Gender equality hits dangerous high: man flies on girlfriend’s passport
30 Aug 2017
A man has flown from London to Germany on an EasyJet flight using his girlfriend's passport – despite her having long blonde hair compared to his much darker hair and short-cut style.
Michael Randall, 23, passed security checks at Gatwick Airport and boarded the flight to Berlin before he realised that he had Charlotte Bull's passport, which he said he had picked up by mistake while rushing to catch the early-morning flight.
He later showed the travel document to cabin crew as he boarded the Airbus plane to Berlin, again without ringing any alarm bells.
It was only when he got off the plane that he realised his mistake and told immigration officials, who questioned him for 90 minutes.
Randall, a technician with the McLaren Formula One team, called for an inquiry and said that it was ''outrageous I got that far''.
''EasyJet are meant to check the name against the boarding pass but they obviously didn't. It's very worrying as I don't even look like Charlotte.''
Those viewing the two's photos side by side may want to disagree with the latter statement – the two do, in fact, look rather alike. Still, the differences are glaring enough for the mistake to be unforgivable.
Randall said he had accidentally picked up the wrong ID when he left his home in Staines, Middlesex in the early hours of the morning.
But the authorities in Berlin's Schoenefeld were eventually alerted to the fact he was using his girlfriend's passport and questioned him for 90 minutes before finally letting him enter the city on a one-day visa.
Bull, 34, said, ''It was a terrible breach of security, even more so considering how scary current times are.''
The couple, who live together, had just returned from a holiday in France when Randall lifted the wrong passport for his trip to Berlin the morning after.
He told the Sunday People, ''The first I knew something was wrong was when I arrived at Berlin airport. I thought honesty was the best policy so I went and told security.
''They pulled me aside and made me wait for the whole plane to disembark. At first I thought they were going to confiscate Charlotte's passport.''
Randall had travelled to Berlin to see a motorbike race and later that day a colleague who was travelling to the same event from Britain brought his co-worker's passport with him.
An EasyJet spokeswoman said the right passport details were entered online but ''visual identification'' on boarding should have spotted the error.
She said, "We are investigating how the passenger was able to travel from London Gatwick with the incorrect documentation.''
It came just a month after a tourist claimed he flew home from Ibiza to Manchester on his friend's passport.
Scott Morgan, 27, said he picked up friend Dominic Carroll's travel document the morning after the pair had a night out in the resort of San Antonio.
British Airways launched a probe after the apparent security breach came to light on one of their flights. Officials in Manchester Airport and the Home Office are also investigating.
