Putting aside the fact that the scanner at the gate should reject the BP, would not someone start to question when the FA makes a pre board announcement welcome to DL Flight XXX to Orlando (not JFK). Also, with flights packed to the gills today I think it would be usual for another pax to come along who actually belongs in that seat for that particular flight.

Typo sends German to Sidney, Montana instead of Sydney, Australia :D

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/03...german-to.html

That may be the case, but if we're calling people morons for not listening to the overhead announcement, then the vast majority of people on board would be morons. We're also assuming the person didn't board after this announcement was made. I'm not saying it was the brightest thing to do, but I can see how it would happen and I don't think that calling someone a moron is appropriate. That's more suited to the person in 2D who refuses to turn off his/her electronics or take their laptop out of the seat back pocket and put it under their seat because they think that they are better than everyone else.

Wow. :) I've woken up in hotel rooms not quite remembering which city I'm in, but this is an altogether different sort of bad dream. :D

For one thing, see my example in an earlier post about the bus terminal-style boarding areas. Many hub airports have these. Your "gate" is actually a counter that enters into a long hallway, which then has multiple doors leading to multiple flights, many of which depart around the same time due to the hub-and-spoke model.

For mainline flights, it would be harder for this to happen, but even so, it's not unusual for a jetbridge to lead to more than one airplane (with a fork in the middle). In some cases, an airline agent is positioned at the fork, in some cases, not. Even when an agent is positioned there, if you walk quickly and look like you know what you are doing, it would be easy to head down the wrong fork. Of course, this would only "work" if there are two flights boarding simultaneously from the forked jetbridge, but this does indeed happen every day. So even if your BP has been scanned, you could still head for the wrong airplane.

Not to mention changed gates. But then I've seen people at DCA when thet should have been at IAD.

This was a few years ago, before gate readers. I was on a flight where another flight had been scheduled to leave from that gate, and some people must have missed the gate change announcement. There seemed to be a lot of seat confusion during boarding, at one point they announced that anyone going to New York was on the wrong plane and about 10 people got off. The GA was apparently not not paying attention.

Luckily, the worst I have done is sit in the wrong seat when flying an airline that lettered the seats differently than the airlines I normally flew.

How about the pax who went to Manchester, NH instead of Manchester, England? :confused: Or the pax who went to Auckland, NZ instead of Oakland, CA? :confused:

And neither noticed until they got there? :confused: (I'm not sure, but I think the inside of a 747 is a little different than a (say) 737! :rolleyes:)

I've even woken up and realizing I'm still in a different city until I fully open my eyes clearly and realize the walls and surroundings are not the same. :cool:

I fly very often, and I *still* worry that I'm going to board the wrong plane in SLC. That place is like a frickin' Greyhound terminal.

I've heard the Dulles/Dallas stories before. That one is more plausible - at least back in the day when travel agents handed you a written ticket and you could be in Chicago boarding a 707 or 727 to either one.

For several reasons, this thread will be aided by a title-change which has been done. As the posts show there are many reasons why, in the past, pax. have boarded the wrong a/c for their destination. Boarding pass scanning has also cut down on some of them, assuming the BP is issued for the passenger's correct destination. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz

It can happen even to FTers! See http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=697571

This happened to my Mother-in-law last year on USAir. There's someone in her seat, FA looks at both BPs and reaccomodates someone without seeing that M-I-L is on the wrong plane. FA reseats one or the other and they're off. Supposed to be going to JFK, wakes up before landing to hear "we will be landing in Charlotte in a few minutes".

What really gets me, and perhaps this is really morbid, but what if there were a catastrophic accident on the flight she was on? She wouldn't have been on the manifest...

My flight was late getting into EWR and I was worried about missing my connection. When I got to the gate, they were boarding. The sign above the door indicated my destination. It was one of those gates at the bottom of the escalators in I forget which concourse. I handed the gate agent my boarding pass. He scanned it and handed it back to me. The door had two jet ways connecting off it and I think there was a sign with my destination pointing to the left. I got to the plane and there were no FAs there. I poked my head in the cockpit and asked whether this was the flight to X. The pilot said yes, but they were waiting on the FAs to arrive from another flight and definitely weren't boarding. I went back out. When the time came for me to board the flight, there was some problem with my boarding pass.

I was just glad I hadn't gotten on the other plane.