Frontier Airlines accidentally flies passengers arriving in Florida to foreign countries without passports

Lifestyle

By Andrea Vacchiano, Fox Business

May 7, 2023 | 03:46

A New Jersey woman who intended to visit Florida claims a gate change caused her to go to Jamaica instead of Jacksonville.

Gloucester County resident Beverly Ellis-Hebard told WPVI she regularly flies from Philadelphia to her second home in Jacksonville.

She arrived at a gate for her November 6 flight that said “PHL to JAX”[ads1];.

“I fly once every six weeks. I chose Frontier flights because we flew so often,” she explained.

Ellis-Hebard asked a gate agent if she could use the restroom quickly.

When she returned, the plane was almost full and she was rushed onto the plane.

“[The gate agent] said, ‘Come on, come on. Give me your boarding pass. I’d say I took about ten steps and she said, ‘Are you Beverly Ellis-Hebard?'” the New Jersey resident explained. “I said, ‘You just had my boarding pass.’ You just checked me in. Yes! She said, ‘OK, go! Go.'”

Once on the plane, the flight crew told Ellis-Hebard that the Jacksonville flight had a gate change and that their flight was bound for Jamaica.

“I laughed. I said ‘I’d love to go there, but I have a beach where I live,'” Ellis-Hebard recalled.”[The flight attendant] said, ‘Look at me. This plane is going to Jamaica.’ And I knew by the look on her face that she wasn’t kidding.”

Without a passport, Ellis-Hebard could not leave the plane once it landed.

She remained in the jetway, which she says is considered American soil.

The flight crew stayed with her until her flight to Philadelphia took off several hours later.

Ellis-Hebard said the plane crash was not the only accident she experienced on the trip.

When she put her personal travel bag in the luggage size, she scratched her arm.

“I put it in and when I went to take it out, my arm here got scraped up. I was bleeding,” the traveler explained.

“We sincerely apologize that the customer was able to board the wrong flight and have extended our apologies,” a Frontier Airlines spokesperson said. “We have given her a refund and compensation, as well as raised the matter with airport staff.”