- A woman said a stranger drove her family to Vancouver on Sunday after their flight was canceled.
- The woman, Chelsea Smith, said her family was offered another flight but it wouldn't arrive in time.
A woman said a stranger drove her family from Seattle to Vancouver so they could make their cruise after their Air Canada flight was canceled at the last minute.
Chelsea Smith said in a TikTok video that she, her husband, and their 3-year-old son had been due to fly from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to Vancouver at 6 a.m. on Sunday to go on a cruise. But she said no staffers were working at the Air Canada bag drop, despite a long line of passengers waiting to drop off their luggage.
"No one ever showed up to the ticket gate to take our bags," she said.
Smith told the Canadian news outlet Daily Hive Urbanized: "The lineup at the airport was just all the way down the aisle. There were just hundreds of people waiting."
Smith said the flight was canceled at 6 a.m. and that other flights scheduled to depart that morning were canceled too.
An Air Canada spokesperson told Insider that the flight was canceled because the third-party provider that operates the airline's flights from Seattle didn't have enough staff. The spokesperson added that all passengers were rebooked on flights, including some with other airlines, within 24 hours.
Smith said in her video that Air Canada offered to book her on a flight from Seattle at 4 p.m. but that it would mean she wouldn't be able to catch her cruise. "We thought we were screwed, that we were going to miss our cruise," she said.
Smith told Daily Hive Urbanized that a woman named Annie Nguyen, who had dropped off her mother at the airport that morning, met Smith in the line and offered to drive the family to Vancouver for free. Smith added that the journey of about 140 miles took about 2 1/2 hours.
Smith said Nguyen "had no reason to be in Vancouver," adding that "during the drive she told us she had to drive another three hours to be on the other side of Washington for work that evening."
Travel this summer has been tainted by chaos at airlines and airports. Passenger numbers are almost back to prepandemic levels, but airports and airlines don't have as many workers because of layoffs, strikes, and resignations.
This has led to flight delays, cancellations, long lines at security, and lost luggage. One woman recently told Insider that Air Canada lost her dress when she flew to Greece for her sister's wedding and then delayed her return home by more than 24 hours.