A grieving mother says Air Canada left her fighting for answers — and a refund — after her 10-year-old daughter died.
Last summer, Becky Cable-Munroe booked a surprise trip to see one of Lucy’s favourite pop stars, Sabrina Carpenter, play Toronto in November. She bought flights, a hotel and concert tickets for herself and her daughter.
“She would have been extremely, extremely happy … very excited,” said the mother from Fall River, N.S.
Lucy never found out about the trip.
“I kept that a big secret,” said Cable-Munroe. “Unfortunately, I never got to tell her.”
Lucy died last October in a boating accident on Lake Rossignol in western Nova Scotia. Another child, five-year-old Adalind Gaul, also died when the boat they were in with an adult and another child overturned.
- Got a story you want investigated? Contact Rosa and the Go Public team gopublic@cbc.ca
As Cable-Munroe grieved, a friend stepped in to cancel the mother-daughter trip. What followed, Cable-Munroe says, was a months-long struggle to get answers and a refund from Air Canada.
She says her case shows how bereavement policies can fail grieving families, with experts pointing to a lack of compassionate support that leaves people to navigate difficult processes alone.
A woman whose 10-year-old daughter was killed following an accident fought Air Canada for months to get a refund for an airline ticket for a trip they planned to take. The mother says the airline ignored her attempts to get answers, despite having a clear bereavement policy — until Go Public got involved.
Mary Ellen Macdonald, an associate professor at McGill University in Montreal who researches bereavement, says policies are often overly procedural, since companies rely heavily on automation and layered complaint processes.
She says that makes it hard for people to get the support they need, leaving already overwhelmed customers to chase answers.
“We will call it a bereavement policy. It’s not a bereavement policy. It’s functional and it’s minimal,” said Macdonald.
“They’re very, very pragmatic and they are not generally based upon compassion.”
In a statement to Go Public, Air Canada said Cable-Munroe should have received a full refund under its rules.
The airline says its policy is to refund both the deceased customer and any immediate family member travelling with them.
The company noted that though the policy “was not correctly applied” in this case, it is applied correctly to several thousand similar cases every year.
After Go Public’s inquiry, Air Canada issued Cable-Munroe a refund and apologized.
Emails, silence and a case marked resolved
Cable-Munroe booked the trip through Expedia, including the Air Canada flights, and says the online booking platform quickly refunded the hotel and flight taxes, but said the almost $700 remaining would have to be refunded by the airline.
“They said they could only give a partial refund as per their terms and conditions, but that the full refund was due under Air Canada’s bereavement policy,” said Cable-Munroe.
Munroe’s friend provided a death certificate to the airline. But when it came time for Air Canada to pay, it only refunded Lucy’s ticket and not her mother’s.
Cable-Munroe says after that, the airline ignored her friend for weeks as she attempted to get answers.
“It was just really frustrating that they have such an important area of the business that they should be looking after dissatisfied customers, vulnerable customers, and yet they choose to simply ignore them,” she said.
Eventually, in February, she tried to get a response from the airline herself. She says she was told she would have an answer in about 30 days.
But she didn’t receive a response. Instead, she says when she looked up the status of her claim online, it showed that it was resolved.
For Cable-Munroe, the lack of communication mattered more than the money — if she wasn’t due the refund, she just wanted to know why.
“It’s really frustrating. I mean, particularly for me at the time.”
She began to question whether she should just give up.
System designed to frustrate, lawyer says
Daniel Tsai, the founder of ConsumerRights.ca and an adjunct professor at Queen’s University’s Smith School of Business, says the situation “demonstrates a major problem with the values of the business.”
Tsai says delays and lack of response are common with airline complaints. He says it’s in the best interests of these companies to use automated systems that are “designed to create maximum consumer frustration until people give up.”
While the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) does not compile data on airline refund-related complaints, the overall number of complaints has risen year over year, peaking at up to 1,400 a week in 2026.
Air Canada said its employees are trained to support customers “and treat them empathetically,” adding that it successfully handles thousands of bereavement requests each year.
“Unfortunately, in this instance, that policy was not correctly applied immediately.”
In a statement to CBC News, Air Canada attributed the delay in getting Cable-Munroe a refund to a combination of factors, including Expedia booking references they were given and couldn’t access, and a duplicate online request that triggered a refund of only the taxes.
Tsai called the airline’s explanation “amateur hour.”
“A multi-billion dollar corporation that can’t figure out how to get a refund done?” he said. “Give me a break. That’s just a bad excuse for incompetency.”
He says companies need to have clear policies that are followed.
‘It’s not about the money’
When asked if she’d fly with Air Canada again, Cable-Munroe, a frequent business flyer, says she has little choice given the limited number of options in Canada.
“I do a lot of travelling,” she said. “It is a bitter pill to swallow.”
But she’s clear about what matters most to her.
“It’s not about the money at all, it’s very much about having companies understand the impact that they have on their customers and that the customers should always be the priority.”
Cable-Munroe is considering filing a complaint with the CTA, but says she wanted to tell her story first because it could help others who are in the same situation.
Go Public is an investigative news segment on CBC-TV, radio and the web.
We tell your stories, shed light on wrongdoing and hold the powers that be accountable.
If you have a story in the public interest, or if you’re an insider with information, contact gopublic@cbc.ca with your name, contact information and a brief summary. All emails are confidential until you decide to Go Public.
