Ouch: Man Books United Airlines Flight To Nicaragua, Ends Up In Japan

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).

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?