United Airlines, still recovering from the controversy over its treatment of a 69-year-old doctor, is red-faced again after failing to catch a passenger who boarded the wrong plane and ended up in San Francisco instead of Paris.
The story broken by US television station WABC has gone global as United investigates how passenger Lucie Bahetoukilae apparently got through two boarding pass checks to head off in the wrong direction.
Bahetoukilae, who doesn’t speak English, apparently did not understand an announcement by United that there had been a last-minute gate change at Newark airport after going to the gate stamped on her boarding pass.
A United representative scanned the French speaker’s boarding pass, which was marked Newark to Charles de Gaulle, and allowed her on the plane.
Once on board, Bahetoukilae discovered someone sitting in her seat, 22C. A flight attendant looked at her boarding pass and moved her to another seat.
She spent 11 hours in San Francisco turning what would have been a 7.5-hour journey into a 28-hour odyssey that included an 11-hour stay in San Francisco while United found new flights.
Bahetoukilae’s niece, Diane Miantsoko, told WABC that her aunt would have moved had the announcement been in French or she had received a text message.
“With everything going on this country people have to be more careful,” Miantsoko said. “They didn’t pay attention. My aunt could have been anyone. She could have been a terrorist and killed people on that flight and they didn’t know they didn’t catch it.”
United told the TV station it had given Bahetoukilae a refund, a voucher for another trip and compensation for accommodations in San Francisco WABC said it had not offered the stranded woman while she was waiting for the new flights.
An airline representative said United is working with its team in Newark to prevent a recurrence of the mistake, dubbed “an unacceptable experience’’.
Ironically, the mistake comes as United is expanding its services from San Francisco with increased flights to eight destinations and the replacement of regional jets with bigger mainline aircraft in ten markets.
“Every day in San Francisco we proudly welcome more than 30,000 customers aboard United Airlines and today’s announcement demonstrates our commitment to being the Bay Area’s leading U.S. airline,” said Mike Hanna, United’s vice president of its San Francisco International Airport hub.
“These additional flights and larger aircraft to new cities and those already part of our network will offer customers even more convenient flight options and easy connections to popular destinations around the U.S. and Canada.”
The eight destinations to get increased flights are Seattle, from August 1, and Albuquerque, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Nashville, Philadelphia and Portland, all from August 15.
Despite finding itself embroiled in controversy, United’s April operating figures showed consolidated traffic figures, expressed in revenue passenger kilometres, were 7.4 per cent higher than the same month last year. This included a 7.7 per cent rise on domestic operations.
Group passenger numbers were 7.6 per cent higher in April compared to a year ago at more than 12 million while the equivalent passenger load factor rose 2.6 percentage points to 83.1 per cent.
The load factor on domestic flights was even higher at 87 per cent.
The airline completed 99.9 per cent of its flights and 69 per cent departed on time, figures the airline said were ahead of its peers.
