It does happen that people have the same name, but also the same date of birth? There can be problems there. As in the case of Kieran Harris, 21, from near Chester in the north of England.
Harris was due to fly from Liverpool to Alicante on holiday with a friend on May 25, but received an email from Easyjet the night before departure. The airline said his ticket had been cancelled. The reason: “disturbing behavior in the past”, whereupon Harris received a ten-year flight ban until March 15, 2031. And then Easyjet pointed out that all future booking attempts will result in the penalty increasing.
Kieran Harris was “completely exhausted” at first, as he now is DailyMirror told. He just couldn’t believe it, so he called Easyjet. Anyone who has ever been on the British low-cost airline’s customer hotline knows that it’s no fun. According to Harris, it took him almost a full day to clear things up. It went back and forth until Easyjet finally asked for a photo of his passport to verify his identity. Lo and behold, he wasn’t the Kieran Harris the airline thought he was.
Apparently it wasn’t the first time Harris had been mistaken for the Easyjet troublemaker. Not only are the two namesakes, they share the same date of birth and both live in northern England. That in turn led to police showing up at his home last year, according to Harris (the non-flying man), to hold him accountable for something he didn’t commit – but allegedly the Harris with the grounding. The police then apologized, apparently it was a mix-up.
Easyjet also apologized. “We are very sorry that Mr. Harris was wrongly told that he could not fly,” said a company spokesman. The decision was made because Harris has the same name and date of birth as a passenger who was grounded by Easyjet for a serious onboard offense. In addition, the person was also flown from the same region of Great Britain.
Things worked out well for Kieran Harris (the one not grounded). He was able to go on vacation with the originally booked flight. Easyjet understood Harris’ frustration and promised “to offer him a gesture of goodwill given his experience”. If it is a free flight, however, it is not entirely certain that Harris would even want to do so. To the DailyMirror In any case, he said: “I definitely don’t want to fly with Easyjet anymore.” Not only was the flight to Alicante booked a month ago, he checked in a week before departure, giving Easyjet enough time to contact him. And not just the day before departure.
Now Kieran Harris is considering changing his name. Because there is one thing he probably doesn’t want to experience again: a flop like with Easyjet.