3Cforme

I was on a flight to Portland, ME (PWM), seated next to a guy who had been dozing against the window. When the 'We're getting ready to land in Portland,' announcement was made he became quite agitated. 'Portland! I'm not going to Portland. I'm going to Philadelphia!' Said I, 'Not on this plane. Not tonight.'

Often1

Doesn't excuse the fail, but it is entirely possible that the "clueless" passenger, when asked for BP and passport, presented both even though traveling to PHL. I routinely see passengers trying to push their passport onto GA's for domestic flights.

The fail is the same, no matter the destination. The gate reader should have alerted the GA that an attempt was being made to board a flight for which the passenger was not ticketed.

JDiver

If the passenger had arrived in El Salvador without a passport the airline would be responsible for transporting him out on the next flight - and subject to significant fines.

fastflyer

I observed a similar SNAFU on AA -- Rochester MN and Rochester NY boarding at the same time from (IIRC) H-6-A and H-6-B at Chicago O'Hare. A split jetway, where the passengers had to know which tube leads to which Rochester. Hilarity ensued.

I still wonder if some disgruntled Ops employee was playing a prank that day.

mvoight

Maybe he had a passport. I often carry my passport in my laptop bag. That said, he certainly didn't have a BP for that flight.

mvoight

Once I was at DFW and flights to the 3 San Jose's (SJC, SJO, and SJD) were next to each other
I had to check to make sure it wasn't April 1

arc727

FAA1996

Update here after talking with fellow passengers on flight. The clueless passenger was in J also, 2 rows ahead of me, and not that it matters, but it was a he. Another passenger saw his mobile boarding pass was not scanning at boarding (beep or red light at machine) and GA was busy arguing with her co-worker about something else. She took his seat number and input it in the machine to let him board. J was pretty empty so no duplicate seat by chance, but it seems weird that the FAs did not notice an extra person in J, there are only 16 seats total. He alerted the FA after the captain said we were xxx in line for take off and to enjoy our flight to SAL. He missed it the first 3 or 4 times it was mentioned om the PA before that.

It's interesting as I was boarding a flight to BWI last week also out of MIA and our GAs were also arguing with each other, guy scanning boarding passes rolled eyes when other GA offered to check in bags at gate and he took the tags from her and made a comment to the effect that she was getting on his last nerve, very unprofessional.

SamOF

I fly both Delta and American pretty extensively, and both have hubs where the GAs have bad reputations--ATL or PHL, for example--though I think the vast majority of agents even at their worst hubs are perfectly good. The AA MIA crew is really in another league. I don't understand how at least half of the agents I've dealt with there still have jobs.

AA100k

FlyerTalker688786

I once was on Las to Lax with AA. The flight depart from D8. Little did I know that my flight was something like 3pm and there was another flight from the same gate to Lax at 220pm or so. Without looking carefully after a long transcontinental trip I went on board when boarding call started. I gave the boarding pass to the agent and was allowed on board. Once onboard I saw someone sitting in my seat and got puzzled. Then I realise that I was on the wrong flight. I think the agent came on board later and I did not know if he found the mistake. I offloaded myself of course. Until today I still didnot understand why the scan did not pick up I was in the wrong flight.

Antarius

DFW had a few gates like this. They added a metal barrier in the jetway a few years ago to ensure you couldn't end up on the wrong plane which helps a lot.

Navig8R

What will this accomplish? AA should be well aware about the delay and of course the cause as others have noted, this would've been a very big deal had the passenger made it to SAL. If you want points or it will help you sleep at night than by all means, fire away.

Fraser

Ha! I had exactly the same thing on one trip from IAD. I thought it was mad to assign the gates that way.

drvannostren

Totally disagree.

Obviously the gate agent is the failsafe/gatekeeper of the flight. But you'd have to be pretty clueless and imperceptive to not notice. There's a chance the person presented a passport and somehow the GA missed the BP, that happens, it shouldn't but that's why the counts are done, so someone probably fudged their count or something too cuz it would have to match between the GA & FA.

But how do you NEVER read the signs at the gate, or hear an announcement, or notice someone else's BP, or catch a high amount of spanish being spoken at the gate, or board the plane and don't hear "welcome aboard flight _____ to SAL". There's gotta be 10 times before and after boarding where the passenger should've caught this, unless of course they didn't want to catch it.