VANCOUVER – B.C. resident Joe Byce hopes his recent experience with Air Canada will help inspire some change to the airline’s policies.
Byce was flying to Vancouver from Toronto on April 28 with his new wife and their two dogs. When he booked last August, he informed them they would be travelling with their Chihuahua, Coral, in the cabin and their Boston Terrier, Moose, in the cargo hold. He also paid the $50 fee to have Coral in the cabin and $100 for Moose in the cargo.
When they arrived at Pearson Airport in Toronto they checked in Moose and he was taken to load on to the airplane. However, when the couple and Coral got to the boarding gate they were informed the flight was considered ‘high density’, which means no room under the seats for their baggage. Therefore, Coral would not be allowed in the cabin and they were bumping them on to the next flight to Vancouver.
Byce says they were concerned about Moose since he had already been taken on the plane, but they were told he would be unloaded and put on their later flight. They were given $20 to get some food at the terminal and told to check back in 30 minutes.
Byce says they were told by a manager that even though their flight was departing an hour later, it was a faster plane so it would arrive in Vancouver only 15 minutes later than their original flight. However, this turned out not to be true. “It left an hour after the last one and got there an hour after the last one,” says Byce.
They were assured someone in Vancouver would attend to Moose when he got there and that they would have had to delay the original flight to move him as he was placed in the back of the baggage hold.
Air Canada bumped them to first class on their flight and they took off for Vancouver.
They were nervous about the situation. “You don’t know who’s going to be there or what’s going to happen to him,” says Byce.
Upon landing in Vancouver, he received a text message from an unknown number. The text asked where he was and said Moose was in distress.
A group of people who were in town for a SPCA conference, had seen Moose in his crate crying for over an hour in the oversized baggage area. They said Air Canada employees had walked past Moose several times and did not attend to him. They removed Moose from his crate, took him for a walk and gave him some food. “The Air Canada employees didn’t even know the people had taken him out of the area,” says Byce, adding he is grateful to those people but concerned someone could remove a dog without anyone questioning the situation.
After he posted their story to the Air Canada Facebook page and it began to receive some attention, Byce was contacted by the airline saying it was expediting their complaint and looking into making a few changes at Vancouver Airport.
“We are looking to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” says Byce. “I don’t think we would ever take our pets on Air Canada again or flying again for that matter.”
In a statement to Global News, Air Canada says:
Air Canada has been in contact with our customer to apologize and offer compensation. Moose should not have been left unattended at YVR. We work with the Vancouver Airport Authority to ensure a secure environment. There are cameras in the baggage arrivals area and Air Canada is seriously reviewing this incident and looking at various options including additional cameras to enhance overall security.
While Byce is glad Air Canada has responded, he says a number of situations should change to make this process better.
He says they never should have been allowed to check Moose in if the airline knew it was going to be a high-density flight, and that Air Canada should also pack animals upfront in case of last-minute changes so they can be retrieved easily.
He also says Air Canada baggage crews in Vancouver were never informed of their situation and they should have been.
“It was a really horrible situation,” says Byce. “We are just looking to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
“There are many opportunities for them to change the way they did the processing.”
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