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I recently complained to Air Canada about the moving of a male passenger sitting next to an unaccompanied minor. The response I got was encouraging. Kudos to Air Canada on this one, some times shit happens but it should still be brought to peoples attention.

Response from Air Canada:-

Your case number is: **********

Dear ********,

Thank you so much for reaching out to us and letting me know about your recent experience on your flight from London. 

I am disappointed to hear about the way our in flight crew handled this situation. I can understand why you felt the need to write in and let us know, and I appreciate it. I would like to assure you that as required by law and as a matter of policy, we strive to provide our customers with service free of any discrimination and profiling. I am truly sorry for what you witnessed and that the passenger was moved. I have shared your comments with our In Flight Crew Management for internal review. We treat these matters seriously, and we will use your feedback to prevent this from happening again in the future.

Thank you *********, we hope to have another opportunity to welcome you on board Air Canada in the near future.

Sincerely,

Marleah Bryson

Customer Relations  

My original complaint:-

I was on flight the ******** London-Toronto ****** 2019.

• 3 unaccompanied minors where seated at the back of the plane by the cabin crew. They were well behaved young people.

• Next to one of the girls was an Indian male traveler in his middle ages. He was a quiet, well dressed and clearly respectable man. He was seated by the window. The seats in question were 63a and 63b.

• The cabin crew had been interacting with the children for some time, doing an excellent job making the children feel at ease. They were clearly aware of this seating arrangement and did not seem concerned.

• Shortly before we were to depart another crew member came to the back and noticed the seating arrangement. He told the man he could not be seated there. He moved him out of his seat to the isle and publicly started asking for a lone female traveler.

• The Indian man looked confused and embarrassed while standing in public view. After some minutes a female willing to change seats was found.

• I do not think the crew member was entirely unprofessional, but the way he went about things could have been considerably better.

I do understand that special and reasonable accommodation should be made for unaccompanied minors, I am a father myself. I can also certainly see that some passengers would make children feel very uncomfortable. My concern here is that man was simply moved because he was male, there was no obvious other reason.

In this day and age, I think we have established that profiling people purely on characteristics such as gender is unacceptable. I feel that a decision to move a passenger should be made on a case by case basis, and done as discreetly as possible.

I have been using Air Canada for nearly **yrs and find you an excellent airline, something I cannot say about many other airlines. I was left disappointed by what I witnessed; I sensed that some others felt the same.

I would appreciate your feedback and would also ask if Air Canada has a blanket policy of not seating males next to unaccompanied minors.

Sincerely

*********