Passenger booted off flight to high school reunion can't thank Air Canada enough
SURREY, B.C.—Trent Dilferson has had an emotional day, having narrowly avoided a difficult and potentially traumatic experience via air travel.
Dilferson, who was at Vancouver International Airport this morning, about to travel to his 20-year high school reunion, was told at the last possible second that the flight had been overbooked, and that he would not be able to fly today.
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He spent the rest of the day profusely praising and thanking the airline.
"Honestly, I can't tell you what this means to me," said a visibly emotional Dilferson. "It's like they knew."
Dilferson explains how he ignored the original reunion invite, then the second invite, then the following 16 invites and reminders.
"So then I finally wrote back saying, 'Oh great, thanks! See you all there! Can't wait!' But obviously I wasn't planning on going."
"But that's when the airline ticket came in the mail, courtesy of the Millbank High School Welcoming Committee. I couldn't believe it. They always were real go-getters. Obviously I pretended I never got it, so they sent another one. Who's funding this operation???"
Robbed of any excuse not to attend, a tearful Dilferson arrived at the airport, having tried to lose 20 pounds in the past day and a half, and having printed hundreds of misleadingly impressive business cards, and having studied pictures of his old school bullies so he could avoid them deftly. And then a miracle happened.
"The call went out over the PA: 'We apologize, but this flight has been overbooked. Will the man in seat 32A please report to the desk.' And that was me! I felt like I won the lottery! Though I like to think I contributed a bit, because that first ticket I threw in the garbage probably wasn't 32A! And plus, maybe that one made them think they were more overbooked than they really were!"
At press time, Dilferson was trying to game the system and repeat his luck by purchasing 54 plane tickets to this summer's family reunion.
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