Passengers boarding the wrong plane for their destination.
 

Anyone have one of these on a flight? We've had two recently, both geniuses who manged to board the wrong plane.

One was a guy in SJD who got on a chicago flight when he was headed to DFW. That mistake was realized quickly and the guy got off the plane.

Yesterday in SJU a New York bound woman got on the Orlando flight. She actually did not realize she was on the wrong plane until the doors was closed. She then pitched a fit, threatening to open the door herself.

My husband calls it a "moronical" delay.

Hehe :)

In the passengers' defense, at some airports it is easy to get on the wrong plane. At JFK, there were two DL flights boarding from the same gate. You had to turn right for YYZ and left for (I think) ATL. There was a girl standing at the intersection but she was talking to someone else and occasionally looked up to point people in the right direction.

Cheers,

You know what? If I am at all confused or concerned that I am heading the wrong direction, I ask as soon as I board. Usually the FA asks for the boarding card anyway. Oh yeah, they always do an anouncement that nobody listens to that says exactly where they are going.

If you have issues with asking questions or listening, then maybe flying just isn't for you.

I'm sure your husband has never made a mistake in his life either. Those morons might have been running from another gate and not managed to notice that they went to the wrong one. Their tickets are supposed to be scanned before they board the plane. How is it that they are morons when the gate agent let them onto the wrong flight. Somehow I get the feeling that if you're husband made such a mistake he either wouldn't tell you about it or you wouldn't be on here posting about it. ;)

I don't normally agree with this poster but in this case I've gotta give him a big "+1"...both as regards the reasons why the passenger(s) might make the mistake, and more importantly as regards the GAs not doing their jobs properly. Aren't they supposed to be "the last line of defense" before the aircraft doors are closed?

A friend of mine once boarded a NRT-PVG instead of NRT-LAX and made it all the way to PVG before realizing her mistake.

The same friend did the same thing a second time, but I can't remember what the cities were. In both cases she arrived a the (wrong) city before realizing she was wrong.

CVG is especially bad because of the bus terminal-like method of boarding RJs from Concourse C.

That having been said, I agree that when in doubt, ask.

I've seen few of "them", some realize it before the doors close and some after they deplane. It always shocks me how this could happen but I cannot put it all on the passenger. What is the point of having GA scan the BP if they just let anyone on???

It more or less means that boarding pass wasn't scanned.

Has anyone tried to do this intentionally? What was the outcome?

I'm in agreement that this sort of delay is nothing but annoying, but I'm not sure moron is the right label. While, I've never had the pleasure of boarding the wrong flight although I've certainly come close before -- for someone who never flies to get a last minute gate change, it's possible to make an honest mistake. Every time I hear this experience I can only wonder how they made it past the gate agent with the wrong BP.

So what would stop someone from trying the opposite - finding a super low fare to "somewhere" from your home airport around the same time as another flight is going to somewhere expensive and just giving the GA your BP and seeing what happens! I can just see myself booking MCO-ATL and "accidently" getting on MCO-SFO or SEA. I wish I had the cojones to try it!

Well, you would have to make sure you picked a seat that is not taken by someone else. So, it might work a little better on SWA.

Otherwise, your best bet would be at an airport that has bus terminal style RJ/prop operations. At SLC, for instance, it would be very easy to board the wrong plane at the Skywest terminal. And you could easily pick a flight with a low number of passengers simply by eye-balling it.

But in that case, you would probably end up heading to MFR instead of EUG (for example), so I'm not sure it would really do you a whole lot of good.

No good at WN either. All BP's are scanned.

If all BPs are scanned and if scanning prevents you from boarding, how does this ever happen?