Excuse me I think your in my seat

[Reggie]

Interesting story to share. Today I was on a QF flight from ZNE to PER. We were running on time until a pax gets on and says to the guy sitting in 3A, um excuse me mate, I think your in my seat, whats your boarding pass say. The guy in 3A pulls out his boarding pass and shows it to the standing pax as being 3A.

Standing PAX goes back to the front of the plane and is told to wait in the galley whilst the rest of the pax are loaded, but don't worry, we have empty seats so you will be fine.

Now the fun starts, I hear 3A say to 3C, when I got here this morning the company had booked me 2 seats for some reason. At the front, the crew are trying to work out whats going on and are checking the ID and boarding pass of the guy at the front, who we could hear was a Mr Wayne Smith. So down comes one of the FA's and asks 3A for his boarding pass, when it is handed over, the FA asks why he is using a boarding pass in the name of Mr Wayne Smith, to which 3A replies, because thats my name. Whilst pax sitting around started to laugh, the FA asked 3A for ID, and sure enough we had 2 Mr Wayne Smiths on the plane, and they had both been given boarding passes for 3A.

At first the ground crew were saying there was only one ticket booked and thus one would have to get off - but which one???, Then they found the second ticket, issued a boarding pass for the the guy at the front in 8 and our plane eventually left some 15 Min's late.

So whats the odds of your seat being given to you, and your names sake?

 

[N860CR]

Had the exact same thing happen on a ROK-BNE recently.

Turned out John Smith 1 had checked in online and John Smith 2 went to the counter where they reprinted John Smith 1's boarding pass for him and John Smith 2 was considered a no show.

I guess the checkin agents should probably cross check against frequent flyer numbers or the like... but time doesn't often allow.

 

[samh004]

So clearly those Amadeus codes aren’t really used, when they should be, as the computer surely wouldn’t confuse the code.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

What should happen when someone checks in where two names are exactly the same on the passenger list is:

a) Ask pax if he/she has a copy of their Qantas itinerary with them which displays the Amadeus pnr. Then compare both customer details in paxs checkin profile to identify that same pnr thereby determining the correct "John Smith" to checkin. Note: always have your itinerary with you if you possibly can.

b) If pax doesn't have QF itinerary with them which happens often, look in the actual Amadeus pnr in reservations and ask them details of who made booking eg travel agent or via the internet, mobile no, email address or frequent flyer number if there is one.

c) There may be other flights in the booking already travelled on so you could ask pax what flight/date they arrived on into that city.

I'd say that 99% of the time the above options would identify the correct pax.

Yes, checkin agents can be under the pump a lot of the time but you may as well spend a couple of extra minutes establishing the correct pax at the time of checkin as 9 times out of 10 this scenario usually causes more of a delay trying to sort out the mess once onboard the aircraft.

There are a couple of other occasions when people have duplicate seating as follows:

a) Where two pax have been given a boarding pass for "John Smith" in seat 3A when one is the real pax and the other might be "John Brown" in 6F who has been given the wrong boarding pass (for whatever reason) and has not checked/realised until he gets onboard. It maybe "John Brown" has been checked in but just hasn't got his correct boarding pass or he may still be on the noshow list and still need to be checked in under the correct name.

b) Where two pax eg both "John Smith" and "John Brown" have the same seat number eg 10A on each of their boarding passes issued in their correct names. There is only one rightful owner of the seat & a quick call over the radio to the gate agent asking to confirm what seat number is in Altea against each of their names should solve this one. Usually the result of a seat change when one pax has their original boarding pass and not the most recent one reflecting the new seat number.

Note: always check the name on your boarding pass before you step away from the check-in counter.

Cheers Oz

 

[trooper]

Checking the BP sounds like excellent advice... as does carrying ALL ones relevant documents!

I boarded an NZ flight (AKL-LAX) one time... VERY full flight that night so I wasn't surprised that my standby upgrade hadn't cleared..().

Got to my seat to find someoene already there.. with the same seat number on his BP... Grabbed an FA to let them know there was a problem AND quickly explained that I had put in for a points upgrade and handed him the printout....

Off he went with the document... came back and asked me to go with him... to the only open seat in Y+...:mrgreen:

(Of course it DID occur to me that my upgrade HAD cleared.. but the GA failed to do anything about it for whatever reason.. thus a double up in Y and an empty seat in Y+... a theory anyway! I also harbour a faint suspicion that the document itself may have been rather helpful as it gave the onboard crew an easy out Who knows? )

 

[JohnK]

At first the ground crew were saying there was only one ticket booked and thus one would have to get off - but which one???, Then they found the second ticket, issued a boarding pass for the the guy at the front in 8 and our plane eventually left some 15 Min's late.

Interesting story. So in the end the guy was downgraded from business class to economy through no fault of his own.

 

[mannej]

Interesting story. So in the end the guy was downgraded from business class to economy through no fault of his own.

No-single class service on a 717 more than likely

 

[Reggie]

No-single class service on a 717 more than likely

Correct - no J on these ZNE and PBO flights. Even the food has gone to the pits. What use to be a nice salad or similar is no a ham, must pickle and something else on wholemeal. No chocolate, chese and crackers either. There was also no drinks service.

 

[holdenvxman]

When I was flying from BOS to STL this year, I got a last min seat change to a window seat in Y. SO with my fresh boarding pass I got on and went to my seat and a pax was sitting in there, I said I think your in my seat and she pulled out her BP and we both had the same seat, looking around the cabin I was getting nervous as there were no seats left and I was flying with a friend that was in F.
Anyway I call the FA and she says the pax in my seat had a last min upgrade and was asked to move to the F cabin, the good thing was she was with her partner and she didn't want to be separated. So the FA looked at me and said "right your in first" so I walked to my seat with a big grin

And what was EVEN BETTER was I got full Y points and SC for some reason. (I was on a discounted Y ticket)

Shame it didnt happen on the LAX>HNL flight - oh well

 

[Flashback]

This happened to me once on a PER-SYD flight. I tried to OLCI only to find my flight had been cancelled. I was on hold for some time waiting to get through to someone, but luckily anat0l was with me at the time so he rang about another (unrelated) issue, and once done put me on the phone so I could sort it out.

Turns out there was another PAX with the same name as me, so they thought I had double booked. I asked whether said PAX had his FF number entered, to which they replied yes (and mentioned some other details, which would be a breach of the privacy act.. but I digress). I asked "well, why not see that I also had an FF number entered and they are both different" ; no real response to that question!

 

[serfty]

... Turns out there was another PAX with the same name as me, so they thought I had double booked. ...

Interesting, the one time I accidentally double booked, I was call on a weekend about a week before the flight to ask about it.

Back then I was SG.

 

[notzac]

One of the advantages of having an uncommon name - I can't see this ever being a problem for me!

 

[poppet]

I had a similar thing happen to me, but with the chauffer car drivers. I had booked a car, and saw the driver with my initial, and surname near the carousel so went with him. I was going to Melbourne CBD, and he thought he was meant to take me somewhere else (I should have twigged then). Half way into the CBD, he got a call asking where was he as his passenger was waiting for him, and that is when he realised he had the wrong passenger. It turns out there were two people with the same first initial, and surname on my flight that day. Funny thing is that my driver refused to take that person as he was waiting for me! Now I always double check before getting in the car.

 

[david870mdg]

Interesting Thread

IMOE;
In the past I have travelled with my Father (same name), the airline rings the day before departure to check I havent double booked.
Despite - different birthdate, different passport no. (where applicable) and even on a seperate PNR....
Work this out?

David.

 

[Mal]

I had a similar thing happen to me, but with the chauffer car drivers.

A bank in Australia (fairly small one, they were taken over by someone else ... can't remember who), once told me I couldn't have an account with my full name on it as someone else already had that account and confusion could have ensued ?!?

Fairly weird. So, ended up using Firstname, Initial, Surname rather than my preferred Firstname, Middle, Surname.

Does make me wonder how they handled other cases of similar names !

 

[bambbbam2]

OT: I work for a super fund, and for over 5 years we were putting someones 9% sgc contributions into the account of someone else.

These two had the same first and last names and same date of birth (they had different middle names).

Boy that took a lot of manual calculations to work out how to correct it!

 

[ozbeachbabe]

In the past I have travelled with my Father (same name), the airline rings the day before departure to check I havent double booked. Despite - different birthdate, different passport no. (where applicable) and even on a seperate PNR....Work this out?

The fact that you have different passport numbers and dates of birth would not be a factor as far as a computer program searching for dupes is concerned - it would just look at the name field not other peripheral info such as DOB or passport nbrs.

Duplicate pnrs are more likely to be separate bookings such as those made by Defence where they sometimes make a booking under Mr John Smith & also Cpl John Smith.

This must happen a fair bit in the US but I have seen airline tickets where if there is a father/son etc it will have the suffix of Sr Jr or III for Senior Junior or the third.

Saw an instance the other day where the father was eg John Smith and the son was booked as John James Smith. Dad was Chairmans Lounge & son was ff bronze. Mind you that could mean the 16y-o could use Dad's card to get into Chairmans Lounge.....

Cheers Oz

 

[JohnK]

The fact that you have different passport numbers and dates of birth would not be a factor as far as a computer program searching for dupes is concerned - it would just look at the name field not other peripheral info such as DOB or passport nbrs.

Perhaps it is time for the computer program to be enhanced to check a little more detail when trying to determine if the same person is on the same flight.

 

[docjames]

Perhaps it is time for the computer program to be enhanced to check a little more detail when trying to determine if the same person is on the same flight.

Meaning everyone would have to enter passport or drivers licence numbers.

What happens when you dont have one of these?

 

[JohnK]

Meaning everyone would have to enter passport or drivers licence numbers.

What happens when you dont have one of these?

How about taking into consideration date of birth, address, fathers name, mothers maiden name or whatever information is required to make the person unique. I know not everyone has a passport or drivers license but surely they have some unique identifying information. The search does not need to be limited to a few types of information.

Way too many people around with the surname of Smith, Jones, Johnson, Wong, Lee, Le, Li, Chan, Ng, Nguyen, Poulos etc to only have the program looking at first name, initial and family name to determine uniqueness....