Two British holidaymakers were left in “an awful state” after the airline they were travelling with flew them to the wrong Spanish island.
The elderly pair have blasted Jet2 for the mistake, which they said “ruined” their holiday.
Linda Trestrail, 69, and 71-year-old Wendy Russell boarded a flight to Menorca rather than Mallorca despite claiming their tickets were checked five times at Bristol Airport – only discovering the mistake as the plane was landing at their unintended destination.
Jet2 has apologised for the incident, blaming “human error” and a third-party special assistance provider at the airport. The women received wheelchair assistance in Bristol and were helped onto the shuttle bus as well as the plane – and said there was even a head count.
“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,” Ms Trestrail told the Daily Mirror.
“You get compensated if you get delayed or lose luggage, but they lost us, not the bloody baggage. Jet2Holidays, the package holidays you can trust – yeah right.”
Ms Trestrail claimed that, after boarding, a member of cabin crew asked the pair if they were in the correct seat – to which they answered yes – before taking away the tickets to confirm everything was in order.
It was as the plane descended over the Mediterranean that the Brits discovered the error.
“Chao ensued… I told the flight attendant we were on the wrong plane and she burst out laughing. Our tickets were checked five times, even by the flight attendant twice on the plane. Two passengers had flown from Bristol Airport to Menorca and Jet2 didn’t even know who was on their plane.”
To make matters worse, their luggage had travelled on the correct aircraft and was in Mallorca, which contained medication for Ms Russell. She said their families were “so worried”.
After several hours of waiting, they were flown to Palma De Mallorca and managed to make it to their resort – 17 hours after leaving home.
Although the tourists “tried to make the best of the situation”, Ms Trestrail described their experience as “disgraceful”.
The Independent has contacted Jet2 for comment.
A spokesperson for the airline told The Mirror: "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 Mallorca and they also provided all the assistance they could both throughout their journey and the rest of their holiday.
The low-cost carrier added that it had been in touch with the pair to apologise and “offer an appropriate gesture of goodwill”.
Bristol Airport told The Independent: “We will continue to work with the airline and the special assistance provider to further investigate the circumstances and to ensure improvements are introduced for the future.”
