A Blackfalds family is waiting for an explanation and refund after their mentally-challenged son was able to board an Air Canada plane with only his Costco and Visa cards for ID.
According to government regulations posted on Air Canada’s website, all passengers who appear to be 18 years or older must have either one piece of government-issued ID with a photo or two pieces of government-issued ID without photos.
Simone Tiedeman said her stepson Douglas, 21, who has cerebral palsy and has the mental capability of a 12-to-13-year-old, booked an April 27 flight to London, Ont., to meet a girl he’d been communicating with online.
Without telling anyone, he took a $225 taxi ride from Markerville, where his mother lives, to the Calgary International Airport.
Tiedeman said Air Canada had not one but two chances to stop her stepson — once when he picked up his ticket at the airport and once when he boarded the plane.
Other things could have tipped them off that something was wrong, she said.
“You can tell. You can tell he has something wrong with the way he walks from cerebral palsy, his conversations. They are not adult conversations.”
Douglas was “pretty tired, pretty scared” by the time he returned home.
“It was the worst 24 hours of our lives,” his stepmother said on Tuesday.
His return flight required a transfer and Air Canada staff escorted him to the second plane. His flights to and from Calgary cost a total of $766.
Tiedeman said Air Canada didn’t make it easy to track down Douglas.
Air Canada would not provide any information on his flight until Innisfail RCMP got involved and when he arrived at the London airport, he was initially told he didn’t have the proper ID to board a return flight.
For now, Douglas’s family is closely monitoring his computer use. He has lost access to his credit card and bank card and his family is seeking to become his legal guardians so they can access his information.
And communication with the girl he wanted to surprise in London, whom he met online on a Star Trek website, has been quashed.
The stepmother doesn’t want to think what could have happened to Douglas all alone in a big city.
“Perhaps everyone has screwed up along the way. But we’ve all admitted to our mistakes, where Air Canada has not admitted to their mistakes yet.”
Air Canada says it is investigating what happened. Privacy laws prevent companies from providing personal information about their customers of legal age to other parties.
A statement from Air Canada said: “In the absence of proof of legal guardianship, we were unable to provide the Tiedemans with their son’s personal travel information. We trust the Tiedemans recognize our responsibility to comply with law governing individuals’ rights to privacy, and we are in contact directly with the Tiedemans to try to resolve this matter.”
Air Canada also said that no ID is required to purchase a domestic ticket.
szielinski@www.reddeeradvocate.com