Where am I?
我在哪儿？
When flyers end up in the wrong cities
下飞机才发现到错了城市…
And whom to blame
怪谁呢？
May 8th 2017
by A.W. | WASHINGTON, DC
WHEN Gulliver’s fiancée was growingup in Jeffersonville, Indiana, her uncle came for a visit. But as his flightlanded in Louisville, just across the Ohio River from Jeffersonville, he wasfast asleep. And he remained in that state as the plane took off again. It wasnot until an hour later that he sheepishly called his relatives to inform themthat he was 100 miles away in Cincinnati.
格列佛的未婚妻在印第安纳州的Jeffersonville长大。有一次她叔叔要来她们家。就在飞机降落在离Jeffersonville只有一河之隔（俄亥俄河）的路易斯维尔的时候，他甜甜地睡着了！然后就一直睡到飞机再次起飞。一小时后，他非常囧地给家人打电话说：“我到了一百英里外的Cincinnati(辛辛那提)。”
Was that the airline’s fault? Perhapsthe flight attendants should have done a more forceful job of making sure everypassenger, conscious or not, was aware of his arrival in Louisville. But onecan hardly blame the airline more than one would a train conductor for apassenger’s missed stop.
这，怪航空公司咯？也许你会说，在飞机到路易斯维尔的时候，空哥空姐们应该尽职尽责地确保清醒的、迷糊的乘客都下飞机。但是你坐火车坐过站都不会去找乘务员，凭什么坐飞机坐过了站就要怪航空公司呢？
Earlier this year, a Dutch teenager in searchof adventure before starting college booked a flight to Sydney. On his layoverin Toronto, he thought that the plane he was boarding seemed awfully small totake him 10,000 miles to Australia. But the flight was designated asSydney-bound, so he got on board. It was only after takeoff, when he looked atthe map and saw the plane going east instead of west, that he realisedsomething was wrong. Soon he landed in Sydney, Nova Scotia. He didn’t staylong, given that a blizzard was on its way and he’d packed beach clothes.
今年早些时候，荷兰一小伙儿在上大学之前想去看看这个世界。于是他订了张去悉尼的机票。在多伦多转机的时候，他瞅着那架将要上的飞机心里嘀咕：“这飞机看着实在小得可怜，怎么能飞到一万英里以外的澳大利亚呢？”氮素，信息牌上写的就是悉尼啊！于是他放心地上了飞机。飞机起飞后他看了看地图，发现飞机貌似在往东飞，而不是往西！他意识到不对劲了。然后，飞机很快就降落在悉尼——加拿大新斯科舍省的悉尼市！他没敢在那个悉尼待多久，因为一场暴风雪就要来了，而他的包里只装了沙滩裤！
Who was to blame? Given that anAmerican woman on the same flight apparently also thought she was headed DownUnder, the ticket-seller clearly had not done a great job of noting thedistinction. But really it is also incumbent on the flyer to make sure he is bound,say, for Monterrey, Mexico and not Monterey, California.
这又怪谁咯？假如一名美利坚女性也在那架飞机上，她也发现自己坐错航班了，她一定会认为是那个卖票的没给她说清楚目的地。但是，乘客自己也有责任搞清楚他到底要去哪儿，比如，是墨西哥的蒙特里，而不是加利福尼亚州的蒙特里。
But in the case of a recent disputebetween a French woman and United Airlines, it is hard not to put all of theblame on the airline. Unlike our unfortunate Dutch friend, she had a ticketbooked between the right two airports, Newark and Paris. She found the gatelisted on her boarding pass and entered the plane. Oddly, someone was sittingin her seat, but a flight attendant directed her to a free one, and shestrapped in and took off.
不过，说到最近一场关于一名法国大姐和美联航的争端的事儿，还真得怪美联航了。跟那位不幸的荷兰小伙不一样的是，她订票时把出发地和目的地都搞清楚了——从纽华克到巴黎。她按照登机牌上写的登机口上了飞机。“咦？怎么有人坐在我的位子上？”空姐指引她坐在了开放席位上。然后她系上安全带，飞机起飞。
Six hours later, she landed in SanFrancisco.
六小时候，飞机降落在旧金山。
It turned out that United hadannounced a gate change back in Newark, but the woman, who spoke no English,did not understand and had no reason to think it applied to her. Here was thefirst mistake by United: critical announcements such as these should really bemade in the languages of the origin and destination countries.
事后发现，在纽华克机场，美联航通知登机口有变更。而这位大姐不懂英语，她觉得那通知跟她没关系。这是美联航犯的第一个错误：像登机口变更这样的重要通知应该用出发地和目的地的两种语言广播。然而美联航并没有这么做。
But bigger lapses were to come.United allowed a passenger to board the wrong flight. Either the gate agent didnot scan her boarding pass or the scanner rejected it and she was allowed onanyway. (As Gary Leffpointed outon his View From the Wingblog, American airlines do not typically re-check boarding passes at theaeroplane door, while those in many other countries do.) And when she told crewthat someone was in her seat, the flight attendant should have checked herboarding pass and noticed that she was on the wrong plane.
更大的错误还在后面：美联航让乘客登上了错误的航班。要么是登机口的工作人员没扫描她的登机牌，要么是扫描仪根本没扫出来，反正她就这么上了飞机。（正如Gary Leff在他的博客View From the Wing中指出，大多数国家的航空公司通常都会在飞机入口处再次确认乘客的登机牌，而美国的航空公司却没有。）而且，当这位大姐告诉空乘她的座位被人占了的时候，空姐本应该再次看看她的登机牌，然后就能发现她上错了飞机。
The passenger’s family is most concernedabout the safety implications of United’s oversights. “My aunt could have beenanyone,” her English-speaking niecetoldABC7. “She could have been aterrorist and killed people on that flight and they didn't know.” But that isnot likely. After all, she had already made it through security, and airlinesdo not deter terrorism by making sure everyone is on the right plane.
这位大姐的家人接受了美国广播公司（ABC）7台的采访。他们说，最担心的其实是美联航的疏忽所导致的安全隐患。她的侄女能讲英语，她说：“万一是个恐怖分子大摇大摆地上了飞机准备去杀人呢？而美联航却一无所知。”不过那也不大可能。毕竟她已经顺利过了安检。而且就算美联航能确保每位乘客都上对了飞机，也无法阻止恐怖分子啊。
The far bigger issue is simply the realisationof every flyer’s nightmare of ending up in the wrong city. When the flight crewannounces over the plane’s PA, “If Chicago is not your destination, please seea member of the crew,” most of us laugh it off, assuming that there are enoughchecks to prevent that from occurring. As these anecdotes remind us, there arenot.
最最大的问题就是，这种状况下，任何乘客都可能飞到错误的地方，而这样的噩梦正在成为现实。当机组人员通过广播系统说：“如果您的目的地不是芝加哥，请马上联系我们”，大部分人都会哈哈哈，因为我们总认为，检查都那么到位了，怎么会出错呢。然而，正是这些差错让我们意识到，检查还不够到位。
United settled a suit with the Frenchpassenger, admitted fault, and apologised. But the airline must take steps toensure this does not happen in the future. Maybe, two weeks after Unitedannouncedten policy changes following ahorrific incident in which a passenger was dragged off one of its flights, itought to add a couple of new ones to the list.
美联航跟这位法国乘客达成了和解，认了错，也道了歉。但是美联航必须采取一些措施确保此类事件不再发生。美联航之前还发生过的一起可怕事件——拖拽乘客，并随即于两周后宣布了10项重要改变措施。考虑到这次的法国乘客事件，也许那些措施还得再加上几条。
