The family of a 13 year old girl from Woodstock is still fuming after a nightmare experience on an Air Canada Flight.
WOODSTOCK - The family of a 13 year old girl from Woodstock is still fuming after a nightmare experience on an Air Canada Flight.
Ema Hodgkinson was born with a form of Ichthyosis, a rare skin condition that does not allow her to sweat and overheats easily. She was coming home from summer camp for kids with special needs in Harrisburg Pennsylvania when she was forced to sit on an Air Canada flight for one hour without air conditioning on August 18th. The family had paid an extra $210 for her flight as an unaccompanied minor and she should of had a chaperone with her during the flight.
Ema's mom Sarah Hodgkinson says the problems started on the way home from camp.
"So Ema got to the counter in Harrisburg, the gentleman at the counter there did not put a lanyard on her or a bracelet or anything like that, he did not call for an Air Canada employee to bring her to the gate, it was actually a camp employee who took her to her gate to make sure she arrived safely. She boarded the plane and they left the terminal, because she had to get up at 4:00 am to make that plane she was exhausted and she actually fell asleep on the plane and the plane sat on the runway for an hour. They turned off the air conditioning to save gas, when she woke up she heard a message from the pilot saying we are going to get you in the air real quick and get the air conditioning back on. She looked around the plane and everyone was really hot and sweating and Ema looked at her own skin, when she is overheating she gets really red. Ema told her mom she was overheating, her internal temperature was really high and her skin turned bright red. Luckily the plane started when it did and the AC was turned back on and she was able to cool back down."
Hodgkinson says they informed Air Canada about her daughters condition and they should of had a chaperone with her. She says that it took Air Canada 11 days to even issue an apology and they offered a measly $300 voucher for her daughters pain and discomfort. She says she only took this story to the media after a week of fighting with Air Canada employee's.
"After several calls there was no apology, nothing that said we are looking into this, this is what we are going to do to make sure this doesn't happen to other children and finally I said ok we're going to the media now. So I started with CBC and gradually various other newspapers and radio stations like Heart FM contacted me. My husband and I are doing this because we are thinking about all of the kinds who are traveling right now, coming home to get ready for the school year on Tuesday. Oddly enough after the story hit the media, I got a call from Air Canada, a lady from the head office in Calgary apologized profusely and they offered us a refund for the unaccompanied minor, a refund for Ema's baggage fee's and they are giving us an E coupon for $300, which I think would fly maybe me to Hamilton, that would be about it."
She says the family just wants to make sure this never happens again to any child, that is why they have gone public with their experience.
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