Pawel Lawreniuk, 75, only realized he had landed in the wrong county when he found out a taxi driver didn’t speak Polish.
An elderly Polish Man visiting family in the UK was put on the WRONG plane home and ended up 1,000 miles away in Malta…
Mr Lawreniuk should have been on a Ryanair flight from Leeds-Bradford to Gdansk.
He only realised he had landed in the wrong county when he tried to get a cab ‘home’ only to discover the taxi driver didn’t speak Polish.
He had flown to the UK to see his daughter for two-weeks at Christmas.
Mr Lawreniuk was allowed to get on the wrong flight and the plane actually took him to Malta International Airport.
Retired engineer Mr Lawreniuk, who does not speak English, was stranded with little money, a phone which didn’t work in Malta and no grasp of the local language.
Luckily, a Polish-speaking woman overheard the worrying conversation and was on hand to contact his daughter and book him onto the correct flight that same day.
Mr Lawreniuk has since explained to family that he showed the plane ticket to staff on the flight who directed him to his seat – and as far as he was concerned he was on his way to Poland.
Daughter Lucyna, 34, of Bradford, said: “I double checked the ticket, printed it and it said Gdansk.
“There was a call to me at work and I saw it was from Malta. I thought oh s**t, there’s something wrong. I then saw someone writing on WhatsApp and saw the message.
“I cried, I was scared – he was in a different country, a different place. I don’t know how it is possible for him to make it all the way to Malta.
“He’s had bad dreams, he doesn’t want to come to me next year and doesn’t want to fly any more.”
Airport staff apologised and are investigating.
Have you ever ended up at the wrong airport?!
