By Lyndsey Matthews, Good Housekeping
Looks like United can't catch a break. Over the course of the past month, Simon the Giant Rabbit died on a flight from London to Chicago, a passenger was forcibly removed from his flight, a bride and groom were kicked off a flight to their wedding, and a scorpion stung a passenger on another flight.
Now
they have another PR nightmare to handle. Recently, United passenger
Lucie Bahetoukilae—who only speaks French — ended up flying 3,000 in the
wrong direction after being accidentally allowed onto a flight from
Newark to San Francisco, even though she was supposed to fly to Paris.
Bahetoukilae
says she didn't realize United made a last-minute gate change for her
flight because they didn't make the announcement in French and never
notified her via email about the change.
"If
they would have made the announcement in French, she would she have
moved gates," Bahetoukilae's niece, Diane Miantsoko, who translated her
conversation with ABC's 7 On Your Side said. "Of course, because she speaks French she would've moved to another gate."
That's
where Bahetoukilae's seven hour journey turned into a 28-hour
nightmare. Even though Bahetoukilae's boarding pass said "Newark to
Charles de Gaulle," a United representative scanned it and let her board
the flight to SFO, which was now flying out of her original gate.
When
Bahetoukilae got to her seat, 22C, someone was already sitting there.
At that point Bahetoukilae says a flight attendant looked at her
boarding pass and sat her somewhere else on the plane that took her
3,000 miles in the wrong direction.
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Once she arrive in San Francisco, Bahetoukilae had to wait 11 hours for the next flight back to France.
While
United has settled the incident in a confidential lawsuit,
Bahetoukilae's family is more concerned about the major security lapse
the airline allowed.
"With
everything going on this country people have to be more careful,"
Miantsoko told 7 On Your Side. "They didn't pay attention. My aunt could
have been anyone. She could have been a terrorist and killed people on
that flight, and they didn't know they didn't catch it."
United has already admitted fault in the incident, calling it "a
horrible failure," according to 7 On Your Side. The airline also
refunded Bahetoukilae for her flight and gave her a voucher for another
flight to make up for the mishap.
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