Lynn Hood and her family arrived at Honolulu airport at 5 a.m. on a Wednesday in early April, ready to board their Air Canada flights to Vancouver.
It was the end of what Hood called a “dream vacation” to celebrate Lynn and husband David’s 25th wedding anniversary with their two young-adult children and one teenager. The Saanichton family had been saving for the trip for years.
When they got to the airport, however, the Air Canada desk was closed and there were no self-check-in kiosks.
They searched back through their email inboxes and found a message they’d missed from Air Canada, saying their itinerary had been rebooked to United Airlines, one of Air Canada’s partner airlines.
“I didn’t even know that was a thing that could happen,” said Hood, a physiotherapist.
The family then went to the United check-in counter figuring they’d just get boarding passes there, but were told they couldn’t board the plane because United’s system did not recognize the Air Canada ticket number.
While standing at the check-in counter, Hood called an Air Canada representative for help.
“We had him right on the phone,” Hood said. “And that person, whoever we had, he wasn’t able to reissue the tickets in a way that United Airlines’ system would accept it.”
The woman at the United check-in desk acknowledged that their reservation existed, but told the family she was unable to do anything unless Air Canada could re-issue the tickets. “So we were stranded,” Hood said.
Their original tickets, purchased months earlier on seat sales, had come to $2,700 return for the entire family. But now, with no other way to get home, Hood and her family were forced to buy last-minute one-way tickets on WestJet for just over US$4,000, or around $5,600.
“Actually it was very embarrassing because my credit card was full,” Hood said.
The couple had stretched their budget to afford the trip and after a week of hotels, restaurants and activities, Hood had no room left on her card for last-minute flights.
Her 21-year-old son, who had recently gotten his own credit card, had to put the family’s flights on his card.
“I don’t even know what would have happened if his credit card hadn’t been available. It was just like a fluke that he had that much money on it,” Hood said.
Two months later, Hood has still been unable to get compensation, or even an acknowledgement of responsibility, from either airline.
Hood has only been seeking compensation for the price of the original Air Canada tickets that they were unable to use.
“Nobody came up and offered any sort of solution at all, or compensation for our stress, our mental anguish, plus a financial hardship of coming up with US$4,000.”
Over a series of phone calls, as well as email correspondence that the Times Colonist has seen, Hood has been redirected from one airline to the other.
At one point, she was encouraged by an Air Canada representative to take the issue up with the “travel agency” they booked through, which was Expedia.
In an email, a representative for Air Canada told the Times Colonist that the airline is “looking further into this situation with both United Airlines and Expedia to understand what happened in this unfortunate situation and help resolve [it].”
While Air Canada said it has records of both Expedia and the Hoods being informed of the flight change to United, it said it had no details on file about why the family was not onboard the flight.
In one of her phone calls with Air Canada over the past two months, Hood was informed that the check-in agent had listed them as no-shows for the flight.
“I’m like: ‘That was pretty irresponsible,’ ” she said. “We did show up for the trip — they just wouldn’t let us on.”
Gabor Lukacs, who runs the consumer-protection non-profit Air Passenger Rights, said even if Air Canada had sub-contracted United to take over the tickets, Air Canada, as the original contracting partner, still had the responsibility to ensure the service paid for was carried out.
“Mistakes do happen,” Lukacs said. “But as typically happens with airlines, they don’t say: ‘Sorry we made a mistake, and here is a solution.’ Instead, they’re doubling down.”
