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OTTAWA: Tickets, check. Passports, check. Luggage,
check. Baby . . . oops.
A family boarded a flight on
Monday in westernmost Canada, and forgot their tot at the Vancouver
international airport, media said Tuesday (Wednesday in Manila).
The 23-month-old boy’s family
had just arrived in Canada from the Philippines, but they were
forced to repack their overweight bags before catching a connecting
flight to Winnipeg, causing them to run late.
In their sprint to the gate, the
family became separated.
The boy’s father Jun Parreno,
told local media he had thought his son was with his wife and the
boy’s grandparents, who ran ahead. They thought the boy was with
his dad.
On the plane, the family members
were seated separately and so did not immediately realize they had
left the child behind.
Later, a security guard found the
boy, who speaks no English, wandering near the departure gate, and
Air Canada officials tracked down his shocked parents on the flight.
Because the boy was so young, he
was not issued a boarding pass and would have sat on a parent’s
lap during the flight, so airline personnel did not notice a
passenger was missing.
According to the Vancouver Sun,
airport security found a Tagalog-speaking Air Canada agent who
looked after the child while his father flew 2,300 kilometers back
to Vancouver to pick him up and then return to Winnipeg to rejoin
the immigrant family on their first day in Canada.
The baby was kept in Air
Canada’s offices and staff found him some toys, said local media.
“Air Canada took good care of
him,” Parreno told the daily Winnipeg Free Press upon arrival.
“I’m grateful.”
--AFP
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