An American dentist visiting Europe has sued BA after the airline refused to reimburse him for two first class tickets after flying him and his wife to Grenada in the Caribbean instead of Granada in Spain.
Mr Edward Gamson, who said he hadn’t taken a holiday in two years and had always wanted to visit the historic Spanish city and its famous Alhambra Palace, said he only noticed the mistake once he was on board the flight from London.
The booking mistake was allegedly made by BA’s agents in Florida and Mr Gamson claims the electronic tickets did not show the airport code, flight duration or destination country, only showing the name Grenada.
BA staff initially apologised for the error, but the airline later refused to put Mr Gamson and his wife on a flight back to London Gatwick en route to Granada, according to The Independent on Sunday.
After battling for three days, the couple never reached Spain and decided to file a complaint and ask to be reimbursed their £2,650 first-class tickets.
Mr Gamson told The Independent on Sunday: ‘I have a lifelong interest in Islamic art. I’m also of Spanish Jewish heritage so it was something I had always wanted to do to visit Granada and the Alhambra. I made it absolutely clear to the booking agent I wanted to go to Granada in Spain. Why on earth would I want to go to Grenada in the Caribbean if I was flying back to America from Lisbon?
‘It’s just so sad. A trip we had been really looking forward to was ruined and ... BA won’t do the decent thing.’
This is not the first time that a passenger ends up in Grenada in the Caribbean instead of Granada in Spain. Last year Lamenda Kingdon, a 62-year old former life coach from Plymouth, also found herself some 4,000 miles away from where she wanted to go.
Mrs Kingdon had planned her trip to Granada as part of a ‘bucket list’ of activities after she was diagnosed with breast cancer and a brain tumour.
She booked the flight over the phone using her late husband’s Avios air miles and did not notice when the ticket arrived that the destination was one letter different.
But while Avios, the air miles company owned by BA, reimbursed her points and put her on a flight to Malaga – the nearest major airport to Granada – the following day, BA is resisting Mr Gamson's damage claim for $34,000 (£20,000).
BA tried to have some of the lawsuit struck out, but a US judge rejected the request, with the claim now heading for a full hearing.
Judge James Boasberg wrote: ‘This case proves the truth of Mark Twain’s aphorism that “the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug”. Except here only a single letter’s difference is involved.’
