Dream vacation turns painful for Kitchener, Ont. veteran

It was a dream vacation that a Kitchener, Ont. veteran says ended with a painful flight home.

Dan Doughty, who can’t bend his leg because of a previous injury, says a specific type of seat he had booked on a WestJet flight, which he required for comfortability, was given to someone else.

He says it happened on his journey home from an Alaskan cruise.

“I've been laid up for going on five years, and we've been planning this trip for I don't know, a decade. So we finally decided we're going to do it,” Doughty told CTV News.

Back in the late 1970s, Doughty was serving as a paratrooper in the Canadian Airborne Regiment when he suffered an injury during a jump that left him with a fused right knee.

“I cannot bend my leg whatsoever,” he said.

Now when he’s traveling on an airplane, he says he has to sit in a specific seat by the bulkhead.

“I'm able to put my foot sort of in the hallway next to the edge, and I'm comfortable.”

Doughty said his holiday was very nice except for the final flight home. His original booking with WestJet was cancelled, leading to a scramble to rebook a flight in the seat he needs to accommodate his disability.

But he said when he got to the gate, that seat had been assigned to someone else -- who he said declined to move.

“So I couldn't sit with my leg down. I actually had to put it up in the air most of the time on an angle, pushed up against the wall. And the flight was about three-and-a-half hours. It was painful,” he said.

In a statement to CTV News, WestJet apologized, saying: “We are sincerely sorry to Mr. Doughty for the inconvenience he experienced while travelling with WestJet. Upon being notified of this incident through your inquiry, we escalated this file to our guest support team, and they were able to confirm that the accommodation originally requested was included in his flight booking. On the day of the flight, the aircraft scheduled to operate WS0658 was switched to a different aircraft for operational reasons, and it was not equipped with the seating Mr. Doughty requested. We recognize this was a disappointing experience and can confirm WestJet agents at the gate offered an alternative option on a different flight which was declined.”

Doughty said he’d like to see better training for WestJet employees, who he called “cold” and “unwilling to listen” throughout the process.

“Maybe train their people a little bit better than what they have. Have a little compassion,” Doughty said.

He said he is sharing his story in hopes that no one else ends up in the same situation.

“The main thing is to make sure this doesn't happen to other people, that's the main thing.”