Los Angeles pediatrician Dr. Tanya Altman recently took to social media to share her craziest flight experience to date. She realized it when she was only 30,000 feet in the air. In her post on Instagram and TikTok, she alleged that she was marked as a no-show by American Airlines despite being physically present on the aircraft. In her post, she noted that the issue happened during a trip from LAX to Charlotte for a business presentation. “I checked in through CLEAR, went through TSA, and boarded the plane. My boarding pass was checked. My ID was checked early on. The boarding pass again at the gate was scanned, or so I thought,” Altman claimed. “About an hour into my flight, the CEO of the company looked at me and said, did you scan your boarding pass, Tanya?” According to Altman, her colleague “had just received an email saying that I had been marked as a no-show and my return flight home the next day had been automatically canceled.” It immediately raised concerns. As the California doctor noted, “I had patients to get back to in my office.” Then it was confirmed when they checked with the crew. “The flight attendants checked their system, and to my surprise, my seat was shown as empty,” Altman claimed Then began the process of proving she was onboard The crew purportedly gave her her first step. “They actually suggested I record a video of myself sitting in the seat and with the flight attendants at the front, showing that I was on the plane.” Then came the long process of talking to customer service. “During the flight, we tried the American Airlines chatbot non stop. Both of us did. But because the system no longer showed I had taken the flight, no one could restore my return reservation. My boarding pass on the app disappeared,” she alleged. View this post on Instagram “The one thing that saved me was I had a screenshot of my boarding pass that I had texted to my mom before my flight,” Altman told her viewers. She claimed that after multiple trips to customer service, they finally got a supervisor who could help. Recently, customer service failed to come through for a flight after a refueling stop left passengers stranded. “I actually heard the supervisor on the phone talking to the attendant saying, ‘But how do you know she actually was on that flight?’ And I said, ‘I was in LAX this morning. Now I’m standing here at the Charlotte airport in front of you. I have a video of myself on the airplane. I really need my return flight back tomorrow night. Please, please, please,’” she recounted. According to Altman, the supervisor eventually restored her business class ticket, but it took over an hour to fix. “So my takeaway from this experience is always take a screenshot of your boarding pass before you travel, and make sure that your boarding pass is actually scanned at the gate. Hopefully you’ll never need it, but it’s a system error, and if it happens, it could save your trip home,” she advised her community. @drtanyaaltmann This is different from my typical content but this was one of the craziest flying experiences I have ever had and after seeing an article from @USA TODAY talking about this I had to share my own story. Comment below, has anything like this ever happened to you while flying or at the airport? ♬ original sound – Dr. Tanya Altmann The story resonated with many members of the community. On TikTok, one user wrote, “Thank you for this. You handled this so well!” One person shared that the same thing happened to them: “omg. happened to me. couldn’t believe I had to pay twice!” In other strange flight experiences, recently a woman checked in for a flight only to be put on a bus. Instagram users were more focused on the security implications of the error. One commenter remarked, “That is a big FAA violation. Not to mention passenger count for weight and balance issues on the aircraft.” Another user added, “The most concerning aspect of this entire story is that a plane took off with an ‘extra passenger’ and they didn’t even know.” Someone else had a terrifying thought, writing, “If the plane had crashed you wouldn’t have been on the manifest!” According to the NY Post, other travelers have faced similar hurdles. For instance, when flying from San Francisco to Paris, one Dan Skilken missed a connection because of a weather-related delay. Then an agent hit the wrong button, leading the system to believe he had skipped his connection and cancelled his return flights. United marked me as "no show" and cancelled by return flight. Called United who told me there is nothing they can do. I was on the origin flight.. byu/LTEX90 inunitedairlines The outlet noted that Airlines typically charge no-show fees ranging from $100 to $200. However, costs vary by airline and fare class. Experts suggest that to avoid these headaches, it is wise to stay in contact with airlines through their apps. You should also keep physical or digital records of boarding passes, or even consider travel insurance. While the European Union has moved to ban airlines from cancelling return tickets due to no-shows, that law is not yet fully implemented.