Mnyclfyer

I'm hoping to get some help here, I am extremely troubled and offended by what I think was prejudice against us at the airport.

There was a particular gate agent who just seemed to not like us at the airport yesterday from the moment we checked in. There is no explaining it other than prejudice of some kind but who knows. We had issues from the moment we checked in, after that we got bumped on standby on 2 flights and our 3rd flight which we had seats on got cancelled. There were major weather issues. We decided to go home and take the next available flight which was the next morning.

We arrived the next morning very early for our flight to find out we were not permitted to fly.

Here are some facts:

• After some arduous airport issues and complete blatant misleading lies from employees my husband called this particular gate agent out for misleading us. My husband alone addressed her and they got into a heated argument in which he used a curse word towards her. He swore which was not acceptable but it was not a threat of any kind and was not malicious/racist/etc.
• We called the evening before to verify our seats and were told nothing of this issue.
• We arrived unknowlingly having spent another fortune on Uber's at the airport to find out this issue, how could we have not been made aware earlier?
• According to their policies you have to be a threat to other passengers to be banned or not permitted on the flight, does swearing once at one person justify what they did? I don't think it does.
• If my husband is the one who made the comment why were we all banned from flying?

As a result of their actions we missed an important family event and have lost 3 days of our trip not to mention an upsetting and horrible 2 days. I feel the only explanation was outright prejudice of some kind because nothing explains this. The particular agent and her manager were both incredibly rude to us from beginning to end.

I do think I have some legal standing here and will be looking into our legal options but I'd love to hear from some fellow travelers out there
Thanks in advance

yyznomad

canadiancow

If an employee says you're bad, you're banned. It's unfortunate.

However, I suspect banning YOU for your husband's actions violates a contract, so you should have recourse there.

Good luck.

Badenoch

Yes, it was absolutely prejudiced. Most employers are extraordinarily prejudiced toward those who get into heated arguments and curse at their staff. I'd have punted you too.

Maybe if you'd acted like adults when there were "major weather issues" you wouldn't have caused yourself to lose 3 days and an important family event.

Your legal position? I don't know because I'm not a lawyer. Your moral position? Indefensible. You got what you deserved.

SparseFlyer

It's not uncommon for private companies to exit clients for unruly behaviour, from hotels to banking to airlines.

it's also enough of a long process that is long enough to not be able to use it as a "lol f him" mechanism. We're talking about actually getting banned from flying AC, and not a heat of the moment gate agent decision to deny boarding or a pilot refusing to leave without offloading an unruly passenger.

Sounds like you may get a letter from AC advising you to fly west jet going forward.

Whatever your husband seemed to have been enough to trigger that process and have corporate security approve it. I'd suggest filling out the online for to AC's customer relations, and keeping the above in mind when deciding the tone of your message to them.

Also, if you're "guilty by association" due to your husband, I'm sure this can be argued to have any ban released on you.

TravellingGypsy

The Lev

@Badenoch, other members of a travelling party do not deserve to be banned for the perceived or actual offensive actions of one traveller in the party.
@Mnyclfyer, flying (and mroe particularly being told you will not be flying) is stressful and leads people to react in many different ways, including negative reactions. It is never a good idea to get into an argument or swear at airline employees. While they are in the service industry and the customer is always supposed to be right, they hold the cards and have wide latitude to "punish" what they see as offensive behaviour. hopefully this will be a painful lesson for your partner and I wish you good luck in getting compensation from the airline - I would focus any complaint to them on the knock on effect to you and other family members.

rankourabu

You will get no sympathy here, or legal advice.

You should contact the air passengers rights facebook group or your lawyer.

SparseFlyer

OP got 31% sympathy from me actually.

robsaw

To "ban" someone, AC requires written documentation, which can be contested before the CTA (Canadian Transportation Agency) and is where your next step would be IF you cannot resolve it with AC directly.

I'd check the CTA decision results here searched on the word "ban" - it may not be encouraging for complete "success" in your case.
https://otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/decisions/ban

By the way, here is the official rule (not restricted to "other passengers":
"T]he person’s conduct, or condition is or has been known to be abusive, offensive, threatening, intimidating, violent, or otherwise disorderly, and in reasonable judgement of a responsible carrier employee there is a possibility that such passenger would cause disruption or serious impairment to the physical comfort or safety of other passengers or carrier’s employees, interfere with crew member in the performance of his/her duties aboard carrier’s aircraft, or otherwise jeopardize safe and adequate flight operations."

So you can see, the conditions for being "banned" are quite a bit broader than physically threatening.

The Lev

Seems to me that the OP is "owning" the fact that her husband behaved inappropriately.

Badenoch

This assumes the rest of the family weren't also engaged in the fracas. It's quite rare for everyone else to stand there silently while one member of the group starts a heated argument and curses at staff. One of the risks of travelling in a group is that everyone might pay the price if one person in the group starts a heated argument and curses at the staff.

Everyone has probably seen similar occurrences in airports but you really have to make an effort to be extra obnoxious to get banned by the airline and I am confident we are getting a very sanitized version of the events.

trek604

Yeah sure it was 'just the husband' doing the swearing at the GA. Happy travels on WS OP.

ChrisA330

I suggest you review Rule 75 - Refusal to Transport of the relevant (domestic or international)Tariffs for AC. You'll see that AC has given them quite a lot of leeway with what they can do. However, in order to apply any ban, that decision must be communicated to you.

In addition, from the tariffs, a decision to refuse transport applies to the offending passenger, and it doesn't mention any other passengers travelling with that person.

https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/...e-tariffs.html

TravellingGypsy