Beverly Ellis-Hebard thought she had boarded a flight to Jacksonville, Florida. Boy was she surprised.
Beverly Ellis-Hebard flies to Florida's Jacksonville airport all the time. She considers herself a veteran traveler.
But the New Jersey woman had a very big surprise recently when she learned, after the jetliner had taken off, that she was really headed to Jamaica.
And she had no passport.
"I fly once every six weeks. I picked Frontier flights because we flew so often," she told WABC-TV. She had arrived at Philadelphia's airport and checked in for her flight to Jacksonville.
Then she went to the restroom. When she came back, the flight was nearly boarded, she said, and an agent hurried her aboard. Along the way, she injured her arm after placing her carry-on in the baggage sizer to make sure it was the correct dimensions.
After take-off, she said, as a flight attendant helped her clean her bloody arm, the Frontier employee told her she would have plenty of time to heal and rest up once they landed in Jamaica.
"I laughed. I said, 'I would love to be going there but I have a beach where I live,'" Ellis-Hebard recounted. "She said, 'Look at me. This plane is going to Jamaica.' And I knew by the look on her face she wasn't joking."
A last-minute gate change had resulted in Ellis-Hebard boarding the wrong flight.
Now Ellis Hebard had two problems. Not only was she going the wrong destination, she had no passport.
"You're entering a different country without a passport. That's bad," Ellis-Hebard said the crew told her. Jamaican authorities allowed her to remain in the airport until she could board a flight back to Philadelphia.
The woman said she should never have been allowed to get on the flight without showing a passport.
After her ordeal, Frontier Airlines issued a statement to the station.
"We extend our utmost apologies to Beverly Ellis-Hebard for this unfortunate experience. We sincerely regret that Ms. Ellis-Hebard was able to board the wrong flight," airline officials said.
"As a gesture of our apology, we have issued a $600 Frontier Airlines flight voucher tied to the name Beverly Ellis-Hebard that is valid for one year."
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