rogue

How a grandma's typo managed to shut down part of Brisbane airport's arrivals terminal.

Airports can be a bloody scary place.

It doesn’t matter if you are squeaky clean, or quite literally carrying nothing on you, going through big detection machines, with airport authorities yelling instructions at you can be a daunting experience.

It makes probably EVERYONE nervous even though you have nothing to hide. We’ve all been there.

Well, maybe not where Mumbai grandma Venkata Lakshmi has been, but close enough.

Last week, she sent Brisbane airport into turmoil when her bag appeared on the luggage conveyer belt.

I’ll say no more, see for yourself.

So she tried to write Bombay to Brisbane (Bombay is now known as Mumbai), but left off two letters, I repeat, TWO LETTERS, but not before clarifying it was Mumbai beneath the typo, and managed to shut down part of the terminal.

Lakshmi has lived in Bombay/Mumbai (because yep, it is confusing for EVERYONE) for decades, which means she probably still calls the town by its old name.

But back to it.

Why on earth would the airport code for Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport be BOM?

It’s like the airport authorities who decipher these codes are trying to have one final laugh.

And rest assured, the good ol’ internet had ol’ grandma’s back.

Lakshmi’s daughter, Devi Jothiraj told Yahoo News how the experience was rather embarrassing for her mother.

“My mother told me they thought something was in there and people were panicking. They asked her to open the bag and asked her why it says bomb and she said ‘It’s for Bombay!” she said.

After the problem was solved, and she was cleared of being a bomb threat after writing bomb on a bag supposedly containing a bomb (creativity please), she continued on her journey.

It’s one hell of a story for the grandkids.

LISTEN: We Need To Talk About Plane Etiquette.