Sometimes, even Hollywood actors get the boot from the business class in an oversell situation (or at least an alleged one). One popular Harry Potter star is irritated at Air Canada after losing his premium cabin seat on a flight from Florida.
Harry Potter Actor Kicked Out Of Business Class On Air Canada
Matthew Lewis, an actor in the Harry Potter franchise who played Neville Longbottom, took to Twitter in a spell of anger after being downgraded from “first class” (Air Canada does not really have a first class, just a business class and on Rogue “premium Rogue,” but that’s what Lewis called it).
Confirmed. @AirCanada is the worst airline in North America. And that’s saying something.
— 🇺🇦Matthew Lewis🇺🇦 (@Mattdavelewis) August 26, 2022
When he was asked for more details on Twitter, he explained that no explanation had been given beyond the flight being full, his ticket was simply ripped up, and he was downgraded to economy class. He was told to take up the issue in Toronto (the destination of the flight from Orlando).
Kicking me out of first class to back of plane is what it is but doing it at the gate. Literally tearing my ticket up. No explanation other than “full flight”. Said if I wanted to sort it I should go to customer service. I asked where that was. “Toronto.” I’m in Orlando 🙃
— 🇺🇦Matthew Lewis🇺🇦 (@Mattdavelewis) August 26, 2022
Air Canada has refused to comment beyond noting that it is investigating the incident and privacy concerns prevent it from providing further info at this time. It did reach out to Lewis on Twitter for more info.
Hi Matthew, we regret hearing this. Please send us a DM with further details of the issue, we’ll see if we can help from here. https://t.co/Y5350m96oC /Max
— Air Canada (@AirCanada) August 26, 2022
It merits noting that Air Canada doesn’t generally oversell premium cabins on flights. There could certainly be something else going on here, like perhaps a late check-in or bad attitude.
How To Prevent Such Downgrades (Or At Least Make Them Harder)
Sad that this happened to him if he is innocent. It’s sad when it happens to anyone. I saw it happen once years ago on United (before the merger with Continental and before the age of digital boarding passes). Same thing – the gate agent literally ripped the boarding pass. With a snicker, she said, “No sir, you don’t have a first class boarding pass.”
It’s good to have evidence. Back in the day, I’d print my boarding pass twice at the airport and tuck one away….exactly for this circumstance. On occasion, I also printed a couple of copies at home when online check-in was introduced, though I preferred to hold physical cardstock boarding passes (remember they had those magnetic strips and would run through those machines that would keep the larger portion and spit out the small boarding card that had the perforation to be placed on a coat hanger?).
These days, I don’t print much of anything anymore from either a kiosk or at home. Instead, I’ll take screenshots of every boarding pass and store them in a folder on my phone. That way, if something gets deleted or if some shenanigans take place, I’ll have a digital backup in place.
But the act of grabbing a boarding pass and ripping it hearkens back to the “possession is 9/10 of the law” cliche. No ticket, no laundry boarding.
Here’s my advice: if you are ever asked to surrender your boarding pass, pretend you cannot find it. If you have a physical paper boarding pass, tuck that away and pull up a digital boarding pass if you have a question at the gate or with a customer service agent.
Because you never know. Most gate agents (the vast majority as far as I am concerned) are just decent people trying to put in an honest day’s work. But there are still some bad apples out there who can turn things against you quickly.
“Oh, the passenger wasn’t at the gate.”
“The passenger tried to board late.”
“The passenger was combative.”
Never underestimate the power of gate agents to twist facts when it suits them. It’s why people insticintvely pull out their phones to record these days.
CONCLUSION
Perhaps the solution for Lewis was to find the Room of Requirement (a secret room in Hogwarts that only appears when a person has a real need for it). Sadly, Air Canada does not offer it…Too bad, if he really needed that first class seat the Room of Requirement would have had one.
I jest, but downgrades are no laughing matter. Follow my advice above to make it less likely you will become a downgrade victim. As for Lewis, we need more facts to determine exactly what happened.
image: Warner Bros / fair use exception
A. It should be illegal to oversell a cabin. It’s selling a product (seat) that doesn’t exist.
B. I’m no Air Canada Fan
C. Harry Potter is the worst movie franchise ever 🙂
Neville Longbottom: My Life on the D-List
“Here’s my advice: if you are ever asked to surrender your boarding pass, pretend you cannot find it. If you have a physical paper boarding pass, tuck that away and pull up a digital boarding pass if you have a question at the gate or with a customer service agent.”
Even with all that, couldn’t they still deny you boarding at the gate based on your previous pass and just print you a new one with your downgraded seat? I mean, do they really need to literally tear up your ticket/boarding pass to downgrade you at the airport?
They can change your digital boarding pass on their end of the system. It almost happened to me a few weeks ago where I was in 1A in Lufthansa’s First Class to JFK but they tried to accommodate a HON member who wanted to sit in 1A. Turns out that HON member’s connecting flight to FRA got delayed so they “updated” my digital boarding pass back to 1A,
Not sure an economy seat would be enough to accommodate his longbottom…
Agree, gate agents can be really rough. Once the computer system at my boarding gate was somehow broken and would not accept my husband‘s boarding pass. The agent was so incompetent, she blamed it on the hand baggage weight (as if the computer could weigh that from a distance), claimed that „he is going to fly nowhere today“, and tried to force me to get on the plane immediately and leave my husband behind or else she would call security. She also claimed that check-in had left a „Message in the System“ that he was to be denied boarding. It kept getting wilder and more unreasonable…after five minutes of discussion, she would rip the boarding pass apart…and tell us to go onboard, but make sure she‘s never see us again. Just wow…I keep scratching my head over this story until today…she was terribly rude, incompetent and aggressive. I filed a complaint later with the airline and heard that this was her last day of work before being retired…at least I can keep my promise to never see her again 🙂
I don’t get it– what actually happens when you present your backup boarding pass? Does the GA say “Damnit! He’s got another one, go ahead and board then.” The cabin is still oversold and someone isn’t going to be riding in it.
I’ve only encountered this twice, and in both cases when I scanned my paper boarding pass (it was back in the paper days) the pass was rejected, and then they handed me a new pass at the gate which they already had printed and ready.
Evidence, Mr. Marcus. Evidence. So you have something to present with your formal complaint.
Good job living in the moment, though. Cheers!
My problem with gate agents is that they usually don’t do their job correctly. They make up rules from their rear and often ignore the real rules. You never know their mood and how they will act. On a family trip to Europe this summer I spent a lot of money to buy European carry on bags for all members of my family to comply with the airline rules. I didn’t want to go through the nightmare of checking a bag. We get to AMS to take a KLM flight on an Embraer plane and I couldn’t believe the sizes of carry ons people were bringing onboard. Now, who knows what the gate agent will say? I felt stupid that I spent the money and had my family stuff their clothes in a small bag for a 2 week vacation while others brought their wardrobe with them. Again, gate agents didn’t follow the rules. Other times I saw them denying people to bring bags because the handle was outside that stupid metal frame they have at the gate.
He got “Rouged”.
It’s ridiculous that airlines can sell seats (in economy and premium) that literally don’t exist….overselling should never be allowed to happen
To be fair, it would stop, if people with bookings stopped cancelling in the last day or two, or not turning up for the flight. Almost every airline overbooks almost every flight, but we only hear of a few people being offloaded so they get it right most of the time.
This guy is also massive lefty so the hypocrisy is there as well.
You really just can’t help yourself, can you?
Just pointing out he’s a scumbag.
Well, that answered my question.
LOL
That answered ALL of our questions!
Who cares!!!!
Agree with you!
Listen up folks, he was only booked in the first class seat because of his white privilege. I nominated a black woman to take that seat.
Well played!!
Nah, it was quite unitiginal and has become boring at this point.
Unoriginal, dammit.
“SPELL of anger”.
Nice work.
Rouge. Not rogue. C’mon.
Air Canada doesn’t really care who you are (they can have an attitude). Never pay for anything extra. Don’t expect anything extra. And just take an airplane to travel from point A to point B. That’s how I travel.
How sad.
It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.
AC are terrible with last minute downgrades. They did it to me, with a confirmed seat and boarding pass fully checked in, claiming I had an economy ticket, which was garbage. I ended up having United, who had rebooked me on AC to start, rebook me on American after the scumbag AC agent at LAX decided to lie repeatedly and refuse to budge.
Who? Probably those who followed Harry Potter franchise know this man anyway. So regarding his downgrade. Hope he will get compensated. So what was the ground for his downgrade? Too late to board? Broken seat? Double booked the seat? Not enough seat due to aircraft swap? Or simply AC does not care. Please enlighten me.
It you’re an elite status member you can last minute book whatever seats you want.
I assume that this is what happened here, that some super status flyer booked that business seat last minute. I wonder if that person realizes that they kicked Neville Longbottom to the back of the plane, or if they even know who that is.
This was my flight and while i didn’t see his interaction, i was likely the reason he got bumped. We (family of 3) arrived at the airport too early for the 2pm flight so i asked for space on the 12pm flight. We were full fare J passengers so the ticket agent said she could make that happen and that there would likely be some non-rev or upgrade passengers bumped. We boarded zone 1 and never saw Neville in the check-in line or the terminal.
The only conclusion i can draw is that Neville bought an economy fare…
it’s a shame – we’re HP fans and i probably would have given him my wife’s seat if he’d asked…