Sleeping passenger returns to base

A Frenchwoman who fell into a deep sleep on a flight from Pakistan to Paris found herself back in the same country she left 18 hours earlier.

Patrice Christine Ahmed was meant to disembark her flight in Paris, but ended up leaving the plane instead in Lahore, Pakistan - the same place where she boarded 18 hours earlier, AFP reported.

Despite a two-hour stop over in France, no one woke Ahmed and somehow she ended up returning to Pakistan on the same plane.

She didn't alert the airline crew to the error, which was only realised when she was stopped by immigration officials in Lahore.

Ahmed, who is married to a Pakistani, left Lahore on a Pakistan International Airlines flight on Tuesday for a 6000 kilometre trip, but that doubled when she failed to wake up, airline spokesman Sultan Hasan told AFP.

The airline was now investigating how the error occurred.

"We have put questions to this French firm also about the incident but it is also the responsibility of the passenger to disembark at the destination," Hasan told AFP.

"It is a passenger's responsibility to check about the destination and disembark when the plane arrives at the particular airport."

She was later sent to France on another airline, but it's still yet to be decided who will pay for the fare.

- © Fairfax NZ News