Porter Airlines
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Don’t travel with people with disabilities or small children
Would give 0 stars if I could. I was flying with my 8 months pregnant wife, 18 month old son and elderly mother-in-law who has a disability today. Because my wife pushed the stroller and I had to push 3 rolling carry on luggages, we had booked ahead of time to have a porter staff accompany my MIL through security to the gate. We arrived to the airport 3 hours before our domestic flight because we wanted to be able to make it through and feed our toddler before boarding a 4 hour flight. After checking in, they sent us to a corner with no seating for my mother in law and told us to wait for an attendant. 10, 20, 30, 45 minutes went by and despite repeatedly and politely asking at the desk every 20 min or so, we were told “we are under staffed, you’ll just have to wait.” One staff actually said to me “it’s your own mother in law, can’t you help her?” Finally after almost an hour of waiting and now in danger of being late to our flight, I went a little bit Karen-coded and asked for a supervisor at the desk. The staffer said “you don’t need a supervisor and now you’ll wait even longer.” I then asked for her name and said that I would be making a complaint to the Alberta Ombudsman for mistreatment of a person with disabilities. She turned over her name tag so I couldn’t see it any more and said “Go ahead.” At that point, the actual supervisor who was a few wickets over finally perked up and said “One moment, I’ll bring her.” Security was quite busy and we got through to our gate after boarding was already called, not missing the flight but with no time to change or feed our son, or for my MIL to find food before the flight either. We’ve flied Porter many times in the past, but they’ve lost a customer with this disgraceful service. I wouldn’t recommend booking with them, especially if you require any kind of special assistance for young children or persons with disabilities.