So I'm sitting at MCI waiting for a flight, and I overhear a TSA agent talking on his radio. He said that flight blah blah is delayed because a passenger that boarded was on the wrong flight and they had to turn around. I didn't catch the full context but surely the plane wasn't airborne and they turned around?

I was on a United flight from Washington DC to Kuwait City and some guy wandered onto the wrong flight.

I don't understand how they get past the gate agent.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Maybe the passenger turned around -- and walked off the plane.

Don't know how but it happens...

I once found some guy sitting in my seat and it turned out he had the same seat assignment (yeah I looked at his boarding pass). We soon figured out that he was supposed to be on a flight boarding at a neighboring gate. How he made through the boarding pass scanner is beyond me.

Not that shocking when you consider millions of passengers a day with gate agents that hear thousands of boarding pass scan beeps each a day. Humans get distracted and make mistakes. Unless you put in a turnstile that only unlocks on the correct scan, it will happen .000001% of the time.

I would knock at least 3 zeros off of that number.

Already done at LHR

I've been at the gate when they've made announcements with a destination and flight number check and seen someone hastily grab his things and get off the plane, realizing he had boarded at the wrong gate. This happened at a gate where the boarding doors were right next to each other with 2 flights boarding at the same time. Possible he just got turned around and went in the wrong door.

I�ve done it�

A Piedmont flight in the mid 80�s, the gate was changed at the connecting hub after I had gotten off my first flight and confirmed that the gate on my BP was the same as what was being displayed at the time. After a cocktail (or maybe 2�) I walked over to the gate, handed the GA my BP and got on the plane and sat in my seat. Remember that this was before electronic readers and the GA�s just took the BP and most of the time never looked at it, and the flights were at most half full, someone in your seat was never an issue. When the counts did not match they actually looked at the BPs and then quietly informed me that gates had changed and I was on the wrong plane.
Since then, I always look at the display at the gate of the plane I am boarding�

I've seen it happen twice, once to me.

The first time was pre 2001. I was connecting in PIT for LGA on US. My incoming flight was late and it was the last flight out to LGA. I ran through the terminal and got there as boarding was about done. I boarded and my seat assignment in first was empty and I sat down. They then did a destination check, Burlington, VT. I got up to get up and they were coming to get me. They noticed the mistake in the boarding pass as they went through them before closing the door. There were two jetways in the same gate area and both were boarding. I took the closest to where I was running from and it was the wrong one. I made the LGA flight.

Second time I was doing a mileage run Vegas, also on US as I recall. This was after 2001. I was leaving Vegas for PHL in a 757. I get onboard in the last row of first and the guy across the aisle from me is excitedly talking on his cell phone. He is saying how great it is that they had put him first class and he had only bought a coach ticket. I didn'tay much attention then they did the destination check for PHL. He turns and says to me "did they just say we are going to PHL?" I confirmed that we were and he soda, "but I'm going to SFO". I assured him that he was going to SFO through PHL unless he got off before they closed the door, which was VERY soon. He bolted and found an FA and showed his boarding pass. They hold departure and get the gate agents, more FAs and they keep passing around his boarding pass, which as it turns out was an a UA flight to SFO. When we finally left they were still trying to figure out how he got on with a boarding pass from the wrong airline.

Had a colleague on the same flight as me have his boarding pass scan red at the gate, the GA had a good look at it and let him on. He got to his seat but someone else claimed it was theirs a few minutes later.

It turns out that he'd got on using his boarding pass for the same flight from a week earlier but neither he or the GA had realized.