Air Canada finds child's passport after unaccompanied minor mix-up

A mother whose child returned from an Air Canada flight with someone else’s passport instead of their own says the airline has tracked down the missing travel document.

Erin Hartree-Novak’s 11-year-old flew into Montreal on March 13 as an unaccompanied minor because they had to come home unexpectedly during a spring break trip to Puerto Vallarta with their grandparents.

The child’s grandparents dropped them off at the airport, and staff put their boarding pass and passport in a pouch with their name on it. As part of the unaccompanied minor program, Air Canada staff escorted the child through the Puerto Vallarta airport, then met them at the gate in Montreal to take them through customs.

Hartree-Novak’s child arrived with their own unaccompanied minor documents and boarding pass, but when they opened the passport, they realized it was someone else’s. (Submitted)

It wasn’t until March 21, when Hartree-Novak unzipped the pouch to put the documents away, that she noticed the passport in the bag belonged to someone else.

“It’s a child’s passport. Another child’s passport,” she told Daily Hive.

You might also like:
• Unaccompanied child given someone else’s passport on Air Canada flight
• Waiting game: When will Canadians be able to renew their passport online?
• Air Canada unveils "major upgrade" to its in-flight food with 100+ rotating meals

There was a second unaccompanied minor travelling on the same flight that Hartree-Novak’s 11-year-old went through the airport with. They suspected the two passports got switched.

Air Canada confirmed Friday that the other family had Hartree-Novak’s child’s passport, she told Daily Hive. She’s in touch with the airline to arrange an exchange where she’ll drop the other family’s passport off at the Ottawa airport and pick up her own child’s passport.

“The other family hadn’t checked the passport yet and didn’t realize there was a mix-up,” she said.

She wanted to give the airline 24 hours to sort out the situation before she contacted Passport Canada to report the document lost. She was worried about sparking a lengthy re-application process for both families.

Air passenger rights advocate Gábor Lukács encouraged Hartree-Novak to hold Air Canada responsible for any expenses incurred during the process of getting the passports back to their rightful owners.

“Wow, major screwup by the airline,” he said.

Air Canada has told Daily Hive it’s looking into what happened.