Family boards flight, forgets toddler

Web posted at: 5/14/2008 8:9:3
Source ::: AFP
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 yesterday.

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. Sometime 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 (1,400 miles) 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."