She Realized Her Error When She Saw the 'Welcome to Bologna' Sign

79-year-old woman booked on flight to Berlin had the right gate but boarded the wrong plane
Posted May 27, 2025 9:11 PM CDT
She Realized Her Error When She Saw the 'Welcome to Bologna' Sign
A Ryanair Boeing 737 prepares to land.   (AP Photo/Armando Franca)

A 79-year-old woman named Lena who thought she was on a flight from Copenhagen to Berlin last week thought something was a little off when she noticed it was a Ryanair aircraft, not an easyJet one, but she believed it might be a code-share flight. The flight was also around half an hour longer than she expected, but she didn't realize she had gotten on the wrong flight until she got off the plane and saw a sign saying "Welcome to Bologna," reports Berliner Morgenpost. The woman, who was changing planes in Copenhagen after flying from Sweden, boarded the flight to Italy, which departed from the same gate as the easyJet flight to Germany she was booked on, after seeing screens that said Berlin passengers should go to the gate, the Daily Beast reports.

Lena says that when she got to the gate, she saw other passengers boarding and hurried to get on board, Expressen reports. She says she should have realized she was on the wrong plane, but it's concerning that she was able to board it in the first place. By coincidence, the seat number she had been assigned for the easyJet flight was unoccupied on the Ryanair flight. Lena was traveling to Germany to help her son support a group of students attending a United Nations conference. She says airline staff in Bologna were not very helpful and she spent most of the day at the airport. Ryanair staff eventually arranged a taxi to Venice, two hours away, where she spent the night in a hotel before traveling to Germany the next day. Her luggage, meanwhile, remained in Copenhagen. (More airline passengers stories.)

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