A typo on one Ontario man's Air Canada ticket cost him $6,223 — here's what Canadians need to check before every flight

“I called them and the employee said I should be fine,” Bowman told the outlet.

But apparently the issue was not resolved. Two days before he was scheduled to leave, Bowman reached out to Air Canada once more to confirm everything was in order. This time, another employee answered him, and gave him a vastly different response.

“The next employee said it is not fine, we will have to cancel everything, and the price of a new ticket jumped about $6,000,” Bowman said. His new return flight ticket was $11,200 total, but, he chose to continue with his dream vacation, largely because he had pre-paid for multiple outings and tours.

After coming home, Bowman contacted Air Canada to receive compensation for the mistake. After all, he initially reached out to the airline to check if the typo would be an issue and was assured it would not. Thankfully, Air Canada decided to refund Bowman the difference between his original ticket price and the revised ticket: a total of $6,223.

“We reviewed this case and we concluded that the customer should have been advised more clearly about his options during the initial call, which would have remedied this situation,” a spokesperson for Air Canada said in a statement to CTV.

Small mistakes can lead to big problems

While tickets containing a typo for domestic travel may not be an issue, trying to board an international flight with this minor error could is much more serious. For example, a P.E.I. man was not allowed to board his flight because his name was spelled “Doug Lee” on his ticket but “Douglas Lee” on his passport (2). Because of the discrepancy, Lee and his wife ended up missing out on a $10,000 vacation, they told CBC News.

At a macro level, Lee and Bowman’s airline issues aren’t unique in the Canadian travel ecosystem either. According to the Canadian Transportation Agency’s (CTA) 2024-2025 Annual Report, there were over 40,000 air travel complaints made to the agency for the third year in a row. As a result, the CTA reported nearly 85,000 complaints in a backlog at the end of its 2024-2025 fiscal year (3).

Issues like Bowman’s and Lee’s bring up a critical question: Who’s responsible for information on a ticket being correct? The passenger or the airline?

Who’s on the hook?

According to Air Canada’s website (4), customers seem to carry the responsibility of putting in their information correctly. Their website states that, “If, after booking your flight at aircanada.com, you notice that you made an error (e.g., wrong date, misspelled passenger name), you will need to contact us directly to make the necessary corrections.”

Moreover, if the passenger does not inform Air Canada of the issue within 24 hours of the flight booking, they could face complications (e.g. a higher fare for a new ticket), according to the carrier’s website.

On the CTA’s website, which outlines air passenger protections and rights, the agency recommends that whenever consumers purchase an airline ticket they review the details to ensure their “...name is spelled correctly and matches your passport and other travel documents (5).”

Taking into account Air Canada’s policies and the CTA’s guidance, the implication seems to be that it’s the customer who is responsible for catching errors and reporting them accordingly. But some consumer advocates don’t think this takes the airline off the hook for typos altogether.

"An airline can't walk away from a contract by way of a clerical error," Gábor Lukács, president of Air Passenger Rights, told CBC News.