This begs the question of just how closely staff look at boarding passes.

10 years ago I boarded a QF CNS-SYD flight and was seated quietly having a read waiting for take off when a passenger approached my seat and claimed it was his. We double checked each others boarding passes and they were issued for the same seat.

Called the F/A to sort it out and after a good 30 seconds of head scratching she figured out that the passenger claiming my seat was actually on the CNS-BNE flight parked adjacent to the CNS-SYD flight.

Passenger who claimed my seat quickly departed a little red faced. However the story did not end there. 5 minutes later the captain
announced that his aircraft was Sydney bound and if there were any passengers on his flight who were bound for Brisbane would they kindly disembark and join the adjacent aircraft.

4 pax did so !!!!

This was pre-security conscious times so a great laugh was had by all. But it does raise the question of how much notice F/A's take of boarding passes other than looking at the seat number and indicating which aisle is quickest to reach an allocated seat.

QFF

[This message has been edited by QFF (edited 07-08-2003).]