We have previously discussed the increasingly brutal conditions on airlines which are continuing to reduce legroom and every possible comfort for travelers to further drive record profits. Some of the airlines however appear to be disregarding the most basic safety considerations. Air Canada recently told Elizabeth Coffi Tabu, a 71-year-old cancer patient in a wheelchair, that she would have to share a bed with a male stranger at a hotel for the night. What is incredible is that this markedly abusive decision could have easily resulted in serious liability for the airline.
Air Canada explained that the hotel it was using had only one room left so the two strangers would share the room after missing their flights in Montreal. Tabu was flying back to France from Ottawa when flight delays caused her to miss her flight.
When the woman’s daughter learned that her disabled mother would be sharing a bed with a 35-year-old man, she spent three hours arguing with Air Canada, according to Yahoo News. The man offered to sleep on the couch and the problem was certainly not of his making. The airline could clearly find another hotel and did so. However, it was willing to create a situation that was both dangerous and abusive to its passengers.
While Air Canada says that this was a mistake, it still took three hours for the daughter to speak to various airline representatives to get her mother assigned her own room.