A mother from Terrebonne, Que. is outraged after her vacation plans fell through because Air Canada reportedly overbooked the flight.
Cindy Boulet says she and her two sons, ages 5 and 8, were supposed to fly to Cuba on Tuesday. She booked the trip through Air Canada vacations.
“When we checked in, we got our tickets, and I saw that my first two tickets didn’t have our seat numbers assigned,” Boulet told CTV News.
She says an Air Canada agent told her they would fix the problem before boarding. But when boarding began, they were told to wait on the side — and were never let on the plane.
“They were overbooked, and they decided to put the single mom and her two kids out of the loop. So it was just us. Just us,” Boulet said.
When the doors closed, her boys started to cry. Boulet says it was an awful experience — but what hurt the most was that, according to her, not one Air Canada employee tried to help.
“They would glance at my younger one because he was on the floor crying, but they would not pay attention to me and didn’t even try to accommodate another flight for me to get my connection with them,” she recalled.
Gabor Lukacs, president of the organization Air Passenger Rights, says that when passengers are denied boarding, they should receive compensation on the spot or proof that they were denied so they can get money back later.
“[it’s] covered by the air passenger protection regulations. And depending on how much it was delayed as a result of this incident, Air Canada owes her up to $2,400 per passenger,” he explained.
After returning home and spending hours on the phone, Boulet managed to re-book the vacation.
Air Canada gave her a refund in the form of a voucher, but she paid the difference out of her own pocket.
“I ended up paying about $1,400 more for a trip because I’m smack in the middle of March break now, and Air Canada said that it was at my expense,” she said.
In a statement, Air Canada said its customer service team is reviewing the situation, and that they will be in touch with Boulet.
