Lucie Bahetoukilae had booked a flight with united airlines, traveling from Newark, New Jersey to Paris, France on April 24. However due to an error by an agent at the airport, she ended up flying 3,000 miles in totally the wrong direction, ending up in San Francisco and experiencing delays of almost 28 hours.

Paris passenger heads to the United Airlines boarding gate

Admittedly Bahetoukilae only speaks French. However, her boarding pass clearly showed she was traveling “Newark to Charles de Gaulle.” She headed to the gate number printed on her boarding pass and a United Airlines agent scanned her ticket.

She then proceeded to board the plane, totally unaware that the boarding gate for her Paris flight had changed.

Passenger finds someone in her seat, hands her boarding pass to flight crew

As reported by WABC-TV, once Bahetoukilae was on the plane, she found someone already sitting in her pre-allocated seat. She approached a member of the flight crew, showing her boarding pass, who pointed her in the direction of another seat. The only problem was the plane was headed to San Francisco and not the “City of Light.” Once Bahetoukilae arrived in San Francisco, she was booked on another Paris flight, but had to suffer through an 11-hour layover before boarding.

In total, instead of the expected seven hour flight, the tired passenger spent around 28 hours in transit before finally arriving in Paris.

Apologies from United Airlines

United Airlines said in a statement to Business Insider that they apologize deeply for Bahetoukilae’s “unacceptable experience.” They stated that when the passenger arrived in San Francisco they refunded her ticket and made sure she got on the next flight to Paris.

Reportedly the airline is also working with their Newark staff to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

United Airlines has been in the news recently over various scandals, including the forced removal of Dr.

David Dao, 69, from a Chicago to Louisville, Kentucky flight. More recently they hit the headlines after a prized giant rabbit died on one of their flights, while en route to its new celebrity owner in the U.S.

United isn’t alone, however, as Delta Air Lines recently also experienced a scandal after threatening to arrest a family with two small children, kicking them off the flight. The previous week the same airline threw a male passenger off the plane for desperately needing to pee when take-off was delayed.

Airlines vow to make changes relating to overbooking

Since the scandals emerged, both United Airlines and Delta Air Lines have reportedly vowed to give passengers up to $10,000 to give up their seats if a flight is overbooked. Even better, Southwest Airlines have said they are going to end the practice of overbooking their flights completely.
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED