As far as flight-booking fuck-ups go, there’s booking with the wrong name, booking on the wrong day entirely, and then there’s this.
I mean, did you even know there was a Canadian Sydney? Neither, but you do now – and so does Dutch 18-year-old Milan Schipper, who booked a flight to a Sydney, but not, as it turns out, the Sydney.
Hoping to follow in many of his countrymen’s footsteps and backpack around our fine sunny land, Schipper booked a 22-hour flight to Sydney that was about €200 less than all the others.
A bargain!
Until he got off the plane in Novia Scotia, Canada.
According to ‘The Guardian‘, Schipper started to twig that something wasn’t quite right with his itinerary during a stopover in Toronto.
“The plan was really small and so I figured, would that make it to Australia?”
the short answer is “no”
Unfortunately, he only realised the true scope of his error when he was on that very small plane.
“I saw the flight plan was going to go right, not left. It was about the time that I realised there was another Sydney.“I felt terrible. I think I swore in my head for like 10 minutes.”
Kudos to him for only swearing in his head. Can’t say I’d exercise that much restraint in the same circumstances.
The poor bugger ended up turning around and flying straight home, where his dad picked him up from the airport solely in order to take the piss out of him.
“He felt really sorry for me. He also laughed an awful lot, just like everyone else.”
It’s not all bad, though – an airline in the Netherlands has offered Schipper a free ticket to Australia, which is a bloody good deal for a 48-hour round trip into your own foolishness if you ask me.
Apparently Schipper isn’t the only punter to have made this error – in fact, there was an American woman on the same flight who was similarly perplexed by all the snow, and lack of kangaroos.
What’s the lesson here? Learn your airport codes before booking international travel? Pack for all conditions? Don’t trust a tiny plane to get you across the Pacific? Maybe one of the Sydneys should just change its name. We’ve all gotten used to calling ours The Bad City anyway.
Source: The Guardian.
Image: Brook Attakorn / Spencer Platt / Getty.
