Another gaffe from United Airlines has forced it to apologise after flying one of its passengers 4,800km in the wrong direction.
The incident took place with one of the passengers Lucie Bahetoukilae, non-English speaking person, who boarded a flight to San Francisco when she was supposed to be going to Newark due to a last minute change in the departure gate.
The mistake occurred on April 24, when Ms Bahetoukilae got on the wrong plane in Paris after United failed to notify her that her flight was leaving from a different gate. She noticed the mistake when the ticket collided with another passenger. According to reports, Ms Bahetoukilae noticed someone else was in her seat once she was on the plane. When she handed her boarding pass to the flight attendant, the incorrect destination went unnoticed and she was directed to another seat.
Ms Bahetoukilae said that United Airlines did not inform her through email about the gate change and there was no announcement in French at the airport. After landing in San Francisco, she had to wait for 11 hours before she could be rerouted home again.
United said in its statement that they are working with its team to ensure that a similar thing doesn’t happen again and apologised to Ms Bahetoukilae.
The incident comes shortly after the airline suffered an international PR disaster when passengers filmed a man being dragged off one of its planes by security staff and suffering a bloodied nose.
