CBC: Air Canada leaves teen 'trapped' alone overnight at Toronto's Pearson airport
 

Here we go again:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunde...106886?cmp=rss

Three points to make for me:

(1) Given that he was flying from Denver, they had to know that he was a kid. They would need his age and passport info for a trans-border flight.

(2) I didn't know the part about the policy that was quoted in the article. Here it is in full directly from the AC website:

This is here:
https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/...ellations.html

They definitely didn't live up to that for this kid.

(3) In an earlier but similar case AC said that they couldn't book a hotel room for minors. If this is the case, then why does the policy on the website say that they will arrange accommodations for minors if needed?

My immediate perception of this article is that it is more "airtight" than the others we've seen here.

Of course, more than meets the eye with these things, so who knows. But in general not assisting a UM like this just doesn't look good, evenif AC has a sleight-of-hand excuse left in its bag!

The CBC website article was unusually careful not to use the term "unaccompanied minor," since the kid wasn't a UM. UM's can only be in direct flights. They weren't so careful on the radio news this morning.

The kid is 15, correct?

If a youth's parent can ask for the UM service for 12-17 year olds, then I'm a bit confused as to why the kid isn't considered a UM if he could've made use of the service.

UM is a specific service that involves escorting the child every step of the way. It is mandatory for kids 8-11 and optional for kids 12-17. It is only available on direct flights. This kid had a transfer in YYZ, so it was not available to him.

Ahh. Important point indeed!

Very dirty behaviour by AC agents. Reprehensible.

The teen said he spent part of the night running between Air Canada service desks explaining that he was a minor and needed help. When none was offered, he did his best to stay alert and awake for fear he would be robbed if he let his guard down.

While I'm not sure I would fear robbery staying at YYZ overnite he's a teen and unsure of what to expect and it is disappointing that no help was offered even after his situation was made quite clear to airline staff. Doubly disappointing is the teen was almost stranded at YYZ a second night:

In the end, the family intervened and booked the teen a flight, at their own cost, on another airline, Patock said.

It was to save him from spending another night alone in Toronto, after the May 2 flight he'd been booked on was cancelled and Espinola was rebooked, a second time, on an Air Canada flight departing May 3.

What in the world does runway construction at an airport have to do with whether an airline is able to fulfill its published promise to look after strangled young travelers?

OTOH, was he traveling without any way to purchase food in the airport? He should have had USA and Canadian currency plus some sort of credit card, debit card, etc. Many young kids (including those much younger than 15) are given prepaid credit cards for this purpose when they travel alone.

He did the right thing in asking for help, but how could airline employees, or indeed any responsible adults, just leave him to fend for himself overnight and possibly even for almost 48 hours?

It doesn't matter, but I'm a bit curious about the purpose of the trip as the mother seems to live about three hours from Thunder Bay.

No one apparently asked, but I wonder whether AC would have permitted a free rebooking to avoid the Toronto connection after the runway construction problems were announced.

If the youth were indeed strangled I think there would be a much larger issue.

It really doesn't matter what circumstances were at the end of the day if you have a 15-year-old approaching an employee asking for help and they do nothing that's a disgrace.

And people please don't clap back saying AC didn't know how old he was, even if your argument is he didn't tell them... his DOB is on his PNR and he would have had to have his passport too.

Sorry. I didn't notice that autocorrect changed stranded to strangled.

In all fairness, in the photo in the news story liked in the OP, he does look older than 15. If the employee thought that he was just a garden variety stranded and unhappy passenger, he/she could have refused to do anything without looking at the PNR or passport. Of course, if that employee had also rebooked the flights or printed a new boarding pass, etc., then they should have noticed the age, although I don't know how apparent this would be in AC's IT systems.

ADDED: We don't know what the teen said or what he asked for when he approached the employees (apparently he tried at least twice) for help. If the employee assumed that the kid was an ordinary adult stranded passenger, would AC normally provide a hotel (or helps to book one at a distressed traveler rate) or meal vouchers? Do we know the reason for the original flight delay (which I assume was an AC operated flight from DEN)?

On first blush, it does seem that AC fell short of their policy. Booking this traveler a decent hotel and getting him to & fro seems the least they could do - even at this remote outstation of theirs. On the other hand, he's 15 and not helpless, one might naturally assume. If he couldn't find food within the halls of CYYZ, I don't hold much hope for his success outside of airports.

The difference, in reality, is often slight.