When we take a vacation, we expect to have a good time, but we realize that things aren’t going to go exactly as planned. However, for one man trying to get to the land down under, things went way off course.
It all started when Kingsley Burnett, a New Yorker, originally from Jamaica, wanted to take a dream vacation to Australia. According to KTVQ, he booked a flight from LaGuardia to Australia, hoping to hop on a cruise and visit Sydney.
However, he knew something was wrong when he got off the plane in Billings. That small town is located in Montana, and they had a plane waiting to take him to Sydney, Montana.
This was more than just a small mishap. The Billings gate agent confirmed it. Burnett was looking at the airport codes and got confused while booking his flight.
The 62-year-old did take a flight that day, but he was in the wrong city and on the wrong continent. According to KTVQ, he said: “It’s a matter of acronyms. The S-Y-D as opposed to S-D-Y. Somebody has to fix that.”
Perhaps Burnett was just excited to find such a discount ticket, compared to what is typically spent on a flight from LaGuardia to Sydney. He said he thought it was just a good deal.
“I saw the SDY [Sidney] and the SDY was cheaper than the SYD [Sydney].”
He then had a choice to make, and he decided to make the most of his vacation. It all started with a visit to the ticket desk, where Carol Castellano assisted him.
She said: “Kingsley came, and he goes, ‘I’ve got a problem.'” It wasn’t just a matter of him not being in the right area. Even if he did take off to head to Sydney, Australia, he would have to miss his cruise.
She did help him to get back to New York and booked him a room in a local hotel, the Boothill Inn. The hotel manager, Shelli Mann, told the news outlet it wasn’t the first time they had a guest stay who was trying to get to Sydney, Australia.
As far as Burnett is concerned, not all was lost. He said: “Montana didn’t have kangaroos. It had Carol. And that was good enough for me.” He also plans on heading to Australia in June.