I have experienced the ignored boarding pass chime at SFO as well. It led to an embarrassing situation onboard the aircraft :td:

I seem to vaguely remember getting on the wrong plane once, but not any details. Might have been a nightmare. I have seen several people get on the wrong plane and my favorite occurance was at IAD. Two passengers got onto my flight to SCE and had to argue a bit about a carry on that had to be gate checked. After they were seated, the FA announced the destination. They immediately jumped up and got off the plane - they were heading to Charlotesville and that plane was already taxiing to the runway. The best part was that when the baggage handlers went to get the couples gate checked bags, they realized that all of the checked baggage was tagged for Charlotesville. :eek: It took about 45 minutes, but they finally got the luggage and all the passengers on the right plane!

Good grief :rolleyes: :eek: :confused:

I say your UGS status is suspended for 1 month. I would never admit to something like this! :D

I think that day would have been a good day to borrow some money from BenjaminNYC.

;)

A few years ago, maybe '97 or '98, and shortly after I had discovered FlyerTalk and the joys of Frequent Flyer Points, I had attained status on TWA. I decided to connect thru JFK so that I could fly to SFO on a 767 and enjoy a "real" first class experience - there being only single aisle jets connecting in SLA from DCA. So once I got to JFK, I marched up and boarded with the "Trans World First" and "Elite" passengers, received a nice welcome and a G&T from the FA's, and got settled. Cheif Purser is giving his speech and welcoming us all aboard the non-stop flight to LOS ANGLES. Like a bad cartoon character I shot up and out of my seat, gulped down my G&T, grabbed my carry-on and coat from the overhead, and tore up to the front of the cabin, I am beet red and blurting out the problem to an FA who grabs the gate agent and me and we all hustle off down the jetway and tear into the terminal just in time to see the SFO flight start backing away from its gate. I was a bit embarrased. Gate agent is rapidly speaking into a phone and typing on the computer - upshot was I could wait another hour and connect thru STL. But I really had wanted a "widebody" - so I asked if I couldn't just get back on the LAS flight and find my own way to SFO - they were a bit non-plussed but after some more calls and conversations led me back to the LAS flight where I was received with wide smiles from the FA's, another G&T, and very curious speculation from everybody else. It was a very nice flight, with lots of attention from the FA"S - I got TWO orders of lasagna. Once we landed I hauled butt over to the UnitedShuttle terminal and hopped on the next flight to SFO where the rest of my luggage was waiting for me.

Didn't that happen on an episode of Full House? :D

(OMG... from which orifice did I pull THAT out of? :confused: )

These stories are hilarious... people in the Coffee Bean are looking me all weird. I'm just imaging the people's faces in the PDX, STL and SNA stories lol

Do you think UA wants to encourage such behavior? ;)

I think it may have happened to me on one of the numerous
express flights where you wander off onto the tarmac and
are met with numerous identical-looking aircraft (I am mildly
visually impaired) ... blocked it out of my memory, though,
but there are several flights thus blocked, so who knows.
A lot of almosts, though, none funny enough to recount.

Funny one I witnessed, though, on a DL flight out of Salt
Lake - we were going to Anchorage, and some lady got
on wearing flip-flops and next to nothing else ... got a
few odd looks, and shortly the gate agent made the
destination announcement ... she was last seen tearing
up the aisle and out the door. Turned out that SNA was
boarding next door.

Another recent one on US - gate agent goes on the PA
- "this flight is going to Philadelphia, not Pittsburgh, so
if you want to go to Pittsburgh, you will be all the way
at the other end of the state." More panicked running
forward witnessed.

My friend Ella used to fly to Fayetteville, Arkansas, and
invariably US would try to ticket her to Fayetteville, NC
(darn those Fayettes, couldn't they stay in their own
beds?); once it succeeded - but given her flying history
they realized they'd screwed up and fixed the ticket n/c.
But it wasn't caught by either party until connection time
in Charlotte.

That show was da bomb! ;)

The quality of GA's, or lack of, is clearly on display here.

I have done it! Once in the whole lot of flying I have done in my life. I was traveling on Air Canada from Calgary to Vancouver and managed to board a flight to Yellowknife. I am not sure exactly how I did it but I fancy the circumstances were similar to PremEx's: two (or possibly more?) jetways at the same departure gate. Fortunately an announcement was made as I was settling into my seat so I was able to rush off and find the right plane.

I still have never been to Yellowknife!

By the way, I recall that Auckland/Oakland story. Happened to a young fellow at LAX if memory serves.

I don't recall where I was flying but my first connection was MSY-IAH. I had been partying all night and went to airport straight from the bar. Checked in and fall in sleep in a chair in front of the gate where the flight to IAH was to be boarded.

When I woke up the flight was boarding and I made it to the plane. After some time the GA came to see me and told that I had missed my original flight and that this was the next flight to IAH.

Luckily the flight was not full and I just got a new boarding pass.

It happened to me once as well in CDG. I boarded a flight to MIA whereas I was headed to SFO. This was some years ago where IAD-style buses were still common in CDG. Aboard the bus many, many people were talking about vacationing in MIA... which I was finding quite surprising :o I went straight to a FA upon boarding... she asked the bus driver to take me back to the terminal. When the GA saw me entering the terminal she litterally jumped from her seat asking what was going on. I simply told her she had accepted my boarding pass ;)

I've been the culprit of loading bags on the wrong aircraft. At IAD on the UAX gates, we had electronic displays inside walkway (simple things like "New York JFK ---> or <--- New York LaGuardia). On the outside, we had a lot more detailed signs, it had the three letter city code, countdown timer, aircraft tail number, and some other misc information that was borderline useful. One day, the outside sign said "CLE 307 (Cleveland, OH Aircraft N307UE). So, what did I do? Loaded CLE bags on 307. After that was done, I was standing in the walkway. The gate agent said to me that SYR was ready for departure. Not realizing that we actually had an SYR departure on the ramp, I looked at the screens and didn't see any. I asked her which one SYR was, and she pointed to the one with a blank screen (on the outside, it had CLE). I thought to myself, "oops."

I went to the flight deck and asked the Captain to verify his destination. He tells me SYR. I asked him to look up at the screen and tell me what it says. He says, "CLE." I asked him which bags he thought we loaded. He thinks for a quick second, and responds, "CLE?" Smart man. Luckily, it was a light flight and took us about 15 minutes to switch out the bags.

Shortly before I left, (I had nothing to do with this one btw) some of the guys were loading a flight they thought was destined to BDL. This set of gates did not have flight displays, so it always took a little extra coordination to get tail numbers matched with destinations. Apparently, there was a tail swap or something, and they mixed up that one with a flight to IND. The IND flight was loaded with BDL bags and sent on its merry way. Company dispatch actually refused to return the flight to IAD to properly load the bags. That probably resulted in 100 mishandled baggage charges between the two flights.

Wrong pLane
 

this happens frequently where I work, as we don't have jetways but a common ramp with 12 parking spots on it (3 rows of 4 spots each).

When doing our boarding announcement, I remind our passengers they are getting on a DARK BLUE JET, not a white one.

We still have to go hunting passengers down on the ramp sitting in a Delta, Continental, or American plane!