News provided by CityNews1130.com – link to full story
BY Renee Bernard, Posted Jul 1, 2019
RICHMOND (NEWS 1130) – Twenty students, including a teenager from Richmond, are stranded in Quebec City Sunday night, due to an issue at Air Canada.
The students, who are travelling individually from different parts of Canada, are on their way to Gaspe for a French language program.
They departed on an Air Canada flight from Quebec City on Sunday but then the plane had to make a return.
Steve Grenzberg’s son had to fly from Vancouver to Toronto to Quebec City in order to catch his connection to Gaspe.
He understands the flight didn’t make it to Gaspe because of some sort of issue with accommodation for the flight crew.
He says the problem is, there aren’t any flights to Gaspe for another couple of days, and there are no chaperones or adults with the teens.
“They won’t be flying to Gaspe until July 3rd. Air Canada is not arranging another flight for them. They’re all going to this language program.”
It hasn’t been easy for Grenzberg to get answers himself.
“I was on hold for an hour, then I talked to an agent, then I was on hold for another twenty minutes.”
Air Canada has provided the teens with hotel rooms for the night, but Grenzberg says the teens had to pay for cabs to get to the hotel.
Grenzberg had feared the students would have to make their own arrangements to take a bus to Gaspe, which is an eight-hour road trip away from Quebec City.
However, Air Canada has told NEWS 1130 ground transportation has been arranged to take the passengers to Gaspe Monday morning.
It’s not clear if the airline will pay for the ground transportation. The airline hasn’t explained the reason for the flight’s turn-around.