Ryanair passenger ends up in Ukraine instead of Spain

They may rhyme, but they’re very different places

The passenger ended up in the wrong country

A woman claims she ended up more than 2,500km away from her intended destination after boarding the wrong Ryanair flight.  

Inka Fileva, 30, says she was due to fly to Valencia in Spain, but was somehow able to board an aircraft bound for Kiev, Ukraine.

The bartender didn’t notice she had walked to the wrong gate for her early morning flight from Stansted airport on 18 October – and, apparently, neither did any of the gate agents responsible for checking her ticket.

Falling asleep shortly after take-off, Ms Fileva, who lives in London, didn’t realise she was heading to the wrong country until the plane touched down.

It was only when she saw the airport signs that it clicked into place.

“I got so scared as the police started approaching me, no one spoke English and they kept asking for my passport,” she told the Daily Star.

“I don’t understand how my ticket got scanned and passed and how I came here without a visa.”

Ms Fileva claims that her ticket had been scanned at the gate before boarding and had been checked “a few times”, but that no one noticed the error.

“I even asked on the plane what time I would arrive in Valencia, and they told me it'd be two hours and 15 minutes long,” she said.

Once she realised what had happened, Ms Fileva became “scared” and started crying.  

She said that staff were confused about how she had ended up there and kept asking to see her ticket for Kiev.

“I kept showing them the ticket to Valencia, they couldn’t understand how this happened,” she said.

The situation was exacerbated further by the fact that Ryanair does not have a ticket desk at Kiev airport, according to Ms Fileva, who said she had to rely on other airport employees to help her.

Eventually, she was rebooked on a flight back to London the following day, with an onwards ticket for Valencia also secured.

It remains unclear how ticket scans failed to identify the error.

The Independent has commented Ryanair for comment.