At the end of our recent trip we checked in for our return international flight (Delta) in Ord. (via Atlanta) and had our onwards boarding cards given to us. Flight to Atlanta was smooth, no problems. Arrived in Atlanta with 2 hours to spare so had dinner, did some shopping and spent some time in the lounge (Skyteam ff status). Went down to the gate with 45 mins to go to our flight time. Boarding was zone 1, we were 2. They called 2 and we went to the agent, who then sent us back to the desk because there had been a change of equipment and we needed to get new boarding cards.

A little irritated, we queued at the desk and got our new boarding cards. We didn't check the names but I did note that we still had the same numbered emergency exit seats. Went back to the gate agent who checked our boarding cards and passports and let us through.

We were halfway down the jettyway when I noticed that the name on my boarding card was not mine. OH checked his and again it was not in his name. Bear in mind that our passports and boarding cards "had been compared" by the gate agent and this is scary. Went back to the agent, who re-sent us to the desk.

The desk maintained that our own name boarding cards had not been issued but we re-iterated our concerns at having got that far with our passports not bearing the same details as our boarding cards. They re-issued boarding cards in our name for other seats but after a little discussion, we got our exit rows back.

Ultimately we boarded with Zone 9, instead of 2 which we were entitled to and present for.

In this age of caution, I cannot believe we almost got to travel in someone else's name!

Emailed Delta and they said they don't know how this happened and it's been referred for internal review.

That's not good enough as far as I'm concerned. Bad enough that we got so far on someone else's boarding card, scarier is that other people could have gone on ours!