Air Canada passenger says he was bumped off flight ruining 'trip of a lifetime' at the last minute

The 'trip of a lifetime' for two Air Canada passengers came to a screeching halt after the airline bumped them off their flight right as they were boarding, with no apparent explanation.

The “trip of a lifetime” for two Air Canada passengers came to a screeching halt after the airline bumped them off their flight right as they were boarding, with no apparent explanation.

New York Times bestselling author, Dan Gardner, and his 14-year-old son were destined for London, England, on June 16, on what was supposed to be a dream vacation packed with historical visits and a television shooting with Monty Python star John Cleese.

Gardner told CTV News Toronto in an interview Tuesday the trip was booked weeks in advance, and scheduled in a way that would give them enough time to get over jetlag and make it in time for the start of shooting.

They arrived at Toronto Pearson International Airport from Ottawa that Friday night with hours to spare

“Everything looked perfectly normal,” he said, recounting when they were waiting around their gate.

But when they handed their boarding passes to be scanned and boarded onto the flight, Gardner says the ticket agent didn’t let them through and instead pointed him to go to a different agent.

“This person takes us to a nearby table, there are more staff there, they look through their computers, and they say to me, ‘You need to go to customer service,’” Gardner said. “I said, ‘Why?’ and they just repeated, ‘You need to go to customer service.’”