A couple forgot their 23-month-old boy in the Vancouver airport and learned he was missing only when contacted during the next leg of the trip.
Jun Parreno, the boy’s father, told The Vancouver Sun the mix-up occurred Monday as he, his wife and two grandparents of the child, J.M., were scrambling between their arrival in Canada and a connecting flight to Winnipeg on Air Canada.
Running late after having to unpack and repack all their luggage, “we had 10 minutes before boarding,” said Parreno, who was emigrating with his family from the Philippines. “We were running for the gate.”
He said he thought his son was with the three other adults, who were running to the gate ahead of him, and they thought the little boy was with him.
Instead, in a scenario similar to the movie “Home Alone,” the toddler was wandering alone between a security checkpoint and the flight gates, said Angela Mah, an Air Canada representative.
The parents were put into telephone contact with the little boy, and Parreno was put on another Air Canada plane to return to Vancouver to get him after the family’s flight arrived in Winnipeg with the airline covering the cost of the two additional flights she said.
My husband and I travel quite a bit and I have to say, we would know if someone didn’t have our son - especially when we didn’t need to buckle him in on the plane…
