BERLIN (Reuters) - A 21-year-old German tourist who wanted to visit his girlfriend in the Australian metropolis Sydney landed 13,000 kilometres away near Sidney, Montana, after mistyping his destination on a flight booking Web site.

Should proofeading be taught in schools?

Now I know why they announce the destination of a flight before people are allowed to enter the jetway.

Please don't tell me he boarded a flight to the US and still thought he was headed for Australia.

Dukey - Actually he did. He said he thought he was getting to Australia via the US. He was routed to Portland OR. He claims he didn't discover his error until he was getting on the commuter plane to Sidney, Montana. His parents said they didn't double check his schedule because he was so good with computers. Still really strange - and hard to believe.

http://www.fodors.com/forums/pgMessa...2&tid=34920198

hahahaha - poor guy.

We always check the airport code, especially on our luggage. Don't know how many times airport clerks have started to put tags on our luggage which would send it to Charleston, SC instead of Charleston, WV.

I worked for a couple airlines when I was in college and this isn't uncommon. On several occassions we had people who wanted to go to Portland, Oregon return to us in Newark after finding out that the Portland they booked was in Maine.

My favorite was the guy who saw snow on the ground and realized that it wasn't Albany Georgia he'd flown to.

I always check the luggage tags, I want to be sure my luggsge is going where I am.

I had it occur once when I wanted to go to Lafeyette, IN, but instead purchased a full itinerary to go to Lafayette, LA. Fortunately, I caught my error well before going to the airport.

I've also made the honest mistake, when booking in a hurry, of buying a Dulles ticket when I meant to fly into Reagan, or a Midway ticket when wanting to go to O'Hare (especially if you do broader searches by city (CHI) instead of airport (ORD).

I was once on a flight from Newark to London- a lady accidently got on our flight - she was supposed to fly from Newark to Baltimore and ended up going to London- our plane was going on to Frankfort so she had to stay in the London airport in customs until they came back and picked her up - I heard the customs people escorted her out so she could buy a couple of postcards to show she really had been there.
Of course that was in the days before such tight security.

happytrailstoyou said "Should proofeading be taught in schools?"

I presume your misspelling of proofreading was intentional?