A British man says that he’s stuck in Toronto after having been denied permission to fly to his native England. He arrived to fly home at Toronto’s Pearson Airport only to be told he couldn’t board the plane.
The man, Dawood Hepplewhite, is from Sheffield and says that the Air Transat employee told him that he couldn’t get on the plane. Air Canada and British Airways also refused, leaving the man stuck in Toronto.
This isn’t particularly uncommon. Few realize that airlines operating out of Canada have been known to reject passengers whose names appear on U.S. no-fly lists. In the case of Hepplewhite, he says he’s on the U.S. list because he’s a white Muslim and because he attended a job interview in Yemen for a position teaching English. That was a few years ago.
Even so, that’s probably enough for paranoid American forces and Hepplewhite remains, at least for now, in Canada. The 30-year-old divides his time between his native Sheffield and Toronto. His wife is a Canadian in Toronto. The plan was for the two to go to England along with their three kids for an extended stay, but that’s off the books now.
Hepplewhite says that he’s taken the decision of teaching in any Middle Eastern country off the table because of the complications that seem to arise. He has even been to Canada several times since being pulled over by police in England.
Hepplewhite says that he’s looked into getting his name off the no-fly list. He’ll have to use the U.S. Transportation Security Administration’s redress process to get the job done, but that could take 45 to 60 days. The visa that allows him to stay in Canada expires on April 29 and calls to the British High Commission have been of little help. Talk about your predicaments.
“In their eyes, I’m a nobody. That’s why I’ve had to come to the media, because unfortunately my government’s letting me down,” he said.
Pearson Airport Getting Ready for Busy March Break Season
One of the treats that Pearson Airport has prepared for travellers is that they have partnered with the Juno Awards to bring live music to the airport. Today, Friday, March 11, 2011, past Juno nominees will be playing at Terminal 1 in the afternoon. Those who will be camped out at Terminal 3 waiting for their departure will be treated to a Canadian music trivia game between 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. The airport has also recruited several volunteers who are out at the curb and inside the airport, helping people find their way to the proper counter and gates, and to greet them as they arrived.
Most importantly perhaps to travellers, even though there will be long lines and busy crowds, it doesn’t seem that there have been a lot of flight delays so far. There were some minor delays yesterday due to the wet conditions that included some ice in Toronto yesterday but flights today are mostly scheduled to be on time, with the exception of flights heading out to the west coast, Hawaii, Japan and other parts of the world that will be affected by the earthquake in Japan, and resulting tsunami that occurred early this morning.
On Thursday, Pearson Airport saw 101,000 passengers go through its doors. Today, Friday, March 11, 2011, the airport expects an average of 105,000 people going through its doors.