A horrified pair of disabled pensioners only realised they had arrived on the wrong island for a holiday when the captain of the plane announced where they were landing.
Stunned Linda Trestrail, 69, and Wendy Russell, 71, say they were victims of a bizarre ticket mix-up that ruined their entire holiday, which they were meant to have been spending on the sun-kissed Spanish island of Majorca, also known as Mallorca.
Instead the ladies ended up landing on their Jet2 aircraft on an entirely different Balearic island, Menorca. Ms Trestrail and Ms Russell had been placed on the wrong flight despite getting their tickets checked five times by different members of staff.
Jet2 have now issued an apology for what they described as a “human error” and blamed it partly on the third party special assistance provider at Bristol Airport.
Ms Trestrail, from Plymouth, Devon, said: “You hear of bags going on the wrong flights but not people.
“The reason we booked Mallorca is because of the short flight, we knew our mobility wasn’t good so didn’t want to do much travelling, we are disabled pensioners.
“You get compensated if you get delayed or loose luggage, but they lost us, not the b***** baggage. Jet2 holidays, the package holidays you can trust, yeah right.”
Ms Trestrail added they showed their tickets to the initial luggage desk, security, a person at the gate desk, as well as a member of ground crew staff on the bus, who even did a head count and confirmed the numbers.
She continued: “Jet2 are only ones who do double security check on tickets, so they did that, and then we were directed to our seats on the flight.
“One of the cabin crew came over to us and asked if we were sat in the correct seats, I said yes but she went off with our flight tickets, took them away and came back and said we were in our correct seats.
“So we’re on our way, then I looked out the window and said to Wendy, ‘what’s that?’ We were going over land, I have been to Mallorca before, and you arrive over the sea.
“Then the captain says we are arriving in Menorca in 10 minutes, All hell broke loose.
“I cried to Wendy, ‘Oh my god, Wendy, He said Menorca not Mallorca.”
Ms Trestrail claims the flight attendant “burst out laughing” when she told her they were on the wrong plane during their flight out for the holiday in September last year.
It turns out, three seats on that flight were empty, and Wendy and Linda were sat in two of them, and they sat in the numbered seats that they were given on their original flight to Palma De Mallorca.
The horrified pair were told to stay on the plane, as the captain introduced himself and admitted he had never heard or experienced such an error in his whole career.
Jet2 have now apologised for the incident and Ms Trestrail and Russell were put on an internal flight to Majorca to reach their destinaton.
A spokesperson for Jet2 said: “We would like to offer our sincere apologies to Mses. Trestrail and Russell for this incident.
“This is an extremely isolated incident and although there was no security risk, we have of course investigated it as a matter of urgency, including with the third-party special assistance provider.
“We can confirm that the customers went through security correctly, and their luggage was also screened correctly. However, after these checks the customers were taken to the incorrect aircraft, which is the responsibility of the third-party special assistance provider at the airport.
“Upon boarding the aircraft, the incorrect destination on their boarding passes was unfortunately not identified and we apologise for this oversight which was down to human error.
“We have carried out additional training with the team to ensure this does not happen again. As soon as we learned of the issue, our team booked Mses. Trestrail and Russell onto the soonest available flight from Menorca to Majorca and they also provided all the assistance they could both throughout their journey and the rest of their holiday.
“We have been in touch with Mses. Trestrail and Russell to offer an appropriate gesture of goodwill and once again offer our sincere apologies.
“We understand they are due to travel with us once again this year, and we look forward to welcoming them onboard and delivering the usual VIP customer experience that we are recognised for.”
A spokesperson for Bristol Airport said: “Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention, we will continue to work with the airline and the special assistance provider to further investigate the circumstances and introduce improvements for the future.”
