United Airlines flies woman to San Francisco instead of France

this can be filed in the "at least no one got hurt" folder, but due to the horrendous recent history of united, we see other things instead. She got a refund, got some extra frequent flier miles, ate some alleged food, and had no one to talk to about it. Hope she got an upgrade on the real flight to Paris.

Reminds of an incident years ago when a man going to Oakland from Los Angeles got on an Air New Zealand flight to Aukland. The Kiwis pronounce Oakland and Aukland similarly. He was mighty surprised to see nothing but ocean about two hours into the flight and inquired to a flight attendant.

He was able to score a two day layover in Tahiti on the return...

But, where did they send her luggage?

Mais oui, pas une autre grande erreur!

The inconsistencies on the people herding side of part 121 travel never cease to amaze me. One week, we are told a story of a person ticketed, checked-in, and boarded being physically removed from their seat, and the next, we hear of a person "Mr. Magoo-ing" onto a flight set to depart half way around the world in the opposite direction without even being given a half-dirty look. What are all those computer/boarding pass scanner thingies for anyway?

Food for thought...

I might book my next trip to Paris, TX to see the Eiffel tower for real.

So much for a travel ban if the gate agents decide to allow buffet style travel.

Like the reality show, wife swap, we could have a show called "Mix and Match Family - Travel Edition."

In addition to the gate agents and flight attendants, they might want to take the folks from IT to the woodshed as well. Why didn't the scanner refuse to accept the boarding pass? Humans make mistakes all too often, but the technology should detect them better than this.

Maybe she was going the long way 'round and just got off before reaching Paris. ;-)

this is actually very odd..boarding passes issued at the ticket counter (you have to have one to go through security)or at a kiosk are issued by the name and flight number,and the reservation indicates the itinerary..if she was going to france, and not to sfo,her boardingpass would have indicated the destination and the gate reader would not have accepted it..then theres that little thing about having to show and confirm a passport to fly internationally, in order to even get a boarding pass..somethng is not right here..she didn't "inadvertently" board the wrong flight and go to sfo instead of paris...

The article states, "Bahetoukilae then embarked on a 7.5-hour flight in the wrong direction. When she arrived in San Francisco, Bahetoukilae then endured an 11-hour layover as United tried to place her on another flight to France."

How is EWR-SFO a 7.5 hour flight?