Air Canada passenger says he was bumped off flight ruining 'trip of a lifetime' at the last minute

CTV National News: Rewriting airline rules Joyce Napier reports on Ottawa rewriting airline rules to make it harder for carriers to dodge responsibility for cancellations and delays.

The “trip of a lifetime” for two Air Canada passengers came to a screeching halt after the airline bumped them off their flight right as they were boarding, with no apparent explanation.

New York Times bestselling author, Dan Gardner, and his 14-year-old son were destined for London, England, on June 16, on what was supposed to be a dream vacation packed with historical visits and a television shooting with Monty Python star John Cleese.

Gardner told CTV News Toronto in an interview Tuesday the trip was booked weeks in advance, and scheduled in a way that would give them enough time to get over jetlag and make it in time for the start of shooting.

They arrived at Toronto Pearson International Airport from Ottawa that Friday night with hours to spare

“Everything looked perfectly normal,” he said, recounting when they were waiting around their gate.

But when they handed their boarding passes to be scanned and boarded onto the flight, Gardner says the ticket agent didn’t let them through and instead pointed him to go to a different agent.

“This person takes us to a nearby table, there are more staff there, they look through their computers, and they say to me, ‘You need to go to customer service,’” Gardner said. “I said, ‘Why?’ and they just repeated, ‘You need to go to customer service.’”

Gardner said he discovered he and his son had been bumped from the flight and waited about three hours in the customer service line to resolve the issue.

“3 a.m., I finally get to the counter, and by 3 a.m., it is now clear that customer service has nothing to offer. They provide us no explanation. They explicitly say we have no hotel (voucher),” he said, adding they were told to leave and call Air Canada’s reservation line.

After another three hours of waiting, this time on the phone, he said nobody answered. So they decided to call it and go back home to Ottawa by catching a VIA train from Union Station.

Gardner says he wrote a complaint to Air Canada, where he received an automated response.

“The automated response said, ‘Due to the high volume of complaints – although they didn’t put it quite like that but that’s what they were saying – we may not be able to get back to you in less than 45 days.’ Are you kidding me?” he said.

The flight didn’t appear to be full, according to Gardner.

“It was absolutely mysterious … It doesn’t matter if you checked in 24 hours earlier, it doesn’t matter that you got a boarding pass with your seat number. We don’t care, you’re not on,” he said.

When asked for comment, an Air Canada spokesperson confirmed the airline is internally investigating the incident.

“We are investigating this regrettable situation and we will be reaching out to the customer directly to address his concerns,” the statement reads, adding they are not in a position to provide more information at this time.

Gardner told CTV News Toronto the reason why he spoke up was for the other people in the customer services line who were “pissed off” and “mystified” about what was happening with their flights and what was going on.

“I just wish Air Canada would start treating its customers like customers, and not cattle,” he said.