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Cire

Man allowed to board the wrong plane

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An investigation has been started into how a man from Cornwall was allowed to board the wrong Ryanair plane at Stansted Airport.

Professional surfer Toby Donachie, 19, was supposed to be flying to the south of France, but ended up in Sweden.

He said it raised security issues as his boarding pass was checked twice.

The airline said responsibility for boarding the correct aircraft lay with passengers, but added it had asked its handling agent to investigate.

Mr Donachie was supposed to be flying to Biarritz for a training camp.

He said he boarded the plane after a last-minute gate change and realised it was the wrong aircraft when he heard an in-flight announcement.

He said: "Half-way there, there was a call saying we're flying over Denmark."

'Child hiding'

He said his tickets were checked twice before he got on board - once by the staff at the gate and again on the plane.

"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."

 

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.

"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," he said.

"All my family and friends cried with laughter when I told them I had arrived in the wrong country," he added.

But he said the incident raised questions over how secure Ryanair's boarding procedures were.

Stansted Airport said the responsibility for checking passengers at the gate and on to planes lay with airlines.

Ryanair said: "While the primary responsibility for boarding the correct aircraft lies with each passenger, we have asked our handling agent in Stansted to investigate this error and ensure that whatever procedural breakdown happened in this case will not recur." bbc news

 

Perhaps an automated ticket reader is needed at the boarding gate. This will prevent such incidences.

Edited by Cire

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I have own experience where fly to Singapore. A lady was sitting on my seat with correct seat number. Next thing, i was asking for her boarding pass and compare with mine. I found out that the lady suppose take flight next day with same flight Number and time.

 

I was wonder how staff checking on boarding pass. Perharps, they may check on Flight Number instead of departure date.

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Wow.. its entirely a different day. Probably the anxiety of flying to some place. Yup, auto boarding ticket reader will cancel out mistakes.

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nothing new as just a few mths back in SIN, my flight on AK to KUL have similiar but worse as 4 pax came onto our plane instead of the one that is going to phuket. Altho there was a gate change as original our gate was supposed to be for flight to phuket - however there's no excuse at all for the ak ground staff manning the check-in counter n supposedly checking the ticket bound for KUL and he was actually not really looking at the pax ticket but just merely cursoy look n tear off the airline copy. I emailed to ak and their excuse was "bec there was a gate change"!

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..... - however there's no excuse at all for the ak ground staff manning the check-in counter n supposedly checking the ticket bound for KUL and he was actually not really looking at the pax ticket but just merely cursoy look n tear off the airline copy. I emailed to ak and their excuse was "bec there was a gate change"!

In case it has escaped your attention, the Air Asia group has never, is never and will never be at fault for anything

God will have to shoulder some measure of blame before ......... :D

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Apparently, the a gate change after the boarding pass was issued is the root cause of people getting on to the wrong plane.

 

In the absent of an electronic boarding pass reader, I am sure there are announcement done in the boarding gate about the flight numbers and destination. But then this will not be heard for the late comers. Even with an electronic display board to inform queuing passengers of the plane's flight details, some would not bother or too weary to read it. All they know is the check-in crew have told them to board the flight at this gate number earlier on. They would not have realize or heard the public announcement of a gate change as they could be either snoozing or busy having a last minute shop around then.

 

So, the best way to curb this wrong boarding incidence, would be to install electronic boarding pass reader.

Edited by Cire

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So, the best way to curb this wrong boarding incidence, would be to install electronic boarding pass reader.

But there will be a cost to this, for which the airlines will have no choice but to pass on to the flying consumers, which does not sit well with AK group's business model and will be such a major obstacle to their declared nobel intention to get people flying as cheaply as can be ....... :)

And who will be implementing this new technology ? Why, those ruthless money grabbing MAHB people of course ........ :D

Edited by BC Tam

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But there will be a cost to this, for which the airlines will have no choice but to pass on to the flying consumers, which does not sit well with AK group's business model and will be such a major obstacle to their declared nobel intention to get people flying as cheaply as can be ....... :)

And who will be implementing this new technology ? Why, those ruthless money grabbing MAHB people of course ........ :D

 

Who knows, maybe one day when AK decided to go a bit upmarket like what Virgin Australia did :) They have already built up the market share so the next thing to do could be thinking about how to make flying both afforable AND pleasant.

 

As for the electronic pass reader, so far the best I've seen is from Japan. You scan the boarding pass when going through the immigration and if there is a gate change, you get a small print out like this.

 

Img_4910.jpg

 

And you have to scan the boarding pass again at the boarding gate... nice and easy.

 

Img_4409.jpg

 

BTW these pics were taken 3 years ago in 2009 ... old technology? :p

Edited by H C Chai

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Cynism aside, I actually think the AK group would welcome such electronic boarding pass readers to be implemented :)

I'm guessing the automation will allow for far fewer personnel that need be stationed at gate during boarding procedure, which in turn translates to lower monthly payrolls

Fact is in long term, automation costs work out cheaper (and less problematic) than employing humans to do the job - testament being how airlines across the board are so eager for pax to do self check-in nowadays :)

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