Just looking at the story on The Times website and it appears the husband was an engineer. I realise this is a big generalisation but I would have to say that pretty much all of the engineers I know are quite obsessed with knowing details, it strikes me as being a bit strange that one would not even know what airport he was flying to, flight numbers etc.

As per my previous post I agree that most of the blame lies with the check-in agent but even so, passengers have to take some responsibility for knowing the details. Apart from anything else presumably the planes were taking off at different times, wouldn't that cause most people to check just to make sure that they were on the right flight? I know if my flight had a different departure time then I would check it with someone at check-in or that gate?