Intrepid travelling teenager Milan Schipper believed he was headed for the summer playground of Sydney when he boarded a recent flight from Amsterdam.
How wrong he was.
The 18-year-old from The Netherlands had snagged an online flight that was roughly AUD$400 cheaper than all of the others and so was pretty proud of himself in landing the ‘sweet as’ fare.
You can just imagine the banter to his mates on scoring the deal.
It was only when Schipper was already on the plane and buckled in that he noticed he was headed in the wrong direction.
That’d be Sydney in Nova Scotia, Canada not Sydney, Australia – 22,000kms away.
MIlan Schipper
According to CBC News, 18-year old Schipper had planned to spend some time backpacking and working around Australia before starting college back in the Netherlands.
Schipper said he first noticed an issue when he landed in Toronto for a stopover and spotted an Air Canada plane.
He said he was surprised but boarded the plane anyway, at which point he finally realised what was going on.
“The plane was really small and so I figured, would that make it to Australia?” he said.
“Then I saw the flight plan was going to go right, not left,” Schipper said. “It was about the time that I realised there was another Sydney,” he told CBC News.
Schipper landed in Nova Scotia wearing a t-shirt and track pants to find a blizzard approaching and not quite the summer sunshine and friendly ‘G’day’s’ he was expecting.
G’day Mr Schipper, this is Sydney…
After explaining the rather embarrassing situation to Air Canada airport employees in Nova Scotia who no doubt had a good laugh about it, Schipper was luckily able to get a flight back home. Clearly they felt sorry for him.
So after spending five no doubt awkward hours in transit in Sydney, Nova Scotia, he flew back to Amsterdam.
As news broke of his gaffe back in the Netherlands, Schipper said an airline had offered him a free ticket to Australia. But after notching up fifty hours of travel, he wasn’t so keen to take up the offer. “Yeah, [it’s] really nice,” he said. “But I’m not really sure if I’m going to go again.”
Apparently he’s not the only one who has had a mix up, as Schipper told CBC News there was a woman from the U.S. on his flight who had made the same mistake.
Sure Mr Schipper. Whatever.
If only he’d used a Travel Agent.