CanJet Fails on Travel Rules, Public Relations

CanJet Airlines needs a lesson in public relations after leaving an Australian family of five in the lurch. The Halifax-based charter company ruined their Christmas holiday and then did not get back to them for four weeks — and only after The Public Citizen contacted CanJet’s executive vice president directly.

It also looks like CanJet needs a lesson on what travel documents Mexico requires of Australians to holiday there.

And that’s not all the guff. If what CanJet now says is the real reason it denied the family from boarding a Christmas Day flight from Ottawa to Mexico — that the parents didn’t have their Canadian working papers in order — why is it changing the story that Jeremy Michell and his wife, Sushma Mathur, say they were told?

To make matters worse, it appears the couple has lost the $8,000 they paid upfront for the trip, unless the charter airlines and the Mexican resort where they were supposed to stay with their three children — Emily, 11, Sarah, 10, and Zachary, 8, — decide to refund their money.

The family was looking forward to being pampered at the Akumal Beach resort, near Playa del Carmen, on the Caribbean Sea. The kids helped the parents with the holiday itinerary. There would be snorkeling, swimming and visits to Aztec temples. And all the fun would start around noon, Christmas Day.