"That river don't go to Aintry." Continental RJ leaves Brit stranded; wrong continent

[FN FAL]

"That river don't go to Aintry." Continental RJ leaves Brit stranded; wrong continent

Pilot Caught in Manchester Mix-Up.

A trainee pilot who thought he had booked a flight from Los Angeles back home to England ended up 3,000 miles adrift in the wrong Manchester.


Jim Hourihan, 52, asked for a flight to Manchester, England when he made the booking with Continental Airlines.

But he realised there had been an error when he saw his connecting flight in Cleveland, Ohio - a 50-seater plane heading to Manchester, New Hampshire.
"Everyone seems to find it funny apart from me," said the businessman.

Mr Hourihan, from Huyton, Merseyside, thought he had found a bargain when he booked the "transatlantic flight" for £185.

But he became concerned when the plane touched down in Cleveland and he saw his connecting flight.

Mr Hourihan said: "I was already pretty certain something was up, then I saw this little plane and I thought, 'That's never taking us to Manchester'.

"I had to board anyway because my luggage was on board. Then the pilot said the flight would take one hour and 40 minutes, and my heart sank.

"At that point, I was in despair because I had no idea how much it was going to cost me or when I would get home."

Continental refunded the cost of the ticket, paid for his onward flight to Manchester, England and put him up in a hotel overnight.

'Miscommunication' blamed

Mr Hourihan, who had been in California to train for a pilot's licence, was interviewed for local television in the town, which is in the north-east of the US.

He added: "My wife and daughters have been laughing their heads off and I can see the funny side now - even if I didn't at the time."

A spokesman for Continental Airlines said the error had come from a "miscommunication" between Mr Hourihan and a reservations agent.

"The fare he paid was less than a third of the fare applicable for travel to Manchester, England.

"Once Mr Hourihan contacted Continental from Manchester, New Hampshire, the airline rebooked him on flights to Manchester, England at no extra charge, as well as giving him accommodation and meal vouchers."

Mr Hourihan arrived in Manchester, England, at 0800 BST on Wednesday - more than 24 hours later than he had hoped.

 

[SMOE]

Perhaps he should have taken a course on Navigation to go with his pilot ticket....

 

[Lear Wanna Be]

Good customer service on COA's part, but come on. Unless the guy is brain dead, he had to know something was up.

 

[GravityHater]

I think he's pretty damn smart playing a dumbass and getting free rides around the world - I might just try that.

 

[G21Agoose]

Old news.

 

[Gorilla]

I had a similar situation once happen to my entire family. At its worst point, my wife became a suspected drug dealer in an inland Venezuelan city. Here's the abbreviated story...

Our goal was a 1 week dive trip to Bonaire. Bonaire is part of the ABC islands, Arruba, Bonaire, Curacao, just north of Maiquetia, Venezuela.

We had arrived at Bonaire after 2 days of hideous travel with SCUBA gear. Our route was non-rev DFW to Ft. Lauderdale, cab ride to a hotel, next morning MIA to Curacao, then after a 4 hour wait on a street curb with all our stuff, a $100 ea. one-way turboprop to Bonaire. It sucked.

After a glorious week of diving, it was time to go home. I had been dreading the return all week. At the time, I was flying Caracas (actually Maiquetia) right on the Venezuelan coast to DFW on the 738. I figured "All we have to do is get to Maiquetia, then it's one leg home first class with guys I know. It'll be fun."

The problem was, there is no scheduled flight from Kralendijk to Maiquetia. So we participated in a Venezuelan SAAB charter. It was cheap.

We launched from Bonaire, into IMC. I'm happy as a clam. Bonaire is REALLY close to Maiquetia, I figured we'd let down in 20 minutes. After forty minutes, I'm scared. No one spoke English. As the airplane finally descends, I see mountains surrounding the city we're going to land into. I looked back at my wife and whisper "We're F****d, this isn't Maiquetia."

We deplane into a small customs area. I can't tell where we are. We are REALLY standing out as clueless gringos. We could tell the customs people were thinking, "What in the hell are these gringos doing in our city?" They totally rip into our bags. Deep inside one dive bag, they find several ziplocs full of an off-white powder. You can see it in their eyes - SCORE!! WE HAVE CAPTURED GRINGO DRUG MULES!!

My wife begins to say, slowly, "Pancake mix. PAN-CAKA MIXO" She mimes cooking pancakes. The customs guys relax. We are finally released, and I manage to find the copilot. I shove my ticket stock in his face, which boldly has MIQ (Maiquetia) as the destination. He shrugs, gestures "follow us" and takes us back to the SAAB. We then fly an hour North to Maiquetia.

That is as far as the tale goes for now. Suffice it to say we spent another frightening day; at one point we thought a guy we had hired to drive our stuff was going to mug and kill us... the crew hotel was booked; we ended up in a very bad part of a town where Americans are hated.

I look back and laugh, but at the time it was VERY scary. I thought it'd be Midnight Express for us in a Venezuelan jail.

 

[LearLove]

old news, US Air or more exactly Allegheny (the MDT based ALG that merged with PDT) agents in PHL sent two older Brit ladies to MHT thru LGA when they wanted to go to England.

If I remember correctly it was prior to 911 and the brits showed up a C terminal when Express used to have a ticket counter at the top of the escalator where they bussed to the "crack ramp" (prior to termonal F). We'll these ladies checked in there and the "Souf Philly Sista" who checked them in thinks manchester england is MHT. So on these ladies go thru LGA on a Dash 8 which they thought not unusual until it was time to board again in LGA. I was in the right seat a spot 1 in the corner right by the jetway stairs when the brits came back down to "reboard" and saw the horror on their faces. Now I had seen "prop shock" before but this was something else.