Airline Puts Underage Girl in Hotel Room With Strangers
Jennifer Billock September 11, 2017
An underage girl was forced to stay in a hotel with strangers after a canceled Air Canada flight.
Air Canada has some explaining to do to a Saskatchewan mother who discovered the airline made her 14-year-old daughter stay in a hotel room with strangers the night of August 20. Csilla Vajda accompanied her daughter Timea to Romania earlier in the year so the girl could spend the summer with her grandparents, then returned home. Timea was scheduled for a return flight alone on August 20, but that flight was delayed six hours and then canceled.
Air Canada housed passengers overnight at a local hotel in Budapest, where the flight was meant to leave from, but told passengers they would have to share rooms because there weren’t enough available. A friendly couple that had shared a cab with Timea to the airport offered to share a room with her. Airline staff attempted to add another person to the room as well, but the couple pushed back so Timea would be able to sleep in her own bed.
Csilla found out about the drama the next morning due to the time difference and called Air Canada multiple times; the airline could not locate her daughter, and Csilla only discovered Timea was alright when Timea sent her a text before her rescheduled flight. Air Canada offered a voucher for a discounted future flight to the family, but Csilla is still upset, worried that her daughter may have had to spend the night in a room full of strange men.
“The whole thing is not OK,” Csilla told the Huffington Post. “I hope this never happens with any other kids traveling alone. They said, ‘You know she’s traveling alone and you’re supposed to prepare her for all kinds of circumstances like this.’ I’m like, ‘Uh, pardon me? No.'”
Air Canada has said that Timea was not registered as an unaccompanied minor.
[Photo: Shutterstock]
AC had zero legal or ethical duty. If mom wanted she could have paid AC for UM fees. Why didnt girl call grandparents who dropped her off?
Regardless of whether the parents registered the child as an unaccompanied minor (which I know from personal experience is no guarantee of care), Air Canada accepted that minor as a passenger travelling alone and therefore has a moral (and likely legal) responsibility to treat her differently from an adult in extenuating circumstances.
Please. However this situation was created, you'd think the agent would have a brain and show appropriate judgement for the situation as it develops. Making sure a 14yr old does share a bed with a stranger is not asking for special treatment, just common sense.
Mother doesnt register the child as an unaccompanied minor and also does nothing to prepare the kid (like making sure she has cash) and blames the airline when she isnt given special treatment?