Buzz
Last Friday, Vietjet Air mistakenly took passengers to Nha Trang instead of Dalat. This is a rare and amusing incident for the country's aviation industry.
Nevertheless, Vietjet Air is not the only airline in the world to experience such mishaps. Here are some comical cases of passengers being 'treated' to unexpected new destinations.
Touching down in Asia instead of Africa
Sandy Valdivieso and her husband, Triet Vo, booked a flight to Dakar, Senegal (a country in West Africa) from Los Angeles and somehow found themselves at Dhaka Airport, Bangladesh.
They didn't suspect anything when boarding the Turkish Airlines flight with the destination code DAC (Dhaka) – the capital of Bangladesh, while the airport code for Dakar is DKR. They failed to check the flight number and assumed everything was correct.
Landing in Turkey and Continuing the Journey
Sandy and her husband spent 9 hours at the airport to fly back to Turkey, then continued their journey to Dakar, with their luggage arriving two days later.
Twice Directed to the Wrong Destination by the Same Airline
US airline Southwest left 85-year-old Maria Nieves questioning if air travel was suitable for her after twice taking her to the wrong location, especially during family reunions.
Maria, living in Indiana, planned to fly to Florida for Christmas with her sister last year. Anticipating a crowded airport during the festive season, her family requested the airline to escort her to the gate. However, they later received a call notifying them that Maria was in Pittsburgh, nearly 2,000km away from Florida.
Two years prior, Maria intended to fly to New Orleans for Thanksgiving with her son, but Southwest mistakenly took her to Tampa.
Waking Up and Finding Himself Locked in a Pitch-Dark Airplane
An American man was startled to wake up and discover himself locked in a pitch-dark airplane cabin.
Tom Wagner, bound for Los Angeles, overslept and failed to transfer planes at George Bush International Airport, ending up on a direct flight to Houston.
Oddly, no flight attendant noticed he was still on the plane before they turned off the lights and locked the aircraft. Tom was seated by the window.
Ultimately, he had to call his girlfriend and ask the airline for rescue. Debbie – Tom's girlfriend, initially thought he was joking about being locked inside an airplane.
Tom was later awarded a $250 airline voucher as compensation.
Grenada or Granada
In 2012, 62-year-old British woman Lamenda Kingdon was diagnosed with breast cancer. After undergoing treatment, in 2013, she booked a flight to her dream destination – Granada, Spain, to visit the famous Alhambra castle.
Holding a ticket from the travel company Avios with the destination listed as Grenada, she was certain it was just the Spanish spelling of Granada.
The person who discovered this mistake happened to be the passenger sitting next to her on the flight. Lamenda shared about the list of dream destinations she had made while unwell, and Alhambra was one of them. It was only then that the person next to her pointed out that this flight wasn't heading to Granada.
To compensate for the error, Avios gifted her a free ticket to New Zealand – another one of her dream destinations.
Source: Depplus
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Reference: Travel Guide on Mytour
MytourJune 24, 2014
