79-year-old wants to fly to Berlin – and lands in Italy 2026

27. Mai 2025, 14:44 Uhr | Lesezeit: 3 Minuten

A planned trip to Berlin ended in Bologna for a 79-year-old Swede. How could this happen? The answer reveals troubling security gaps – and raises questions that go far beyond a mistaken flight route.

Switching with consequences

Lena, a 79-year-old Swede who did not want to reveal her last name, actually wanted to travel to Berlin via Copenhagen. She had booked the flight with Easyjet and had to change at Kastrup Airport. But while boarding, she apparently accidentally ran after another group of passengers - and got on the wrong plane.

She probably first noticed inconsistencies in the cabin. “Wait a minute, I should fly with Easyjet,” she initially thought, as Lena told the Swedish newspaper
“Expressen” tells – this is reported by BILD, among others. But since there was no one sitting in her seat and she could imagine that the two low-cost airlines Ryanair and Easyjet were working together, she stayed on board.

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Bologna instead of Berlin

During the flight she was surprised at how long the journey would take. “I thought maybe we were late,” Lena tells Expressen. The surprise came upon arrival – a sign at the airport announced: “Welcome to Bologna!”

She then immediately contacted her son, with whom she had actually wanted to meet in Berlin. He immediately contacted Easyjet and Ryanair - but initially without success. Ryanair only reacted hours later: airline employees put Lena in a taxi to Venice. From there she finally flew to Berlin.

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Security gap at the gate?

It is still unclear how it was possible for a passenger to get on the wrong plane without being disturbed. Lena thinks she showed her boarding pass at the gate. Ryanair said in an email that each passenger is responsible for boarding the right aircraft, according to Expressen. In addition, the boarding in Copenhagen was carried out by an external service provider.

Copenhagen airport management has announced that it will investigate the incident. Lena expresses great concern to Expressen about what happened: “What would have happened if it had been a terrorist?”

Lost passengers are not an isolated case

Other travelers have also found in the past that even boarding passes that have been checked several times do not guarantee a correct flight route. In the fall of 2023, the two British pensioners Linda Trestrail (69) and Wendy Russell (71), who actually wanted to fly from Bristol to Mallorca, accidentally got lost in Menorca - Sunnytrips reported. It was only when the pilot announced the landing on the smaller neighboring island that the women noticed the error - even though their boarding passes in Bristol had been checked five times beforehand.

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Similar to Lena's case, the responsible airline Jet2 attributes the incident to a "human error" by an external service provider. The two women, who were brought to the plane in wheelchairs due to limited mobility, were probably accidentally taken to the wrong Jet2 plane on the tarmac. The short-haul flight ultimately turned into an odyssey lasting more than 17 hours for the two women.

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