Be Excellent To Each Other

Toursists accidentally fly to wrong country

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7517577.stm



Gihh!

However,



I used to work for Servisair at Cardiff, so I can say with a fair amount of confidence what's happened here. Temporary staff, hired just for the summer season, given the bare minimum of training and then thrown onto the desks. I narrowly escaped a bollocking after failing to count the number of passengers properly for one of the closely scrutinized flights to Ireland which caused a lot of trouble between Servisair and Special Branch and Ryanair.

On the one hand, it's the passenger's stupid fault for not checking their documents. But on the other hand, what can Servisair expect when they sack almost all of their staff every year, just as they've done about 7 or so months of work and are finally finding their feet?

I don't think they did anything particularly wrong here. When you're tired (they checked in sometime beofre 6am, suggesting an early start) and only focussed on the important stuff (like gate numbers and times), it's easy to overlook the details of a boarding pass. Admittedly it's unfortunate they didn't know "Bodrum" is in Turkey.

Fairly crappy how they were treated afterwards though (e.g. the "taxi to Luton" thing).

Sorry, but they have to take a bit of blame - if they'd checked their boarding passes they would have noticed and could have averted the whole problem.

This doesn't excuse Servisair for being shit, though.

Yes I'm sure they didn't know where Bodrum was.

Doesn't change the fact they WEREN'T FUCKING GOING TO BODRUM.

They've been treated shit, but they're morons of the highest order.

They just the wrong boarding pass, right? So when the announcement went out "All passengers flying to BODRUM please go to gate 2", they thought, "well, we're going to Arrecife, we're not going there. But hell, let's go to that gate anyway and see what happens"?

Morons.

I'm guessing they just thought Bodrum was where the airport was, which given the arsehole-of-nowhere cheapass airports that charter firms use they just reckoned they'd never heard of for whatever reason. It's quite possible they wondered about it but just though "hey, there's no way they'd tell us to get on the wrong plane, surely that can't happen".

I still think the blame rests with Servisair.

6 of one and half a dozen of the other, to be honest.

In other aphorism news - Rolling Stones gather no moss, but Sex Pistols punch black guys for no reason.

Or it said flight BA367 is now boarding at gate 5, and they looked at their boarding pass which said BA367. Not the most intelligent thing ever, but still.

And this proves they got to the airport not knowing their flight number.

Which puts me firmly back on "Fucking morons".

I'd like to think that in that eventuality we could ratchet down from 'fucking morons' to 'silly people'.

Not really, not knowing your destination airport or flight number when flying a thousand miles needs a little stronger than "silly".

"Good morning, thank-you for flying. What's your travel destination?"
"FORRIN!"
"I see... and, and which location is that please?"
"HOT!"

I can believe not knowing your flight number - but then who needs to? It's printed on your ticket and then on your boarding pass, right?

Hmm. But the *one* thing you'd have to remember would be your destination, though, so you could CHECK IN IN THE FIRST PLACE.

At the check in desk - "We're going to Arrecife".

Looking at the departure board - "Hmm. Bodrum? That sounds fun"

Christ, it could have been worse. They could have misheard "Bodrum" as "Bagram".

For an occasion like this?

But I phrased it badly, you should know at least 1.

But, you don't though. You need to know which airline you're flying. All you have to know is the airline, and then you just hand over your ticket. In fact, with e-tickets, you don't even need to do that - just rock up at the desk for the right airline and hand over your passport.

Eh? Every time single time I've flown and from every airport I've used in the UK I've had to check the board to be told which check-in desks are checking-in for the flight to New York/Calgary/whatever.

FUCKING QUOTE TAGS.

A small airline usually only has 1 desk.

Really? Even when I've flown Monarch and Britannia there's been a board to check to see which check in desk I have to go to for my destination.

Well, even when I went to Bahrain, BMI only had 1 for everyone going economy.

*Chuckle*

Oh to be as smart as you fucking lot, eh

I think you may be being a little harsh. Maybe they only fly once a year? It was early in the morning - I would imagine it's easy to get confused - difficult to decipher tannoy announcements, poorly trained uninterested staff. As DrG says, these airports aren't named after the resort you'll be staying in because they're usually about 60 miles away from where you'll be getting a tan.

I bet quite a few of you fucking geniuses in here would get lost on the New York Metro and that's just a fucking tube.

Yes, it was a silly mistake, but the bulk of the fuck up lies at the feet of the airline I reckon.

Which would be a good point if the ticket wouldn't have said where the plane was going.



Possibly. More likely I'd at least check the front of any fucking train I got on.

Of COURSE most of the fault is the airline, but the family could have prevented it by not being functionally retarded at any one of about 5 stages.

Probably - but if this family were lost on it, they'd be lost wondering when their stop for Eurodisney is.

In Cardiff, we usually had three or four desks for every flight.

This is really a case of stupidity by both parties - the passengers for taking absolutely no interest in what they were doing, and Servisair for the incompetence of the member of staff.

Mistakes happen. No doubt come Christmas time they'll be trotting out to roars of laughter about the timethey sat on completely the wrong plane and didn't realise. If it wasn't for the kid, I guess they could have had a fun time regardless, but things are different when you bring them along with you.

I hear Turkey is lovely, so I don't know what they're complaining about. Picky sods.

I have been lost on the New York Metro. Well, not lost - I knew exactly where the train was going, it just wasn't where I wanted to go.

This is the 3 train! The next stop is Schottler station!

Once you realise that some trains are express services the New York Subway becomes a lot easier.

Not as fancy or ornate as the Moscow one, mind.

Then you'd definitely get lost on the NY metro unless you were going to the end of the line.



or braindead, in a metaphorical sense. And no-one here is ever guilty of that.

Then you'd definitely get lost on the NY metro unless you were going to the end of the line.



or braindead, in a metaphorical sense. And no-one here is ever guilty of that.

The NY Metro is not exactly the Crystal Maze, mind.

I've always thought it was easier than the Tube for a newcomer. Obviously as a veteren Londoner any underground system is a piece of piss, innit.

I've used the NY Metro 4 or 5 times, it was easy enough.

I've used the London Underground thousands of times, that is also easy enough.

Malc

The London underground is easy so long (and this is crucial) you on first visit actually take one of the free maps.

Or use one of the many maps that are in things like diaries or phone books to plan your journey first.

The most stupid thing I've done wrt flying is turn up 24 hours early for my flight.

Thank God it wasn't 24 hours late!

Malc

I've done the leap out of bed for school on a bank holiday or weekend, I've even done the forgot to turn the clocks back and turned up an hour early.

I'm having quite a good day today for accidentally posting twice or posting without actually adding anything. I'm going offline and back to bed I think

This is a common bug in software. If the flight is shortly after midnight, when you calculate the check-in time, if you don't wind the day back the person shows up 24 hours late. Happened a few times I've heard.

Best travel software bug ever was when a system was booking holidays but putting them onto the wrong queue in a backend system. Basically, someone booked a holiday to Barbados with, say, Holiday Express but the booking was placed onto the queue for First Choice. They flew out and all was well. While they were out there, First Choice noticed the extra booking, for which they had no money, no paperwork, no invoice, nothing. So they cancelled it. Family came back to the airport to fly home to find there were no spaces left on the plane for them and all the hotels were booked. That was a right royal fuckup.

And they would be, if they didn't know they were going to Schiphol.

I guess the stress of dragging a kid through the airport at a ludicrously early hour could have skewed their minds a bit though. Hey, give them a break, their holiday was ruined!

To be fair to them, plenty of airports are in different locations to where they're stated. It's always fun flying to Iceland and seeing the panic throughout the cabin when the captain announces that we're on the way to Keflavík, what with all international tickets to Iceland being to Reykjavík.

Crikey... I'm not sure I've ever known what flight number I've been on before arriving at the airport. I just turn up with my passport and ask them to fly me to wherever it is I've booked. Admittedly, if it said somewhere different on the ticket, I'd probably ask them... but it would be very British for people to be too timid to ask, lest they look foolish or uncouth.

So, yeah, they were silly, as were the airline. All silly fools.

It is quite barmy that the systems allow that.

Boarding for Cyprus the other week a Servisair bloke came on and shouted at everyone in rows 21-22 who weren't already sat down as "you're not supposed to be on the plane because you weren't called and you're holding everyone up!"

Except that we were called (unexpectedly, and presumably erroneously) by the gate people, who scanned every card and indeed told one woman to go away because she was outside the called ranges. I and a couple of others told the silly man so, and stop being unjustly angry at us please, but he just got angrier and stomped off.

As I said before, training. Lack thereof.

we on the other hand don't use schiphiol anymore, slow, big and expensive, eindhoven airport or german airports all the way..

trivia fact: Schiphol really means hole where ships sink, it is an old name from when the area was still the Harlem lake..

oh and i'm completely addicted to this metrosite
http://www.urbanrail.net/am/nark/newark.htm