A horrified Ryanair holidaymaker only realized she had boarded the wrong plane when she woke up in Benidorm instead of Paris. Jem Maybank arrived at Leeds Bradford Airport at five o’clock last Saturday morning [22nd June] after planning a short city break in Paris, France.
After smoothly passing through security, the 30-year-old headed to what she thought was the correct gate at Paris Beauvais airport, where staff scanned and read her boarding pass.
Jem gets on the plane and is confused to find that her seat number 34A doesn’t exist, but says that the flight attendant told her that this can sometimes happen when the plane is switched. She says that even when she heard the flight took two hours instead of the usual hour, she shrugged it off and put it down to turbulence.
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After being assigned a seat, Jem says she didn’t hear the announcement and quickly fell asleep for the entire flight. It wasn’t until she woke up and saw palm trees and mountains outside as they landed that she realized she had mistakenly boarded the wrong flight – to Alicante.
The property worker admits she had never been to Alicante before and all she knew about it was that “it’s Benidorm” – because it’s the airport used by Brits traveling to the famous holiday hotspot.
Ryanair blamed Jem for the error and it was “each passenger’s responsibility to ensure they board the correct aircraft”.
Jem, from Leeds, West Yorkshire, said: “I was in a bit of a mad holiday rush. I was looking for the gate to Paris Beauvais. I saw it was gate 6 or something but this was from a distance. I walked towards the gate and just he somehow waited in line.
“The staff scanned my boarding pass, the QR code and read it. They just let me right through the gate. I didn’t see the board or anything, I don’t think I was paying attention to be honest.”
“I had seat 34A and this didn’t exist. I showed it to a member of the cabin crew and said ‘can you help me because I don’t have a seat’. She just said ‘sometimes it happens when we switch planes around but luckily there is no show.
“She gave me seat 27 so I was like ‘ok, I’ve got a seat, great’. I was sitting on the plane and I didn’t really hear the announcement. They had to do one thing to say ‘this flight goes to Alicante’.” but I didn’t hear it, I thought it was weird that it was a two hour flight but I thought ‘maybe it’s because of the turbulence’.
“I fell asleep, woke up and saw mountains and palm trees and thought, this doesn’t look like Paris.”
Jem waited until everyone had left the plane before speaking to a member of the Ryanair cabin crew at the end of the plane. The staff soon helped her arrange a flight for later in the evening, but she still felt confused as to how it happened, speculating that she might have misread the gate number as six instead of eight.
Jem said: “I was waiting for everyone to get off the plane and I said ‘hi, so I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be in Paris’. She said ‘how did you not get that?’ The staff were really confused and said this had never happened before.
“I was going through border control in Alicante and I thought, ‘I don’t want to be here, I have a hotel in Paris’. I’ve never been to Alicante either, but I just know it’s Benidorm. They sorted me out. free flight which was good, I don’t know , how could this happen while I was waiting
“Number 6 looks pretty similar to number 8 from a distance, so I think it happened. Who knows? We’ll never know.”
At 11pm Jem finally arrived in Paris in Beauvais but had to take an hour long bus ride to the city center where her hotel was. He is now urging other holidaymakers to pay more attention at the airport and listen to all security announcements – even if they find them ‘boring’.
Jem said: “Alicante was a lot better than I expected. I went to see the castle. I was there for about seven hours. When I got to Paris I wanted to make the most of it. I left the hotel and just thought, that I have no time to waste, so I went to browse the sites and shop.
“I can’t believe this has happened. My advice to other tourists would be to just stop making phone calls at the airport. Be careful. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed and stressed at the airport, but try to relax.”
“When you get on the plane and they do the security briefing, just listen to what they say. Waiting in lines is so boring, but that’s what gets you. Also try to keep an open mind because things can change. at the drop of a hat.”
A Ryanair spokesman said: “This passenger booked a journey from Leeds Bradford to Paris on Saturday 22nd June but went through the wrong gate and boarded a flight to Alicante instead.
“It is each passenger’s responsibility to ensure they board the correct aircraft. There are several touch points to inform passengers of the aircraft’s destination, including gate markings and announcements before each departure.
“Upon arrival in Alicante, this passenger informed the crew that he was on the wrong flight and Ryanair immediately arranged for the passenger to be re-accommodated on the next available flight to Paris, due to depart Alicante later that day (June 22). .”