Molde Airport is a very small affair, a handful of flights every day, and no such fancy thing as boarding tunnels; rather, you were just passed through at the gate and let onto the apron, where a plane would be waiting.
Only on that day, there were TWO planes waiting, one hidden from view behind a hangar - but both were from then national flag carrier Braathens.
So, I get out from my gate as the very last passenger, having bought a standby ticket, so no pax to follow, lemmings style, to my plane.
Walking over to single plane in view, I board and find my seat on the nearly empty flight, door closes, pre-departure briefing, taxiing towards runway.
And then they announce that estimated flight time to Oslo will be 45 minutes. Uh, Oslo?
So, I call for a stewardess, who suggests that whatever I may need, just wait until we're airborne. 'Uh, that's kind of the point - I am going to BERGEN, not Oslo.'
She runs off to alert the captain, and a minute or two later, a truck with boarding stairs come zipping alongside, I disembark, get driven over to the plane to Bergen and as I board the correct plane, a guy is getting off the Bergen-bound plane and is driven over to the plane I had just left.
As we both had stumbled onto the wrong plane, the tally matched the expected numbers and all seemed normal - until they'd announced where we were actually going, that is.
That may not happen nowadays, even at small airports
Both flights were going to Cyprus, one to Greek side other to Turkish side, boarding at the same time from adjacent gates... Great move British Airways!
The plane they should have gotten on got delayed for many hours because they had a missing passenger so had to remove the stowed luggage[0] after giving up waiting. However they somehow didn't catch the extra passenger in the other plane.
Now this wasn't too long after the tumultuous events[1] in 1974, and so tension was still high between the two sides. So when my family member naively tried to cross the border to get to where they were going, they were assumed to be a spy and got held for interrogation.
After a couple of days of really intense interrogation they got to cross the buffer zone[2], being told in no uncertain terms never ever to come back to the Turkish side.
[0]: edit I'm pretty sure this was before the Lockerbie bombing, in any case I do recall my parents telling me they were worried about the "surprise luggage" being a bomb.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_invasion_of_Cyprus
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Buffer_Zone_in_...
Flying to Cyprus continues to be exciting to this day, by the way: There are two "competing" air traffic control radio stations [1], which I really wish was just a nonsensical term, but which is apparently a phenomenon not unique to Cyprus [2].
( although I have heard that there is a workaround whereby flights, typically charter-flights, will 'fly' to an airport in Southern Türkiye, and then vary their flight-plan to redirect to Ercan airport instead).
It can be used to stretch the range of a fight in case of good weather while having options for worst case weather. For example you can plan Tel Aviv to Antwerp, while selling Tel Aviv to Amsterdam (this is on the edge for maximum range of a 737 with full capacity), then re-plan to Amsterdam if all conditions meet the rules.
There are two parts of fuel planning that make this work. The first is that you need for example 5% of the trip fuel for contingency. That's 5% of the full 8 hour trip on takeoff but that becomes 5% of the 1 hour (past Antwerp to Amsterdam) at the re-planning moment.
The second is diversion fuel to fly to an alternate airport in case you cannot land at the destination. At the departure moment weather for the destination is more uncertain (because it's still 8 hours into the future). That means your chances of diverting are higher and if it's a big storm system you can't be diverting to a very nearby airport (Rotterdam is 10 min flight away and fine for a 737). So you need to plan for holding and a diversion to something an hour away.
Now in flight you get near Antwerp, you're only an hour from Amsterdam (where you really want to go), you have accurate destination weather and you re-plan that one hour. With Rotterdam as an alternate (in case the airport closes for a non-weather related reason). Contingency is 5% of that 1 hour, and typically you will have saved some fuel in the first 7 hours due to shortcuts because it's "plan for the worst" at departure time but reality is more favourable. Now your calculations for the 1 hour extra all meet the rules, so you go there.
Maybe 1% of the cases with very bad weather and exceptional circumstances you may end up in Antwerp instead of Amsterdam. Then you re-fuel there and make the short hop to Amsterdam afterwards. An hour or 2 delay on a bad weather day isn't really unheard of for passengers.
I think I'm missing something – what if somebody actually wants to get off in Amsterdam? Does the ticket come with a little asterisk saying "you're likely to end up in Antwerp"? Or are you talking about chartered or private flights?
I personally would be annoyed if I booked a non-stop that was expected to have s top by default but I guess if it works out a high enough portion of the time it doesn't really matter
You go to Amsterdam 99% of the time, only when the weather is bad you could end up in Antwerp. But that happens to "normal" non-replanned flights as well, if weather at the destination is bad they could also divert to Antwerp.
As soon as they scanned my boarding pass all hell broke loose. Flashing red lights, sirens going off, the whole works. They were very nice about it, but yeah, that particular system made it impossible not to notice.
If you had a ticket, regardless of the name on it, you could walk into the airport, go to the gate, and get on a flight. It's a different situation, but things were generally pretty casual, and I just don't recall there being anything dramatic about a simple gate mixup.
But when you get off the plane in Tassie there's the k-9 search...
Also, it wouldn’t be uncommon to joke around (although there are some hard-asses); if they legitimately did recognise a YouTube, I could see them getting a selfie together.
Every few years there is a story about tourists who turn up in Sydney, Nova Scotia, thinking they were going on vacation to Sydney, Australia.
They didn’t board the wrong flight, they booked the wrong ticket
But it must be a wild surprise.
Think that was on buying a ticket and somehow hot noticing the vast price difference.
https://www.thelocal.de/20190325/british-airways-flight-ends...
That plane will have been on a valid flight plan but to the wrong place, there is no way for the flight crew to go to a completely different place than the flight plan. Because the air traffic control computers also have the flight plan. So their instructions are going towards the filed destination. Any discrepancy would be noticed on both sides very quickly because you get instructions that don't fit the plan.
The one thing the crew can screw up during the flight is landing at an airport right next to the destination when on a visual approach. By visually confusing the two airports. There are procedures to avoid it, but it still happens.
Like the 747 that landed at Jabara airport, a tiny corporate/general aviation airport.
(I think this is why many pilots say on the intercoms before pushback as to where the plane is going, if they say Birmingham and the entire plane bursts into screaming and crying, then they know … they got it right ;) ).
par for the course with that guy, amazed he could tie his shoes most days.
Boarding scan rejected my boarding pass with a red light and loud buzz and I had to walk-of-shame in front of my colleagues down to my actual gate (which was leaving around an hour and a half later, IIRC).