Originally Posted by
mario
This was most likely a case of handing over a wrong boarding pass to someone who then didn't think much of it and just boarded the wrong flight.
If this person had been so devious as to somehow obtain the OPs boarding pass, surely they would quickly realise the flaw in their plan when the original pax attempted to sit on his lap.
I agree. The conspiracy theories are beyond implausible if you give the matter some thought. What is more likely is that we had an agent mistake being made when printing the BP coupled with inadequate checking of documents at boarding.
I do not regard the fact that the passenger did not notice that the BP was not issued in his name as implausible even if the passenger is a seasoned traveller. If I had a reissued BP, I would look first and foremost at the flight number and time and at the seat number. I do not think that I would pay attention to the passenger name field and necessarily notice a name change so I can quite see myself in a situation where I would be issued a BP in the wrong name and not notice it.