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United Airlines is fast becoming a serious contender for Worst Airline of the Year after it boarded a passenger who was booked to go to Paris but instead ended up flying to San Francisco in the United States of – nowhere near France – America.
Lucie Bahetoukilae, who does not speak a word of English, found herself going the wrong way when she boarded what she thought was the correct plane in Newark, New Jersey. However what she did know was that the gate number for her actual flight had been changed at the last minute. She claims an announcement was not made in French to alert her to such news. Weirdly, her boarding pass still scanned as normal at the incorrect gate and she was admitted onto the plane.
Worse still, instead of the cabin crew alerting her to the error when they checked her boarding pass on entry, they simply ushered her into an empty seat so they could get take off underway.
“When she went to sit someone was sitting there already [in her assigned seat,” Lucie’s niece, Diane Miantsoko, told ABC news.
Lucie was forced to take the scenic route.
What was meant to be a 7.5 hour flight, ended up being more than 28 hours of travel as Lucie was forced to endure an 11-hour layover in San Fran before flying on to Paris – where she should have been headed in the first place.
United Airlines has since put its hand up and admitted fault in the whole debacle. The company gave Lucie a full refund, covered the costs of her emergency accommodation and topped it off with a free trip as compensation.
It’s not been a good run for United Airlines lately. Just a few weeks ago footage of a passenger being dragged of one of its airplanes hit the internet, followed a couple weeks later by the death of a giant rabbit named Simon, who passed away in the aircraft cabin mid-flight to London.
