Around 20 passengers were left behind in Poland after a Ryanair plane took off ahead of schedule.
The flight, which was due to depart at 11.30am from Warsaw Chopin airport to Manchester, actually left at 11am.
The blunder was revealed on the Polish airport’s Twitter page, and has been confirmed by the airline.
A report in the Manchester Evening Times said that those passengers left behind were assisted by airport and airline staff, who managed to find them seats on a later flight.
The flight usually leaves from Modlin airport at 11am but due to maintainance work had been switched to Chopin airport instead.
The new airport had been unable to give it the same time slot so flights were pushed back to 11.30am which prompted the error.
Stephen McNamara, head of communications at Ryanair, insisted that passengers had been told the correct boarding time.
He said: "Warsaw airport (Chopin) is responsible for the accuracy of the information displayed on its customer service screens and it is each passenger’s personal responsibility to ensure they are at the departure gate before gate closure/final boarding, as per the times indicated on their boarding card.
"Over 140 passengers boarded this flight without issue and Ryanair assisted the small number of passengers who failed to show up at the departure gate on-time for their scheduled flight departure."
