Man trying to fly to Sydney, Australia winds up in Sidney, Montana

We’ve all had nightmare journeys at some point in our lives, but nothing comes close to what one American man experienced during a recent trip.

Kingsley Burnett thought he was heading on a dream holiday to Sydney, Australia and was looking forward to spending some time on Bondi Beach.

However, he was shocked to realise that he had accidentally mixed up the Australian city for Sidney in Montana.

Burnett recounted his experience in an interview with TV channel KTVQ, saying how surprised he was to see snow-capped mountains out of his plane window rather than the Australian sun.

Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

“I saw a mountaintop covered in white snow. At that point, I knew I was in trouble,” Kingsley said.

It turns out he had actually booked himself a flight to the small Montana city when he had intended to book onto a cruise departing from Sydney.

Referring to the airport codes, he added: "It’s a matter of acronyms. The S-Y-D as opposed to S-D-Y. Somebody has to fix that.”

He went on to admit that he had been surprised by just how cheap the flight from New York had been when first booking his ticket.

The 62-year-old stayed in a local hotel while he booked himself onto a return flight, and the manager of the hotel told the TV station that Burnett is not the first to make the mistake.

“This is the second time we’ve had a guest that was trying to get to Sydney, Australia,” he told the channel.

American Airlines ticket desk staff member Carol Castellano then helped him to book a return flight and the pair became friends.

“He was really funny. Kingsley came, and he goes, 'I’ve got a problem,'” Castellano said.

“For Carol, it was not a paycheck. It was a human being she was dealing with,” Burnett added.

“Montana didn’t have kangaroos. It had Carol. And that was good enough for me,” he added.

While Burnett wasn’t able to make it on the cruise, his trip has now been rescheduled in June – so he will get his chance to take the journey after all.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.