Dutch teen books flight to the wrong Sydney
Planned Australian trip takes a Nova Scotia twist
It’s the tag end of winter. A kind of fatigue sets and escaping to sunkissed beaches sounds like a golden idea.
So, with that thought in mind, and looking forward to some backpacking, enjoying and working in Sydney, Australia, 18-year-old Milan Schipper of Vaassen, Holland, booked his flight, according to a CBC Radio interview. He combed through websites looking for that perfect, cheap flight and found one, costing 800 euros, as opposed to others that cost him1,000 euros.
“I thought I was going to Australia, but that turned out a little different,” he said, in the interview.
Schipper said he realized “quite late” that he wasn’t headed to Australia.
“I saw the plane — and the plane was really small,” he said. “So I figured, would that make it to Australia? But afterwards, I checked the screen on the seat in front of me and I checked the flight plan and everything and then I saw all the flight plan was going to go right and up left. Yeah, that was about the time that I realized there was another Sydney.”
All that Schipper saw of Nova Scotia, in the five hours he was there, was the parking lot of the airport. Airport employees helped him get back to Toronto, where after another 12 hours, he got back on the right flight to Amsterdam, where he was picked up by his father.
This is not the first time that someone has made such a mistake.
In 2002, a young English couple, Emma Nunn of Sidcup, Kent, and Raoul Christian, of Charlton, south east London, both 19 years old, bought tickets online for 740 pounds, to Sydney, according to a report in the BBC. But instead of sunny Sydney, Australia, they ended up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The couple decided to stay and make the most of the trip.
Also mistaking Sydney, Nova Scotia, for Sydney, Australia were a Dutch grandfather and grandson, Joannes Rutten and15-year-old Nick Rutten of Amsterdam, Netherlands, in 2009; Monique Rozanes, of Argentina, in 2008; and Valerio Torresi, 26, and Serena Tavoloni, 25, of Italy, in 2010.
Earlier this year, an elderly couple were wheeled to the wrong gate at a South Florida airport, and ended up on a flight to New York instead of Michigan.
According to a travel website, some of the cities with the same name in different countries include: Ottawa, Kansas; Paris, Texas; Cairo, Illinois; Athens, Ohio; and Aberdeen, Washington; among others.
Perhaps, next time Schipper and the rest of us will double check the city before hitting, book.