Woman rejected from flight over her name
A Canadian woman was allegedly not allowed to fly because her boarding pass did not have her middle name printed on it, therefore, not matching her passport.
On Sunday, Ashley Collins said she arrived at Pearson International Airport with her friend to fly to Iceland with Icelandic budget airline WOW Air.
However, when Ashley went to the airline counter, she claims she was told she was not allowed to board the plane.
“Once we got to the front, the lady said to her supervisor, ‘It’s another one’,” Ashley told Toronto’s City News.
“She handed me my passport and said I was missing the middle name on the ticket so I was denied boarding the flight.”
Ashley was given a customer service number to call but a WOW airlines agent told her that they could not change her name on the ticket less than four hours prior to the flight.
“We were really looking forward to this trip,” she said.
“We had no options at that point.”
Ashley then had to pay for a new flight to Iceland the next day, which she said cost more than the return tickets she initially purchased.
She also had to pay $30 to change her name on her return ticket.
Ashley said she was not the only one who was affected by this rule.
Ashley revealed that an airport employee told her that the same thing happened to 11 WOW customers the day before.
“I just advise everyone to make sure you put your middle name (on your ticket) whether the airlines require it or not because you don’t want to run into a situation like I did,” she said.
Although not all airlines require middle names, Gabor Forgacs from Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Hospitality and Tourism management explained to City News that airlines are strict on names as improper identification can be costly.
“Airlines learnt to be very careful because they can be in a lot of trouble for not complying with the regulations that require the names of the passenger to match the names of the travel documentation,” Dr Forgacs said.
However, aviation manager Andrew McLeish told a Quora discussion that passengers should never put their middle name on flight tickets, even if it was on your passport.
“When buying your ticket, don’t give your middle name(s). The name fields on the ticket are first/last. Including your middle name increases the chance of error and incurring a change fee,” he said.
Do you use your middle name when you book a flight?