Ryanair passenger ended up in wrong country.

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galaxy
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Ryanair passenger ended up in wrong country.

Post by galaxy »

Surfer, 19, ended up in Sweden instead of France after bungling Ryanair changed gate at the last minute.

-Toby Donachie said staff checked his ticket at the gate and on the plane but the error was STILL not spotted .
-Cabin crew told him they didn't know there was an extra passenger when they did a head count as a child was hiding.

A professional surfer who thought he was flying to the south of France to go training was shocked when he discovered he had touched down in Sweden.

Toby Donachie, 19, was supposed to be flying to Biarritz with Ryanair, but ended up boarding a flight with the same airline to Malmo, in southern Sweden.
The mistake came after a last-minute gate change and Mr Donachie only realised he was in the wrong aircraft when he heard an in-flight announcement.

The teenager, from Padstow, Cornwall, said his tickets were checked twice before he got on board, once by the staff at the gate and again on the plane.

He said: 'Half-way there, there was a call saying we’re flying over Denmark.
'The tickets were looked at. My boarding pass said Biarritz, and yet I was on a plane to Malmo, Sweden.
'The cabin crew just felt really bad for me when I told them. They were worried about me and super helpful.'

Mr Donachie added: 'The cabin crew told me that when they did the head count, a child was hiding on the plane; so the crew didn’t notice that there was an extra passenger.'
Once he arrived in Sweden, he was put on another flight back to the UK.

The airline paid for a hotel and gave him a new ticket to Biarritz the following day.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1zC3wyHo0

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Conti764
Posts: 1899
Joined: 21 Sep 2007, 23:21

Re: Ryanair passenger ended up in wrong country.

Post by Conti764 »

Well, at least he has a story to tell to his friends. ;) A mistake by ground crew, an unlucky event on board (child hiding) but well taken care of by Ryanair, as it should.

OO-ITR
Posts: 688
Joined: 13 Aug 2011, 18:29

Re: Ryanair passenger ended up in wrong country.

Post by OO-ITR »

Conti764 wrote:Well, at least he has a story to tell to his friends. ;) A mistake by ground crew, an unlucky event on board (child hiding) but well taken care of by Ryanair, as it should.

you are kidding right? Wel taken care of??? Ever heard that the cabin crew have to perform a headcount on that the number on board has to correspond with the totel the ground staff has???
Imagine that this plane to Sweden crashed. Family and friends of Toby hear the news about an RYR plane crashing but they think he is on the flight to France so ok. To hear afterwards that he is in the plane crash eventually?

Secondly, it doesn't seem that there wasn't a welcome announcement with all the details of the flight. It was only flying above Denmark...

But indeed, very well taken care of. Bravo Ryanair

fcw
Posts: 769
Joined: 01 Nov 2006, 23:20

Re: Ryanair passenger ended up in wrong country.

Post by fcw »

ITR, statistics (confidential, so no link) from a major airport show that on 1 in a 1000 flights (1 in 200.000 pax) a passenger boards the wrong aircraft on 1 in 25000 flights a passenger (1 in 5mio pax) actually flies to the wrong destination.
Sooner or later it happens at every airport and every airline!

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Dr. Strangelove
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Joined: 28 May 2012, 19:53

Re: Ryanair passenger ended up in wrong country.

Post by Dr. Strangelove »

May I add 2 different situations as well. 1) Passengers who booked a ticket to the wrong city, but not knowing that. You all know the Sydney in Canada story, but there are many other examples. 2) And transit pax who get off too early, thinking that they are already at there destination. Example: CX in the past: HKG-AMS-MAN (AMS-MAN with a 747!) . I guess I don't have to explain this one.
Cobalt thorium G

regi
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Joined: 02 Sep 2004, 00:00
Location: Bruges

Re: Ryanair passenger ended up in wrong country.

Post by regi »

I would not like to be in the place of a person for who the travel time is really important. (business meeting, wedding or funeral, job interview, missing connections etcetera ) .
But on the other hand it brings back some spice in the world of aviation. With all our safety systems, checking and double checking, it still happens.
Some months ago I also intervened here with a mix up between airport codes of Udorn Thani ( UTH) , Phuket ( HKT) and Hong Kong ( HKG )

Tom123
Posts: 4
Joined: 01 Jul 2012, 16:40

Re: Ryanair passenger ended up in wrong country.

Post by Tom123 »

This also happened in BRU with an airline I won't specify now

long story short
2 pax with the same last name boarded each other planes
one had to go to geneva the other to milan
due to gate changes both were at wrong gate
airlines used manual boarding at that time
pax realised it upon speech during pushback
captains refused to return to gate

Stij
Posts: 2273
Joined: 07 Mar 2005, 00:00
Location: Belgium

Re: Ryanair passenger ended up in wrong country.

Post by Stij »

I remember that when Citybird was still around, so a long long time ago, a very important mixup happened somewhere in the Dominican Republic: 3 planes were boarded at the same time: Citybird's Sobelair's and Martinair's. How they did it, I don't know, but next morning a lot of Dutch were in Brussels and a lot Belgians in Schiphol. Quite some Citybrd pax were on Sobelair and vice versa. I'm sure some of them never even knew they were on the wrong plane.

It was considered to much of a hassle to deplane everybody and correct the situation, so the 3 planes took off.

Cheers,

Stij

TCAS_climb
Posts: 413
Joined: 04 Jan 2004, 00:00

Re: Ryanair passenger ended up in wrong country.

Post by TCAS_climb »

Did RYR offload the surfer's bag(s) before the departure of the Biarritz flight that he missed? 8-)

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