A FILIPINO family left their 23-month-old boy in Vancouver airport and learned he was missing only when contacted during the next leg of their trip.
Jun Parreno, the boy's father, told The Vancouver Sun the mix-up occurred on Monday as he, his wife and two grandparents of the child were scrambling between their arrival in Canada and a connecting flight to Winnipeg on Air Canada.
Running late a
fter having to unpack and repack all their luggage, "we had ten minutes before boarding", said Mr Parreno, who was emigrating with his family from the Philippines. "We were running for the gate."
He said he thought his son was with the three other adults, who were running to the gate ahead of him, and they thought the little boy was with him.
Instead, the boy was wandering alone between a security checkpoint and the flight gates.
Angela Mah, an Air Canada representative, said: "We were called by (security], who told us one of the security people had a toddler in tow. He doesn't speak English, so we found a Tagalog-speaking agent who has been looking after him."
The child did not have a separately assigned seat and there were no calls from family members, so staff were not alerted that anyone was missing.
They eventually traced the parents.
The full article contains 228 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
