So. Many. Failures.

https://www.insideottawavalley.com/things-to-do/travel/air-canada-placed-this-familys-20-month-old-on-standby-then-the-real-problems-began/article_61a6a204-0b8a-5e65-aeed-ccf1fd108b5e.html

Moderator update: this conversation was revived by the CTA's decision to take no action, as reported in this post

OMG .... you can't can't make up this kind of epic incompetence.

If you thought the toddler was still in Florida by herself, you are going to be disappointed.

TL;DR

A flight was delayed. A toddler was put on standby. The toddler was given a seat, but not with the family, which was a mistake. The FA made up a non-existent "law" leaving it to Dad to ask people to move, which people did immediately without any real problem aside from a brief grumble. Later on Dad told the airline about it and didn't like the tone of the response. The guy from out east whose job it is to get outraged, got outraged.

If Molly had been a veteran or a cancer survivor or on her way to a funeral, this might have made CTV. Alas she is merely a standard issue toddler, so inside ottawa valley dot com it is for her.

When will PR dept's ever learn that phrases like �We�re delighted that so many families choose to fly with us� and "we are pleased the father was able to travel beside his children" only add to the insult. Just OWN it, apologize, compensate, whatever and commit to do better - STOP with the after-the-fact patronizing statements that should have been said in slightly modified form by the gate agents and flight attendants if that is really how AC feels.

That's not a PR department it's just an intern using chatgpt

Rolling sequence of incompetence.

You can almost excuse the GA, who should have known better but is an outstation contractor in this situation. They clearly didn't understand they needed to fix the problem, or were just in a hurry to dump it on the crew and close the flight.

The FA who made up some rule about not being allowed to sort out the seating mess is somehow worse to me as this is an AC employee. How do you not look at this situation and think - right, I need to get this person helped out here as them sitting next to their kid is not only a company and government requirement but is going to make sure my flight gets off the gate here ASAP and we're already massively delayed.

Then of course AC makes a PR blunder out of it afterwards because it is AC and that is all they know how to do.

This is actually a Toronto Star reporter and article, just reprinted here.

Wonder whether this was an AC our Rouge flight. (AC flies both to TPA).

I suspect we need to hear the other side.

Was she by any chance booked as an adult? Which what eventually transpired last time we heard a similar story.

Should the passport info and/or aeroplan profile catch the d.o.b? Even if booked as an adult.

Even if the child would be booked by mistake as an adult, it should make no difference. AC was in possession of the kid's date of birth, as this is a part of the info that has to be entered into the system during check in. So it may seem that the DOB is not checked when the decision is made on who's going on STBY. And it should be checked, because the adult category starts in AC's booking system at 16 years of age, but leaving a 16 YO behind in the worst case scenario is problematic.

It sounds like the kid had her own ticket and seat, but was she on a separate PNR or the same reservation as parent(s)?

Why would a toddler be on a separate reservation?

AC owns and controls the system, so system failures are their responsibility.

Conceding that, in a very complex system, some glitches and unintended results are inevitable, that's what gate agents and flight crews are for: to provide sensible human intervention to resolve those glitches whenever possible. Not to pawn off their responsibilities on passengers, either out of laziness or out of a really unacceptable lack of knowledge of both regulation and policy.

My, possibly naive, question is. I'd expect the child to be on the same PnR as the parent. So how does one passenger from a complete PnR get put on standby. Especially since there apparently were single travelers on board the flight.

No system has been created that can defeat human ingenuity to bypass the rules that the system puts in place.

Without any actual information and just for fun speculating, maybe the toddler was originally flying as a lap baby, then the family decided to get her her own seat to make it a better trip, but because she�s a toddler it�s easier to buy a ticket for an adult rather than a toddler on her own and dealing with all the cross referencing business. So that all happens and then this situation.

but who knows, there are lots of ways they could have gotten there, and either way there�s a clear set of failures. Even just those emails at the end, nevermind all the staff throwing their hands up.

A well designed system would look at stuff like d.o.b. as across-reference before deciding whom to bounce, but that assumes something not in evidence.

It would also create a clever loophole for people to use to avoid getting booted from a flight... if it were to get caught, oops sorry my fat fingers pressed the wrong key. It doesn't seem that AC actually cross references the date of birth with your passport to ensure the info you enter is correct (based on having accidentally entering the wrong date in the past and still getting a boarding pass).