MONTREAL, QC — Air Canada said it has issued an apology to two passengers who were kicked off a recent flight for refusing to sit in seats that were smeared with vomit, according to BBC.
Susan Benson, one of the passengers aboard the Las Vegas to Montreal flight, said in a post on Facebook about the incident that she heard the pilot threaten to place the passengers on a no-fly list if they did not stop complaining about their seats.
She added that the flight crew had tried to mask the odor left by the residue with perfume and coffee grounds.
An Air Canada spokesperson admitted the passengers "clearly did not receive the standard of care to which they were entitled to," according to BBC.
According to Benson's account, someone on a previous flight had vomited on the seats. The flight crew attempted to perform a quick-clean of the area before the next flight, but "clearly was unable to do a thorough clean," Benson wrote.
The flight attendant was "very apologetic" to the affected passengers, but said they were unable to move them to different seats because "the flight was full," Benson said in her account.
Benson said the flight attendants "placed coffee grounds in the seat pouch" and "sprayed perfume" in the area, but the seats and seatbelts remained covered in "visible vomit residue."
The passengers argued that "they couldn't possibly be expected to sit in vomit for five hours," Benson wrote on Facebook.
After several minutes of back-and-forth between the passengers and the flight crew, Benson said, the pilot came out of the cockpit and told the passengers they could either "leave the plane...and organize flights on their own dime, or they would be escorted off by security and placed on a no-fly list."
Eventually, the passengers were taken off the plane by security.
Air Canada told BBC it was "reviewing this serious matter" and that "operating procedures were not followed correctly in this instance."
