Originally Posted by
pseudoswede
Another article I read was that the actual itinerary was RDU-EWR-ARN. My guess is that it's equally SK's fault and UA's fault for this. The articles don't state that the teen had special needs, but shouldn't you be able to figure out, at 14, that (Dusseldorf != Stockholm) prior to boarding?
UA messed up. UA’s contractor at EWR messed up.
SAS saved the day.
viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com has two blog posts about the situation.
Originally Posted by
enviroian
The boy must have (inadvertently) sneaked on. Wouldn't the bar code reader beeped or not sound at all when (and if) it was scanned?
There was no sneaking on. The passenger was put on the EWR-DUS flight by UA at EWR and the teenager was instructed by UA to board the wrong plane. It was done in plain sight of UA’s UAM service provider and the gate agents for the EWR-DUS flight with their active assistance despite the teenager wanting to go to Stockholm, not Düsseldorf. The kid eventually made enough of a fuss on the plane during the taxi that the Eurowings pilot decided to return to the gate and offload the passenger so that the kid would not be taken to the wrong destination without legal authority to do so. The kid realized things were off when he heard no Swedish and instead mostly German and English on the plane.