A man visiting his family in the UK was put on the wrong plane to fly back home to Poland - ending up 1,000 miles away in Malta.
Pawel Lawreniuk, 75, realised he had landed in the wrong county when he asked a bemused taxi driver to take him home only to discover he did not speak a word of Polish.
The widower was booked on to the 6.50am Ryanair flight to Gdansk from Leeds-Bradford airport on Sunday, January 6.
He had flown to the UK to see his daughter for two weeks at Christmas.
Pawel Lawreniuk, 75, was allowed to board a Ryanair flight (file photo) from Leeds Bradford to Malta with his ticket to Gdansk
The Pole only realised he was in a foreign land when he asked a cabbie to take him home in Polish, only to discover he was Maltese
But Mr Lawreniuk was allowed to get on the wrong flight.
The plane actually took him to Malta International Airport, with retired engineer Mr Lawreniuk, who does not speak English, none the wiser.
Mr Lawreniuk was shocked to discover he was in the wrong country while attempting to order a taxi after being told by staff at a tourist information desk: 'I am sorry sir but I don't speak Polish.'
It meant he was stranded with little money, a phone which didn't work in Malta and no grasp of the local language.
Luckily, a Polish-speaking woman overheard the worrying conversation and was on hand to contact his daughter and book him onto the correct flight that same day.
Mr Lawreniuk has since explained to family that he showed the plane ticket to staff on the flight who directed him to his seat - and as far as he was concerned he was on his way to Poland.
His daughter Lucyna Lawreniuk, 34, feels aggrieved that the mix-up meant he got back to Gdansk nearly 14 hours after setting off from her home in Bradford, West Yorks.
She said: 'I double checked the ticket, printed it and it said Gdansk.
'There was a call to me at work and I saw it was from Malta. I thought oh s**t, there's something wrong. I then saw someone writing on
