After a series of nerve-fraying flight delays and cancellations, Jenn Bertschi made it to her grandmother’s funeral with minutes to spare. Landing at Toronto’s Pearson airport from Calgary late Friday night, she was told the 12:30 a.m.
After a series of nerve-fraying flight delays and cancellations, Jenn Bertschi made it to her grandmother’s funeral with minutes to spare.
Landing at Toronto’s Pearson airport from Calgary late Friday night, she was told the 12:30 a.m. connecting flight to Ottawa for her and her toddler and infant had been cancelled, with a rebooking at 10:30 Saturday morning.
Bertschi, 31, had gate-checked her stroller in order to retrieve it the moment she stepped off the plane, but was informed instead it would show up in baggage claim before being directed instead to customer service.
“So we trek it up to the third floor. They told us, ‘No, we can’t do anything about it. You have to go downstairs.'”
She was told the same thing downstairs, and the process repeated itself, as Bertschi hauled a large carry-on bag and an eight-month-old, she said in a phone interview.
At 4 a.m. she asked an Air Canada manager to help her get her family and luggage to security and ultimately the gate.
“He just kind of stared at me and was like, ‘Well, I don’t know what to do because we don’t have strollers,'” Bertschi recalled, describing Air Canada staff as “unhelpful and not empathetic.”
“My toddler is overtired and running around and I’m trying to chase him,” she said. “I was crying because I’m so overwhelmed.”
The elusive stroller, which didn’t leave Calgary with her departing flight, had arrived in Ottawa by the time she landed there at around noon Saturday. But her luggage hadn’t made it past Toronto. Bertschi rushed to a store to buy an outfit for her grandmother’s funeral.
“It was very, very close,” she said. “I will not fly Air Canada ever again. And I don’t think I’ll fly into Toronto.”
Air Canada said it understands the “disappointment and…