‘I was denied boarding’: Microsoft exec not allowed on flight to India because…

A Microsoft executive claims he was not allowed to board a flight to India due to his expired business visa. The Seattle-based executive took to social media this morning to reveal that date format confusion led to him being denied boarding at the airport.

The Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Word and Editor said that he had taken more than 500 flights in the last two decades but never missed a single one - until today, when he reached the airport without realising that his business visa had expired.

HT.com has not independently verified the authenticity of this information.

Microsoft exec denied boarding

“Today I met my match at the airport. After flying 563 flights and never missing a flight I was denied boarding for my flight to India. My own fault. My 5 year business visa expired on 10/2/2025... after looking at this half a dozen times I missed the obvious conversion to International conventions. My Visa does not expire in October but last month in February. MM/DD/YYYY vs DD/MM/YYYY finally tripped me up,” The Microsoft employee wrote on the Meta-owned Threads platform.

His post has now been deleted.

The source of his confusion lay in different date formats used in the United States vs most other parts of the world, including India.

The United States primarily uses the MM/DD/YYYY format (month/day/year). On the other hand, most other countries use the DD/MM/YYYY format (day/month/year).

This difference can cause confusion, especially for dates like 10/02/2025, which could mean October 2nd in the US but February 10th elsewhere. This is exactly what happened with the Microsoft CVP.

Criticised for what many saw as an avoidable error, the Microsoft executive defended himself. “In the US, the 350 or so million people use MM / DD / YYYY for everything. So encountering other date formats with a different formats can in fact lead to mistakes,” he wrote.