How common is seat assignment duplication?

Happyman42

Just wondering about this since I saw it happen on a flight yesterday, a guy was sitting in front of me when another passenger boarded and said he was in the same seat. When the two of them looked at their boarding passes they where indeed in the same seat (full flight) but one gentleman's ticket said 28th Oct instead of the 30th.
As it turned out he was indeed on the flight but in another seat and something had gone wrong when he printed his pass.
My question is how did he manage to get as far as he did - boarding the flight, without anybody flagging/noticing it?

PinOnTheRight

It is an odd error but not the first occurrence.

Boarding cards are generally scanned electronically at security and the boarding gate rather than visually checked, and the ID checked against the name displayed in the system after scanning. So the barcode was authentic but some strange system/printing error resulted in the wrong date and seat being printed.

spartacus93

I've had the same seat bit happen to me.
I had booked a flight, and purchased a seat (2C).
I then changed the date of the flight.
I checked in for the new flight and my chosen seat was on my boarding pass.
When I boarded someone else had the same seat on their boarding pass. I was on the crew's passenger list with a different seat number, and the other passenger had 2C on the crew list and their boarding pass.

I didn't bother to question it - think i got 6C so no big deal - but I presume me changing the flight and not going through the seat selection process again caused a glitch.

Happyman42

Thanks for that, just thought it amazing in this day and age of super security that nobody would have queried it or even alerted the passenger.

Jawgap

Had it happen earlier this year through Singapore with KLM.

I had booked on at the start of the flight - the plane was due to stop SIN to pick up passengers and fly on to AMS.

I arrived to check in and I'd previously booked my seat online. When I presented myself at the desk to drop my bag off, there began much pecking and checking of the keyboard and I was asked to stand aside that a supervisor would be over to talk to me.

She duly arrived and began bashing away on the keyboard again. She explained that somehow the system had let me book my seat all the way through to AMS when it should have only let me book as far as SIN. She apologised then offered me a refund (it was an EconomyPlus seat) and a seat in economy or no refund and a bump to World Business Class!

Needless to say I took the refund...........











Did I fúck!

hidinginthebush

I was once on a plane to London, and there were two passengers fussing over being issued the same seat. Air hostess came over to see what the fuss was all about, turned out they both indeed had been issued the same seat, but one guy was on the wrong plane!

Tenger

Happyman42 wrote: »

Thanks for that, just thought it amazing in this day and age of super security that nobody would have queried it or even alerted the passenger.

Security just check that you are permitted to get airside,
boarding staff just check that passport and name on boarding card match,
cabin crew just check that correct flight and date are on the boarding card.

mickdw

Tenger wrote: »

Security just check that you are permitted to get airside,
boarding staff just check that passport and name on boarding card match,
cabin crew just check that correct flight and date are on the boarding card.

In this case the wrong date was on card so the ops question is valid. How did the guy get on the plane?

Happyman42

Tenger wrote: »

cabin crew just check that correct flight and date are on the boarding card.

This bit didn't happen - cabin crew were never aware of a problem. The guy sorted it out himself by checking on his laptop.

Irish Steve

Given that this issue only shows up at the operational end of the organisation, it's very possible that it's never been reported back to the web site developers as an issue, if there's no formal procedure in place for cabin crew to report issues with boarding passes, with all the other pressures that are on them, it may well have slipped through the net, obscure issues like this only get fixed when someone reports them, with enough detail that the developers have a good idea of what they are looking for.

I hit a similar issue a couple of years ago with a friend, we'd checked in for a Ryanair flight, and it was in the early days of being able to use boarding passes via mobile, and for safety, I'd also printed paper versions of the boarding pass, as I had both passes on my phone, so the paper were the backup if we got separated in the system, which at places like Gatwick is not unknown.

After some delay at the boarding gate, it transpired that the codes used on paper and mobile are somehow different, so if you check in at the security check with the paper boarding card, and then use the mobile pass at the gate, the system gets confused and the gate system can't find the record created at the security check. Not sure if it's ever been sorted, and at the time, no one at the gate realised what the issue was, and realistically, with nearly 200 people arriving for the flight, they didn't have the time to care about it, they had to get the queue processed.

In this case, if the cabin crew had the passenger names on their list, they probably had too many other things on their plate to remember when they got back to base at some stage later in the day that there had been some sort of seat allocation issue, and if there's no formal procedure for reporting such issues, actually doing so out of office hours is probably a nightmare to do, if it's even possible. It's even more difficult for a customer to make contact with the web developers, and even if they do, a lot of the time, there's not enough detail about the problem to allow it to be tracked down and resolved.

Tenger

mickdw wrote: »

In this case the wrong date was on card so the ops question is valid. How did the guy get on the plane?

Well with 200 people waving pieces of paper at you it can be hard to focus. At least at boarding gate they scan the barcode.

I know of 2 occasions (I'm talking >10 years ago) where a passenger boarded the wrong flight to the UK (similar flight number) and didn't realise until after departure.....even with the screen at the gate, the boarding announcments, the boarding gate checks, cabin crew checks, announcements from cabin and flight crew.

Locker10a

At my airline cabincrew do not check boarding passes at all, seating mixups are very common mainly due to pax looking at the seat number for their return flight while boarding the outbound ! Most genuine mistakes are due to ground staff assigning seats at checkin or the gate that have already been assigned !
My personal favourite is when they assign a full family including children into the exit row

Jawgap

Irish Steve wrote: »

Given that this issue only shows up at the operational end of the organisation, it's very possible that it's never been reported back to the web site developers as an issue, if there's no formal procedure in place for cabin crew to report issues with boarding passes, with all the other pressures that are on them, it may well have slipped through the net, obscure issues like this only get fixed when someone reports them, with enough detail that the developers have a good idea of what they are looking for.

.......

just to note, KLM contacted me after I got back with a list of questions from their Web Support Team - they were quite intrigued as to what had happened and how.

Unfortunately they never came back to me with an explanation.

Happyman42

Doors where closed and we were rolling back before the guy finally figured it out. Even if he had been on the wrong flight I got the impression he was going to bluff it out. He just took another available seat (we didn't know it was a full flight until the steward started the intro)

What would have happened had the guy not had a laptop with him to check? Do the cabin crew have access to an assigned seating list or would they have had to check back with the desk and delayed the flight?

Locker10a

Happyman42 wrote: »

Doors where closed and we were rolling back before the guy finally figured it out. Even if he had been on the wrong flight I got the impression he was going to bluff it out. He just took another available seat (we didn't know it was a full flight until the steward started the intro)

What would have happened had the guy not had a laptop with him to check? Do the cabin crew have access to an assigned seating list or would they have had to check back with the desk and delayed the flight?

There is a passenger manifest onboard that the senior would have, if there is a discrepancy the flightdeck will communicate with the dispatcher if the doors have already been closed if this cannot resolve the issue then yes the aircraft would have to return to stand

outsidein98

Although not a seat allocation mix up. It reminds of the time when I was on an Aer Lingus flight in business class for once, a perk of working in the business. In dashed a couple of young women and took some seats opposite us. A man arrived and stopped beside them 'Excuse me you're in my seat.' 'No we got here first,' was the indignant reply. Cabin crew summoned and two red faced girls were escorted behind the curtain. Only previously flown Ryanair obviously.

Jawgap

outsidein98 wrote: »

Although not a seat allocation mix up. It reminds of the time when I was on an Aer Lingus flight in business class for once, a perk of working in the business. In dashed a couple of young women and took some seats opposite us. A man arrived and stopped beside them 'Excuse me you're in my seat.' 'No we got here first,' was the indignant reply. Cabin crew summoned and two red faced girls were escorted behind the curtain. Only previously flown Ryanair obviously.

I had the reciprocal experience where a bunch of lads persuaded their mate (a Ryanair virgin) that the sequence number on his Ryanair pass indicated his seat.

He duly counted the seats and tried to persuade some fellah that he was in the wrong seat - that the seat in question was 'his.'

Locker10a

outsidein98 wrote: »

Although not a seat allocation mix up. It reminds of the time when I was on an Aer Lingus flight in business class for once, a perk of working in the business. In dashed a couple of young women and took some seats opposite us. A man arrived and stopped beside them 'Excuse me you're in my seat.' 'No we got here first,' was the indignant reply. Cabin crew summoned and two red faced girls were escorted behind the curtain. Only previously flown Ryanair obviously.

Hahahah too funny!!! Lol love this!

afatbollix

I was on a flight from Knock once when the call came across the PA for a person and then when they got to the front they were informed they were flying Ryanair and to leeds not London on Aerlingus.