Air Canada apologises for booting passengers who complained about vomit on seats
- Air Canada says its operating procedures were not followed correctly after incident during boarding on Las Vegas-Montreal flight
- Two passengers were removed from aircraft after refusing to sit in vomit left in their seats from a previous flight
Air Canada says it has apologised to two passengers who were escorted off a plane by security after protesting that their seats were smeared in vomit.
The airline said Tuesday that the passengers “clearly did not receive the standard of care to which they were entitled”.
The incident during boarding for an August 26 flight from Las Vegas to Montreal was described in graphic detail by another passenger, Susan Benson of New Brunswick, who said she was in the row behind two women and a man.
“There was a bit of a foul smell but we didn’t know at first what the problem was,” Benson wrote on Facebook three days later. “Air Canada attempted a quick cleanup before boarding but clearly wasn’t able to do a thorough clean.”
Benson said workers sprayed the area with perfume to hide the smell. The passengers assigned to those seats told a flight attendant that the seat and seat belt were wet and they could still see vomit.
The attendant and a supervisor told them that the flight was full, and they would just have to sit there.