Holly Robinson Peete calls out Air Canada after teenage sons denied business class flight


Holly Robinson Peete attends Sergio Hudson SS22 during New York Fashion Week on Sept. 9, 2021.

Holly Robinson Peete says her teenage sons were denied boarding for an Air Canada flight for being unable to present the form of payment for the booking, and now the actor wants to ensure this doesn’t happen to anyone else.

“Excuse me Air Canada but you got some explaining to do!” Peete wrote on Twitter on Oct. 4. “My sons have just been refused to get on the airplane and travel because they couldn’t produce our credit card that paid for the tickets. One of them is a minor and now they are stranded in the airport!”

Two of Peete’s sons had been visiting her in British Columbia, where she was filming the upcoming Hallmark Christmas movie “A Christmas Journey,” and were heading home without her, when they were turned away.

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The actor said she’s flown Air Canada hundreds of times between Los Angeles and Vancouver, where she filmed “21 Jump Street” years ago, and had never been asked to produce form of payment before.

“The elephant in the room is, you know, yeah, these are two Black boys traveling alone,” Peete told Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News, which identified her sons as ages 16 and 19.

Air Canada told USA TODAY the business class tickets had been flagged by the airline’s impartial, off-property fraud prevention team.

“Sometimes legitimate transactions require additional verification when the booking is made in an unusual way, such as foreign purchases made outside Canada for last minute travel and these are identified by our automated anti-fraud systems,” the airline said in a statement. “The purchase regrettably was not validated in time for the customers to travel.”

Peete, who is married to former NFL quarterback Rodney Peete, said she had to put her sons up in a nearby hotel out-of pocket because no other flights were available until the next day, when they eventually made it home.

“They shouldn’t have had to deal with this — no one should,” Peete tweeted, adding that she didn’t believe the airline’s excuse.

On Monday morning, she said, “I want this never to happen to another mother’s children” and wanted the airline to acknowledge the “SERIOUS lapse in customer service.”

The airline told USA TODAY: “We have followed up with the customer as we recognize this did cause inconvenience.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Holly Robinson Peete calls out Air Canada after sons denied flight





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