditions meet the rules. There are two parts of fuel planning that make this work. The first is that you need for example 5% of the trip fuel for contingency. That's 5% of the full 8 hour trip on takeoff but that becomes 5% of the 1 hour (past Antwerp to Amsterdam) at the re-planning moment. The second is diversion fuel to fly to an alternate airport in case you cannot land at the destination. At the departure moment weather for the destination is more uncertain (because it's still 8 hours into the future). That means your chances of diverting are higher and if it's a big storm system you can't be diverting to a very nearby airport (Rotterdam is 10 min flight away and fine for a 737). So you need to plan for holding and a diversion to something an hour away. Now in flight you get near Antwerp, you're only an hour from Amsterdam (where you really want to go), you have accurate destination weather and you re-plan that one hour. With Rotterdam as an alternate (in case the airport closes for a non-weather related reason). Contingency is 5% of that 1 hour, and typically you will have saved some fuel in the first 7 hours due to shortcuts because it's "plan for the worst" at departure time but reality is more favourable. Now your calculations for the 1 hour extra all meet the rules, so you go there. Maybe 1% of the cases with very bad weather and exceptional circumstances you may end up in Antwerp instead of Amsterdam. Then you re-fuel there and make the short hop to Amsterdam afterwards. An hour or 2 delay on a bad weather day isn't really unheard of for passengers.

lb1lf 3y ago

I came within a cat's whisker of being flown from Molde, Norway to Oslo rather than to my intended destination of Bergen when I was a teen. Molde Airport is a very small affair, a handful of flights every day, and no such fancy thing as boarding tunnels; rather, you were just passed through at the gate and let onto the apron, where a plane would be waiting. Only on that day, there were TWO planes waiting, one hidden from view behind a hangar - but both were from then national flag carrier Braathens. So, I get out from my gate as the very last passenger, having bought a standby ticket, so no pax to follow, lemmings style, to my plane. Walking over to single plane in view, I board and find my seat on the nearly empty flight, door closes, pre-departure briefing, taxiing towards runway. And then they announce that estimated flight time to Oslo will be 45 minutes. Uh, Oslo? So, I call for a stewardess, who suggests that whatever I may need, just wait until we're airborne. 'Uh, that's kind of the point - I am going to BERGEN, not Oslo.' She runs off to alert the captain, and a minute or two later, a truck with boarding stairs come zipping alongside, I disembark, get driven over to the plane to Bergen and as I board the correct plane, a guy is getting off the Bergen-bound plane and is driven over to the plane I had just left. As we both had stumbled onto the wrong plane, the tally matched the expected numbers and all seemed normal - until they'd announced where we were actually going, that is.

zoomablemind 3y ago
Cool memory. Almost a screenplay. Alter-you, a fork on life path. No doubt, you live the right one!
mandeepj 3y ago
> She runs off to alert the captain, and a minute or two later, a truck with boarding stairs come zipping alongside That may not happen nowadays, even at small airports
- EGreg 3y ago
  [flagged]

cozzyd 3y ago

Kevin McAllister?

RattlesnakeJake 3y ago
I came here just to look for this comment.

dawnerd 3y ago

Had a flight where the pilots on multiple announcements said the wrong destination and I was about to jump off. I knew I went through the right gate but definitely confusing. Pilots caught their mistake and had a good laugh.

sokoloff 3y ago

We had a company executive get-together outside of London a few years ago, so many of us were flying out the same evening on different flights from Boston. I knew my ticket was Delta and on an A330, so when we all left the lounge to go to our flights, I glanced outside, saw the Delta A330 and the sign that said London, so I queued up and kept chatting with colleagues. Boarding scan rejected my boarding pass with a red light and loud buzz and I had to walk-of-shame in front of my colleagues down to my actual gate (which was leaving around an hour and a half later, IIRC).