A first-time flyer wound up more than 1,000 miles from her planned destination after a low-cost carrier put her on the wrong flight

03.08.2023 - 05:55 / insider.com

A passenger on a low-cost airline in India discovered on Monday that she'd arrived in a city some 1,000 miles from her planned destination after being told to board the wrong flight.

Wasifa Jan was supposed to fly from New Delhi to Srinagar, a city in the Jammu and Kashmir region, but was instead put on a flight to the city of Pune, her travel agent said. Both flights were run by SpiceJet, a low-cost carrier.

It was the first time Wasifa had been on a flight, Salem Ismail, managing director of Wachubaaya Tours and Travels, told The Times of India.

She was sitting in front of her boarding gate, but her flight was delayed, Ismail said. Several airline ground staff then approached Wasifa and asked her to board the flight to Pune instead, he added.

"It is strange that none of the staff realized the error and allowed her to board," Ismail said, per The Times of India.

Wasifa ended up sitting in the same seat she was assigned on her original flight to Srinagar, and only realized she'd been put on the wrong flight after arriving in Pune, he said.

Wachubaaya Tours and Travels tweeted a complaint to SpiceJet on Monday, posting a screenshot of Wasifa's boarding pass.

SpiceJet confirmed the incident with The Times of India, saying that it had reached out to Wasifa to apologize.

"We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to the passenger. We are arranging for her travel back to Srinagar today itself," a spokesperson told the outlet.

Wasifa has flown back to New Delhi via another airline, IndiGo, and traveled back to Srinagar on a SpiceJet flight, per local outlet The Economic Times.

SpiceJet did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In May, an EasyJet passenger intending to travel from Scotland to Portugal also boarded the wrong flight and landed in the English city of Bristol, around 300 miles from where they boarded at Glasglow Airport.

Earlier that month, a Frontier Airlines passenger said she was at an airport in Philadelphia when she was told to board a flight to Jamaica instead of Jacksonville, Florida. She arrived in the country with no passport in hand but flew back to Philadelphia a few hours later.