Air Canada canceled a long-haul flight two weeks after an incident between one of its flight attendants and a passenger. The flight from Casablanca, Morocco to Montreal departed the gate but never reached the runway. The flight attendant seemingly had a meltdown and forced the plane to return to the terminal after a woman asked for a blanket because the cabin was too cold.
It isn’t clear what led the flight attendant to start yelling, but she was filmed shouting, “You will behave or we will get off!” Things escalated during the meltdown when the passenger asked to speak to the captain, according to CTV News. When the plane returned to the gate, the police took the passenger off the plane. Air Canada was forced to cancel the flight entirely when all the other passengers got off the plane in solidarity with the woman who was pulled off.
Air Canada offered compensation to the removed passenger and is investigating the incident. The airline released a statement reading:
“We are taking this incident very seriously. It is under review, and we will take appropriate action. We apologize to our customers and deeply regret that their experience today fell far short of what they have come to expect when flying with Air Canada.”
This isn’t the first time Air Canada passengers have had innocuous interactions with crew members escalate to ludicrous proportions. In September 2023, a pair of passengers were kicked off a flight for refusing to sit in wet vomit-stained seats. The cabin crew attempted to clean the mess from a prior flight but the passengers argued for more cleaning supplies to do more themselves. The captain decided to kick them off despite their willingness to endure the awful conditions.