Ontario woman misses flight to funeral due to airline ticket typo

An Ontario woman admits she was flustered and stressed trying to book an airline ticket when she found out a close relative had died last month.

“My father-in-law had passed away unexpectedly and I was in panic mode. I was trying to book my husband, my son and myself flights,” said Kimberley Faber of Thornhill.

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Faber said she wanted to fly to Calgary a day early to be with her family and booked a ticket for herself to leave right away.

She booked a ticket with Flair Airlines at a cost of $841, but when she got to the airport she was told there was a problem.

Faber put her name on the ticket as "Kim Robin Fabes," so not only was her full name of "Kimberley" not used there was also an “r” missing from her last name.

The airline said it was unfortunate, but she was not allowed to board the airplane.

"I was so frazzled I had just lost my father-in-law, I was panicking and I thought, 'I’m not going to make it to the funeral on time,'” said Faber. “I was so upset.”

Faber was able to catch another flight later that day, but had to buy another ticket at her expense at a cost of $954.

Richard Smart, CEO of the Travel Industry Council of Ontario (TICO), said that because airline systems are interconnected globally even a single missing letter can cause problems.

“We hear these stories more often than I would like and we are very sympathetic to customers who have to go through that," said Smart.

Smart said most airlines will allow passengers to correct mistakes within 24 hours for free or a small charge and you may have even longer depending on the fare class you're in.

The best advice when booking a trip with a travel agent or doing it yourself, Smart said, is to slow down and make sure your information is correct.

“Triple check you’ve got things like passport dates, date of issue, date of birth all recorded properly. Little things like that done wrong can have a big impact when you're at the airport," said Smart.

When CTV News Toronto reached out to Flair Airlines a spokesperson said, “Looking into this, we see the issue was not with Ms. Faber’s first name, Kim. Kim and Kimberly are recognized as similar names, and generally, this is allowable. However, we see that the reservation was made online with an error in the last name. The name on the reservation shows as 'Fabes' not 'Faber.' With that said, having an ID that says 'Kimberly Faber' vs 'Kim Fabes' on the booking could have presented an issue.”

“It’s important to know that Flair allows for name corrections to ensure there are no issues. Customers [can] go online to make a simple name correction through the 'manage my booking section.' There is no fee to make a name correction, provided it is three characters or less. This would have been free for Ms. Faber to do.”

“However, this passenger booked her flight the same day as travel and did not catch the error until at the airport; while our tickets are non-refundable, we can empathize with Ms. Faber that she was in a rush due to a personal matter and given the stressful and unusual circumstance, we will be reaching out to Ms. Faber shortly to offer a future travel credit on her Flair booking to use towards a future flight as a one-time exception to our policy.”

Flair Airlines gave Faber a travel credit of $841 towards a future flight which was good news for her.

“Even to get something back in some shape or form is great and I appreciate it,” said Faber.

You really shouldn't fly with any "typo" on an airplane ticket, because even if one airline allows you to fly somewhere you may not be allowed to fly back which could leave you stranded in another city or country.