While I’m sure this was no fun in the moment, this guy will have a great story to tell for the rest of his life (thanks to View from the Wing for flagging this).
In this post:
Six hours into flight, man realizes he’s flying to Tokyo
Telemundo 52 has the story of how a man booked a $655 ticket on United Airlines to Nicaragua. Specifically, he was due to fly from Los Angeles (LAX) to Houston (IAH) to Managua (MGA).
He boarded what he thought was the first segment of that trip, which was supposed to be a roughly three-hour flight to Houston, covering 1,379 miles. However, six hours into the flight, he wondered what was going on, and why the flight was taking so long. So he talked to the crew, and that’s when he learned he was actually on a flight to Tokyo Haneda (HND).
The flight continued its journey across the Pacific, and upon arriving in Japan, United put him on a return flight to Los Angeles. So then he once again started his planned itinerary to Managua, ultimately arriving a full two days behind schedule.
The man submitted $1,095 in receipts to United, as he claimed he had to spend two nights in hotels, and had to buy clothes and other necessities, since his luggage was sent to Managua.
United tried to offer him a $300 travel credit as compensation. However, after Telemundo 52 got involved, he was ultimately offered $1,000 worth of travel credits.
How can someone even board the wrong flight?!
People boarding a flight to the wrong destination happens more often than you’d think. After all, with billions of passengers traveling by air each year, even things that seem highly unlikely will happen.
In this case, it seems clear the guy wasn’t a “stowaway,” in the sense that it’s not like he was trying to evade gate agents while boarding, in order to sneak onto a plane he wasn’t supposed to be on.
So how could something like this happen, then? How could he get past a gate agent with a boarding pass for the wrong flight? As I see it, there are a couple most likely explanations:
- Did he somehow unintentionally manage to board the flight without having his boarding pass scanned, because the gate agent was overworked and maybe didn’t notice him?
- Did the gate agent scan the boarding pass, it “beeped” (to indicate he was on the wrong flight), and in a rush, the gate agent just did an override of the message and let him board?
Of course so much has to go wrong beyond that. Presumably he tried to take the seat listed on his boarding pass, so that seat also had to be empty, or else the crew would’ve likely gotten involved, when there was a duplicate seat assignment. For what it’s worth, unlike some foreign airlines, US carriers don’t typically do a passenger count once onboard.
I suspect this man also doesn’t speak English, and therefore likely tuned out all the announcements onboard the flight, about how it’s headed to Japan, the flight time, etc. He also must’ve not looked at the seat back map feature.
So, who is at fault for this, the airline or the traveler? I’d argue the airline is fully responsible, in the sense that they should be ensuring that only the correct passengers are onboard a flight. That seems pretty obvious, no?
To state the obvious, as travelers, it’s also a best practice to ensure this doesn’t happen. I will say, I’m curious how exactly he racked up $1,095 in expenses for this 48-hour detour. How many extra clothes did he have to buy, how was he getting around, where was he staying, was he racking up international phone charges, etc.?
Bottom line
A United Airlines customer intended to fly from Los Angeles to Houston to Managua. Around six hours into his three-hour flight “to Houston,” he thought something was a bit off… only to learn he was actually on a flight to Tokyo. He was ultimately put on a flight back to Los Angeles, and then started the journey all over again, leading to a 48-hour delay.
This guy must’ve had quite the story to tell his friends and family!
What’s your take on this scenic route to Managua?
Perhaps he thought HND was for his connecting flight to Honduras?
Why would UA be at fault for his failure to read the boarding signs ?
Houston, we have a problem
I was flying SFO-PEK and when I got on the plane, someone was in my seat. I asked them to move and they produced a boarding pass for the same seat. This was in business and the FA came over and looked at our boarding cards and told me I was on the SFO-HKG plane, not the SFO-PEK. I don't recall anything odd when they scanned my boarding card.
Between all the PA announcements about pre-boarding and then regular boarding, all of which include the flight number and destination, as well as all the gate monitors listing HKG, how did you mistake it for the PVG flight? Sounds like that issues were yours primarily, though UA owns scanning your boarding pass and allowing you to board. But why were you at the gate for the HKG flight?
Where was he staying ? Had you never stayed overnight at HND ? Last minute same day reservation for 2 nights is easily $800 already at Hotel Villa Fontaine Grand or Premier at Haneda sky garden unless he chose a capsule hotel
I literally stayed at one of the nicest hotels in Buckhead (outside of Atlanta) this past week. My three night stay was less than $500 for king room.
Dave, Atlanta is not Tokyo, last time I looked, LOL.
In case you didn't know, Tokyo is one of the most expensive cities in the world. Atlanta, not so much.
What are you talking about? I just checked for tomorrow it's $100 to stay at the villa Fontaine and there are plenty of cheaper hotels near HND for $50. Tokyo is cheap since Yen is so weak.
The man was expecting to eat tacos and burritos at arrival, but instead ended up eating kung pao chicken and pot stickers. Lol
Are you trying to bait someone to call you a racist?
Huh? So if fly to China and eat Chinese food I’m suddenly racist??
Well, apparently you are just not good at geography, as Haneda is an airport in Tokyo, Japan, not China.
Dave, we all know that EskimoBot is racist, pay no heed.
I boarded the wrong flight once, many years ago.
I was on my way to Seattle on business. My routing was JFK-SFO-SEA on DL.
A JFK-LAX and a JFK-SFO were boarding next to each other and I didn't realize I was on the JFK-LAX instead of the JFK-SFO until it landed in LAX. After push back, and rolling down the tarmac when the pilot made his announcement and said we were on our way...
I boarded the wrong flight once, many years ago.
I was on my way to Seattle on business. My routing was JFK-SFO-SEA on DL.
A JFK-LAX and a JFK-SFO were boarding next to each other and I didn't realize I was on the JFK-LAX instead of the JFK-SFO until it landed in LAX. After push back, and rolling down the tarmac when the pilot made his announcement and said we were on our way to LAX, I actually thought he made a mistake - because there's no way I could have boarded the wrong flight and certainly the GA who scanned my ticket did not indicate anything was wrong... wasn't I wrong... Getting from LAX to SEA was a nightmare
I just cannot understand HOW between all the gate announcements that would repeat Los Angeles over and over, the boarding announcements welcoming you to the flight to LAX, the seat back monitors all listing LAX, HOW you only became aware after departure from the Pilot’s announcement???!
The total lack of awareness on your part caused your nightmare of getting from LAX to SEA. In all due respect - You need to be more present in life because you sound checked out.
Stopped reading at, "thanks to View from the Wing for flagging this".
This just seems inconceivable. Flights from LAX to International locations fly out of TBIT. He wouldn’t have been able to pass TSA in the wrong terminal. Then we are supposed to believe he then went to any gate and passed by the gate agent again with the wrong boarding pass? Too many things here that seem impossible.
@ Alan B -- United flights from LAX to HND depart from Terminal 7, not TBIT. Also, all terminals at LAX are connected airside.
People talking about stuff they know nothing about is annoying.
@ Ben -- Not sure how he racked up $1,095 in expenses? I suspect a few bloggers could run up way more expenses, plus request compensation for their Nicaraguan meal not being catered. How quickly we forget...
How did his bags go to MGA instead of offloaded in LAX, unless .. wait for it..
The international flight positive bag match is complete bullsh*t conspiracy by the industry.
His bags were loaded on his first LAX-IAH segment and not pulled since they don’t use the positive bag match rule for domestic flights.
I’m guessing once the bag got in motion on that first segment it was then loaded on his IAH-MGA flight. Or perhaps they pulled it in IAH and once UA got this man turned around he was rebooked HND-IAH-MGA and his bags were then loaded on his IAH-MGA flight and arrived when he did, reuniting him days later with his luggage.
"they don’t use the positive bag match rule for domestic flights."
Because bad actors could not possibly have entered the USA?
Er, where did the attackers board on 9/11?
Doing a manual passenger count is one more check that could prevent such mistakes. Though, it probably wouldn’t work with US airlines since most Americans can’t count past nine.
Wonder if this flight boarded with face recognition and the system confused him for someone else or a gate agent manually boarded him by seat number?
even if you dont speak english, the word "tokyo" doesnt look anything like "houston" so not sure how he didnt see at the gate lol
He would also be in the wrong terminal at LAX. There’s no way this story is true with these details
All United flights depart from T7 and 8, not TBIT
Yeah, this all seems highly unlikely and ridiculous.
You've repeated this multiple times and it's incorrect.
I speak english and have ended up in the wrong country due to basically tuning out the announcements and being half asleep from having barely slept the previous night.