Man Stuck In Prague After Friend Mistakenly Takes His Passport
A British passenger has been left stranded in Prague after his friend accidentally traveled back to the United Kingdom on the wrong document. Allan Poole returned home on Steve Vincent’s passport. Vincent has criticized carrier KLM and Britain’s embassy in the Czech capital is offering assistance.
A British passenger has been left stranded in the Czech Republic after his friend accidentally traveled back to the United Kingdom on the wrong document, the BBC reports. The incident involved Allan Poole and Steve Vincent, both of Whitley Bay, a town on the northeastern coast of England.
The outlet reveals that, during the course of Poole’s journey back from the Czech capital to Newcastle via Amsterdam on Dutch carrier KLM, the document “was checked at least four times…”.
The outlet further reports that neither gate staff or border authorities at Amsterdam Airport Schipol (AMS) or those at Newcastle International Airport (NCL) spotted the error. Poole himself has stated that he was also unaware that he had taken the wrong document.
As a result, Vincent is now stranded in the Czech Republic.
In a tweet to KLM quoted by the BBC, Vincent said, “Hey KLM you let my friend travel from Prague to Newcastle on my passport (after we swapped by mistake).”
“You shouldn’t have let him on the plane. I’m trapped in Prague. What are you going to do about it?” he added.
An official from the British Embassy in Prague explained to the outlet that this kind of situation is not uncommon.
“People do travel on (the wrong passport), they don’t get checked when they come out and stuff like that. It’s quite common actually, to be honest with you, people do travel on other people’s passports accidentally, it does happen,” they said.
“Border controls sometimes don’t look, I don’t know for what reason,” the spokesperson added, confirming that the embassy was in the process of helping Vincent with emergency travel documentation.
[Source: Shutterstock]
Perhaps they could use this story as the basis for a follow-up to Terminal.
Similar thing happened to my mom in USA. She went to condo front desk to get access to storage and had to leave her drivers license. When she returned an hour or so later front desk could not find her license and after checking their records they realized that they gave my moms license to another resident. They provided phone number of this resident to my mom and she called her asking to get her license back. The woman was on the way to airport and was able to use my moms license to fly to her destination and back. First & last names were completely different yet the woman was able to use it. Another one that I witnessed with my own eyes was when I saw a woman trying to go thru TSA using her Costco card. I saw her being taken out of line and escorted somewhere. To my shock and surprise she ended up being on my flight 30 minutes later. Who needs passports when you have Costco card & other people's drivers licenses.
Just have the friend fly back
I have twice been issued the wrong boarding pass by a checkin agent. Once at YLW and I made it all the way to my seat before realising the issue and the second at BAH, well... I enjoyed the lounge access but the mistake was caught at the gate.
Trapped ?? You go to your embassy and treat it like a lost passport or have it FedEx'd overnight. Gotta love it when the headline makes it sound like a man without a country and no hope in sight. Alarmist reporting.