A number of young scouts are stranded in Zurich, Switzerland, after some members of their group missed an Air Canada flight to Toronto on Friday, and it’s unclear whether travel insurance will cover their return, one of their mothers says.
“It was a great experience until it was time to go home,” Carina Vega, mother of one of the scouts, told CTV News Toronto Saturday afternoon.
Her 14-year-old son, Marcus Roy, went on a 10-day trip to Switzerland with his contingent of 12- to 14-year-old Boy Scouts from Bancroft, Ontario. The main event of the trip was the World Scout Jamboree, a gathering of the world Scout community.
But on the way home, the Bancroft contingent faced challenges with the ArriveCan app. The leaders had entered the group’s information into the app, but when they arrived at the airport, they found that only the two adults’ information was registered. Also, they couldn’t get Wi-Fi at the airport because they didn’t have a local phone number.
“Until they get everything sorted out, the check-in desk has closed,” Vega said. “They literally saw their flight take off.”
According to Air Canada, 15 of the 21 people in the group flew home on July 15, while another six – including two adults – were not on the flight due to long security lines.
As a group, Vega said, they paid for travel insurance.
“Air Canada will not honor their travel insurance policy that they purchased at an additional cost and includes missing flights,” she said. She added that it would cost $1,800 per child to return home.
“All of our kids are Canadian citizens, they’re scared, they’re tired and they’re very stressed,” Vega said.
The mother says the parents reached out to Boy Scouts Canada, the group organizing the trip, for help in retrieving their children.
“We just got a call that the embassy was involved,” Vega said.
CTV News Toronto has reached out to the Canadian Embassy for comment and is awaiting a response.
Meanwhile, Air Canada confirmed that some members of the group had missed their flight, but did not comment on whether or not the airline would honor the group’s travel insurance.
“As they booked through a travel agency, someone has already contacted their travel agent to help,” an airline spokesman said.
Vega said her son, along with the other five members of the group, is now in a hotel and in “better spirits” since the embassy intervened.
“At first everyone was quite stressed, crying, upset, but now their mood has changed because the Canadian embassy has contacted them directly,” she said.
Now she hopes her son will soon be on a flight home.
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