At the age of 25, Ian D’Sylva has travelled around the world—but the experience on June 30, 2016 was like a bad dream.
“I’ve been to Australia, Africa, India– everywhere with Air Canada, I’ve never heard of anything like this before,” said D’Sylva, surrounded by his mother, father and older brother at their home in Markham, Ont.
The D’Sylva family was checking in at Toronto’s Pearson Airport for a long-awaited family vacation in Peru, one carefully planned to celebrate two milestone birthdays. What the group hadn’t planned on was a decision by an Air Canada customer service agent that grounded their carefully-made plans before they could get off the ground.
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“He pointed out on the back cover a little water damage,” said Ian, recalling what happened just before the agent announced that his Canadian passport was not in sufficiently pristine condition to use as a travel document. The agent declined to allow Ian to board the flight.
“At first I thought it was a joke. Then when it happened, I was terrified,” Ian said.
The passport was still in working order: it scanned successfully at check-in–prompting the printout of Ian’s boarding pass and luggage tag. All the printing on the passport was legible, according to Ian, his brother and parents.
But the agent and a supervisor said Ian could not travel with the passport.
The family was left with two options: abandon their vacation entirely, or leave Ian behind to acquire an emergency passport and travel on a later flight. The family chose the latter option.
“It was tough leaving him at the airport,” said Ian’s older brother Kevin, 28.
The D’Sylvas were assured by the agent and a manager than once Ian obtained a replacement passport he could catch a flight to Lima without penalty. A third representative confirmed the commitment to indicate the offer on computer notes in Air Canada’s file.
But less than two days later, after Ian had successfully obtained a replacement from Passport Canada—in just one hour and on Canada Day–he got more bad news.
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“After waiting 30 minutes on the phone they said there’s nothing on the file, the only option is to buy a new ticket,” said Ian, who added that in order to finalize the replacement passport he had to provide confirmed flight information.
With no other choice, Ian bought a new Air Canada ticket to Peru at a cost of $1,129.43. He then joined his family in Peru.
When the family returned, his father wrote letters of complaint to Air Canada requesting a refund–citing the circumstances and the airline’s unkept promise.
“We are frequent fliers on Air Canada–it’s horrible how they treated us,” said Ian’s father, Trevor.
Air Canada sent automated responses to D’Sylva but did not address the complaint until after Global News became involved.
“I can see no reason would Air Canada would make a fuss over a passport that scans properly,” said Gabor Lukacs, an air passenger rights advocate based in Halifax, NS.
“The passport was valid, was authentic; it’s not Air Canada’s business to enforce some non-existent rules as to how nice your passport has to be,” Lukacs added.
Contacted by Global News, Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick defended the practice of securitizing passports that may be damaged.
“It is unfortunate and understandably upsetting when a customer’s travel plans are disrupted due to a documentation issue. However, we are obliged by law to deny boarding to customers if their documents are deemed inadequate,” he said.
“Different governments are more strict than others, and what some may consider acceptable others may not. This unfortunately does create a grey zone in interpretation for both immigration officials and airlines. This is why the government tells people they should not try to travel with damaged documents,” Fitzpatrick added.
But the airline says it made a mistake by not living up to the promise to put D’Sylva on a future flight at no charge.
“This is a regrettable situation in that the flight change details for this customer were not properly noted at the airport after the passport issue arose and he should not have been required to purchase another ticket,” said Fitzpatrick.
As a result of the Global News story, Air Canada agreed to refund the ticket in full and pay D’Sylva $500 in the form of a future travel card. The total amount of compensation is $1,629.43. An Air Canada representative also apologized to the family over the telephone.
But D’Sylva may be entitled to more compensation, according to passenger rights advocate Lukacs. He says the airline should pay denied boarding compensation to Ian, over and above the refund and goodwill gesture.
“This is egregious conduct by the airline. In my view Air Canada should pay denied boarding compensation in cash in the amount of $800.” He says he has seen other cases where airline passengers have been denied boarding for frivolous reasons when a flight is full.
The D’Sylva family expressed gratitude to Global News for helping push their case with the airline.
“Thanks for all your help,” said Trevor, who says his family had brought their story to light in part to warn other travelers about what could happen prior to an international trip like theirs.
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