A New York man's dream trip to Australia's Sydney turned into an absolute debacle when he landed in a different 'Sidney'. According to a Guardian report, Kingsley Burnett who had planned a vacation in Sydney got confused with the airport codes and mistakenly booked a flight to Sidney in the United States.
Speaking to KTVQ, Mr Burnett said he realised his mistake when he saw snow-capped mountains instead of sunny beaches from the window of his plane. It was then he realized that he had booked and caught a flight to the tiny town of Sidney in Montana rather than the Australian city.
Mr Burnett attributed the massive goof-up to airport codes. "It's a matter of acronyms. The S-Y-D as opposed to S-D-Y. Somebody has to fix that," Mr Burnett said. While SYD is used to refer to Australia, SDY is used to refer to eastern Montana city.
Mr Burnett also said he was trying to save money when purchasing his tickets, and admitted that he was surprised by the cheap airfares. Regretting his oversight, he added, that he should have paid close attention to the final destination instead.
After being stranded in a different city, Mr Burnett eventually had to wait for his return flight at a local hotel. He has now rescheduled his Australian trip to June.
The hotel manager revealed this was the second time a guest had mixed up airport codes for Sydney and Sidney. "It's the second time we've had a guest who was trying to get to Sydney, Australia," the manager told KTVQ.
Interestingly, there is also a Sydney in Nova Scotia, Canada. In 2017, a similar incident happened when a teenager heading for Sydney, Australia, accidentally caught a flight to Sydney, Nova Scotia.
When Milan Schipper was looking at flights from Amsterdam to Sydney, he found one ticket that was almost $300 cheaper than the rest, CBC reported. He arrived in Sydney, Nova Scotia, wearing a T-shirt, sweatpants and a thin jacket, as the city faced a blizzard. He then travelled back to Amsterdam, where his father picked him up at the airport.
