Plane lands in wrong city

Seville instead of Santiago de Compostela

Two city trips for the price of one - that's what Spanair's passengers got - without asking.

One of Spanair's pilots lost his way on a domestic flight and took his passengers to the wrong city. The plane did not fly from Barcelona to Santiago de Compostela in the north-west of Spain as scheduled, but to Seville in the south. The distance between the two cities is some 700 km.

According to press reports on Tuesday, the Airline put the mistake down to the fact that the Swedish crew had mixed up the airports' abbreviations. Santiago has the code SCQ, while Seville is SVQ. Spanair had leased the aircraft and its crew from its partner Nordic Airways.

The inability of the crew to speak Spanish had apparently added to the confusion. The 95 passengers were somewhat surprised when they landed. Some of them had already been iritated by the plane's route in westerly direction, out of Barcelona and over the Mediterranean. As soon as the mistake had been cleared up, the plane flew the travellers from Seville to their destination in Santiago.