I see you're still making excuses for AC, on cut and dry issues that don't require a BCG "middle of the road" analysis.

We're you at the airport when AC communicated that to the minor for 22 hours ?

Or just studying/reciting the AC training booklet?

No.

No.

No.

The level of service does not depend on the purpose of the trip. However the circumstances and complaints mentioned by the mom does matter. It is as sad depressing fact that divorced parents continue the fight with their former spouse through the children. So if the kid was going to see is Dad in Denver, this explains a lot. For example:
- The mom mentioned to CBC her complaint was that AC knew of the delay before boarding/check-in in DEN and should have done something then. So it begs the questions why the adult dropping off the pax did not intervene to get the situation resolved?
- Dad (if this is the situation) would not be the first parent to send their offspring off without adequate cash reserves or equipment(clothes) because they feel its the other parents responsibility. A sad but true fact.

Moving beyond the divorce situation. The purpose travel calls into question why the kid was fearful of YYZ but not exploring Denver on their own. I consider Denver my second home after travelling their so often for both business and vacation. There are areas of Denver that are a lot more concerning than YYZ sterile or public areas.

Valiant analysis Ken, but I'm afraid it's a swing and a miss. You may have interpreted it backwards. My remark was not so much directed at the kid, although his complaint about being unable to feed himself is a bit weak to say the least. My point to which you have replied is a comment on those who feel today's children require coddling to the point of virtual suffocation. Driving them everywhere, over-programming them, helicopter-parenting, etc so that when we read of a teenager - a few months shy of legal adulthood - being left unsupervised in an airport for a few hours, online apoplexy is unleashed. If that circumstance is so unreasonable to the family, why did nobody escort the child?

Hmph! Parents today...

Let's remember that he was inconvenienced by Air Canada, not endangered by them.

Or, as has been exhaustively demonstrated in this thread, you have those in the middle who see both sides of the story and assign responsibility where due.

Once again, this is not a critique of an inexperienced traveler failing to secure an earlier flight or a hotel room. That happens to the best of us from time to time. The comments are about a teen and his family who failed to give any sort of forethought to the likelihood of a smooth travel experience being anything but. A teen unwilling to forage from dozens of outlets serving hot meals and publicly complaining about his hunger after the fact.

Yes, AC can certainly step up their customer and IROPS contingency service - but we've been shouting that into the void for years.

Respectfully I disagree that the family's situation should have a bearing on this matter because it shouldn't be incumbent on them to prepare their teen for what would've been a two-day layover had they not intervened to rebook him on another airline.

Then clearly you're in a pickle with your waffle stance. Thanks for coming out though.

I dunno man, I've had co-op students that were 21 and yet incapable of doing basic tasks for themselves having never lived anywhere but their parent's homes and university residences before. Some people are just naive. A UVic student from a warmer climate phoned me one morning and informed me that he couldn't come to work because there was ice on his car and he couldn't open the doors until it melted.

I've taken the 01:45 TPE flight from YYZ T1 before and the airport is pretty bleak at that hour. Nothing is open except a couple check-in counters. Yeah, you can get the 192 bus or Link train to leave the terminal, but does a kid from Podunk, Ontario know that?

This is what I was getting at before.
What age makes it ok then? We are debating over whether being fifteen is ok or not. Some of us think yes, some no. The ones who say yes seem to have offended everyone who is saying no. What if this was a 17.95 year old or an 18.1 year old?

I think the age isn't that important. It could just as well have been a confused 70-year-old with only rudimentary English skills. Since AC airport agents were evidently still working at whatever hour of the day this was, they should have assisted to the extent reasonably possible rather than telling junior to get lost.

That is not limited to Co-op students. On the west coast, handling ice on cars is not a well understand activity.

Nearly everyone who does not live in Toronto has no ideas what a 192 bus is. There is signs to the train for Union station and the inter-terminal Link but the rest of is less obvious.

[QUOTE=The smallest state;28294259]This is from SmallMJ (sorry the quote key didn't pull everything), post number 2 and think it sums up the AC hype.......

Youths travelling alone (ages 12 to 17), for whom the parent or guardian has not requested the Unaccompanied Minor service, will be taken care of by our agents. We will also arrange for accommodations, meals and transportation if needed.
This is here:
https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/...ellations.html


[QUOTE]

That link doesn't work but the one in post number 2 does.

I predict a change in policy, or at least published guidance, along the following lines:

First, AC will have to be more specific about what 'taken care of' means. In other words, as some earlier poster indicated, to 'arrange' accommodation probably does not mean 'pay for' - not if the delay is due to circumstances such as weather, at any rate.

Next, "on my way" travel insurance may become mandatory for children traveling alone. This is because of the possibility that airport hotel space can be heavily subscribed during weather delays. The OMW insurance for kids will provide for a block of rooms, or at least some kind of supervised sleeping space, to be kept open for children in the event of the kind of circumstances which result in heavily booked hotels. Parents will also need to be advised of the amount of additional expenses that could arise for their child, and how to finance these ( e.g. some kind of prepaid card, exchangeable only for services to be provided for the named child (so as to eliminate theft worries.) In other words, more 'travel agent' type services will be needed.

Wrong.
The laws in respect to duty of care and duty of the reasonable person have been in effect for over a century. They have been tested and upheld. They reflect society's views. The child was left to his own devices. He was abandoned by Air Canada. The law holds that the passenger was a minor. Society still holds that the passenger was a child. It was negligent to abandon the minor. It does not matter if the child was in the right or wrong because the law and society required the legal person Air Canada to behave in a responsible manner in respect to the child. Again you try to push the latitude of acceptance by using the term inconvenience. Wrong. When a child is left unattended in a public place it is an endangerment. This is what the courts hold and it reflects society's views. You do not agree. Fine. In Canada we have child labour laws too.

Again you make wild assumptions about over parenting. All that which you argue is worthless. It has no relevance to the central issue which is that the child was abandoned at Canada's largest airport. The child was not left alone for a few hours. He was abandoned by the airline when it would not provide a connecting flight without a delay of 2 days.

I hope the child's dad, who is a U.S. person, sues Air Canada in American courts. You don't want to be taken to Court in the U.S. over a case like this, it won't end well, for any airline.

What are the damages beyond the new plane ticket that was purchased? A lifetime of psychotherapy?

Willful endangerment of a minor, failure in duty of care.

Using AC's public response as proof it deliberately tries to wash its hands, further argue the airline deserve punitive damage to prevent it from repeating such egregious behavior.