Airline Ordered to Pay $7.1K Over 'Horrendous Experience'

In February last year, a couple planned to escape the Yukon winter for their first vacation without their kids. But after a three-day ordeal involving several Canadian airports, they never made it to Cuba. Air Canada was ordered to pay the couple $10,000 Canadian—about $7,100 US—in costs by a Small Claims Court of Yukon judge who ruled that they'd been "treated shamefully," per the CBC.

• The ordeal: The couple—who'd saved up for the trip for three years, arranged child care, and taken time off from work—arrived in Toronto for a flight to Cuba but discovered it was overbooked. Air Canada offered them compensation plus seats on an American Airlines flight to Cuba if they volunteered to give up their seats. They agreed but were later told, without explanation, that they couldn't get on the other flight.

• The ordeal, II: The couple were sent to Montreal for a replacement flight on Air Transat, but the airline said it had no knowledge of the tickets Air Canada had supposedly arranged. They were sent back to Toronto, then to Edmonton, which is further away from Toronto than Havana. They eventually arranged extra time off work and booked flights to Cancun, Mexico, at their own expense to salvage a vacation.
• The ruling: Justice Katherine L. McLeod, saying the airline had put the couple through a "horrendous experience" and violated Canada's Air Passenger Protection Regulations multiple times, ruled that the $2,400 Canadian ($1,700 US) each that the airline had given the couple, plus another $1,800 ($1,270 US) to cover hotels, wasn't enough. Her ruling said Air Canada had "failed completely" in its duty to communicate, and that there was no evidence it had even contacted the other airlines.
• The role of computers: "While I appreciate the [wonder] of air travel has been advanced by computers, this case is an example of why computers cannot be the only decision-maker," McLeod wrote of automated booking systems, per the New York Post. "Had a human being looked at the available alternative travel for the defendants, provided the proper documentation, examined the feasibility of onward travel plans chosen by the corporation computers, much of this would have been avoided."
• Reaction: "After 2.5 years we finally have a conclusion to our Air Canada Nightmare and WE WON!!" one of the plaintiffs in the case wrote Wednesday on Facebook.

(More Air Canada stories.)