Two given same boarding pass, Air India says only an error

When Dr Amit Sachdeva (31) settled down in his seat on an Air India Varanasi to Delhi flight on Tuesday, he had no idea that this would be his most bizarre journey ever. Sidhartha Roy reports.

When Dr Amit Sachdeva (31) settled down in his seat on an Air India Varanasi to Delhi flight on Tuesday, he had no idea that this would be his most bizarre journey ever.

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Sachdeva had reached the Varanasi airport more than an hour before the 6pm flight and was issued a boarding pass for aisle seat 8D. A few minutes after he sat down, another passenger arrived and asked him to vacate the seat, as it had been allotted to him.

“I was surprising to learn that we both had been given the same seat. The real shocker, however, came when I saw his boarding pass — it had my name and ticket number on it,” Sachdeva said.

“When I approached the cabin crew, they said that it was common for two passengers to be issued the same boarding pass,” he said.

After Sachdeva refused to vacate the seat, senior airline officials intervened. “Instead of resolving the issue, they tried to offload me from the plane, even though I was travelling on a genuine ticket,” he said.

Air India, however, disagreed. “There was absolutely no security breach, as there was only an error in the names on the boarding passes,” said an Air India spokesman. “Both the passengers were checked in as per their reservation with their original ticket numbers and issued different seats,” he said.