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Several travelers set to fly out of Houston, Texas, with valid passports were, according to one traveler, on their flight to Montreal. The passengers were scheduled to fly on an Air Canada flight but ...
KLHIISA
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Several travelers set to fly out of Houston, Texas, with valid passports were, according to one traveler, on their flight to Montreal. The passengers were scheduled to fly on an Air Canada flight but were denied boarding at the airport. One traveler shared her experience online, adding that six other passengers faced the same issue.
This incident follows Canada's beefed-up U.S. travel advisory, which warns of stricter "entry and exit requirements" that the Canadian government cannot intervene in. Nothing has been publicly confirmed about what caused this latest issue, but some have speculated it stems from an issue with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).
One affected traveler shared her experience on Reddit’s r/USCanadaBorder, explaining that her immigration status was affected along with six other passengers.
The traveler explained that she and the other affected passengers were at the gate and could not board for what was, at first, an unknown reason.
“We weren’t given any reason as to why this was happening at first. I don’t know if that was random or not. For reference, I have a Canadian passport and so did most of the other passengers denied entry,” she wrote.
It remains unclear what passports the other passengers had. The traveler said the flight attendant could not estimate when the issue would be fixed.
“She said it could take a few hours to a few days,” she wrote. “So we could either wait indefinitely at the airport or be rebooked for another day.”
The traveler chose the latter option. Air Canada told her it was a “bug in the system” that was affecting other passengers as well. She added that the problem had been resolved and that she was able to rebook the flight back to Montreal.
In a reply in another post, she wrote, “The gate agent literally showed me what appeared on the screen for me and the other passengers : ‘Unable to Board as APP Immigration Status is not OK.’”
People weighed in with reactions and ideas about why this happened and what could have caused multiple Canadian citizens to be denied boarding on their flight to their own country despite having a valid passport.
The traveler also shared her experience on r/AirCanada, where one person weighed in with an explanation for what happened—and didn’t place blame on the airline.
“It was not immigration, rather CBSA's security link went down. Every passport swipe, new booking, change of booking initiates a check against the no fly list for Canada..when the link is down it has to be vetted manually..can take hours,” they wrote.
“It's random. Bug in the system,” another person added. Other people shared their reactions, with some saying they faced a similar issue recently with their own Canadian passport, while others said she should seek compensation from Canada’s Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR).
“This happened to me today too, dual citizen, flying back from London, England, with Canadian passport with British Airways. A Canadian system was down and it was out of the control of BA,” A commenter wrote.
"It's most likely a system glitch, I had the same thing happened to me a while ago in Hong Kong when I was trying to board a flight back to Vancouver, happened to a couple other passengers as well," one person replied.
“I would treat this as an in-control cancellation and seek APPR compensation and expenses,” another added.
“File an appr claim once this mess is sorted,” a commenter wrote.
CBSA said in a statement to TheTravel that its "system was functional throughout August 10, 2026" — which is when the post was published.
However, others explained that she and other passengers were technically not denied boarding under APPR.
One person explained that “denied boarding” typically applies to when a flight is overbooked, which wasn’t what happened in this incident.
Another person replied, offering a more detailed explanation.
"The wording for APPR is annoying, because it leads passengers to believe that if they're not on their flight, they're 'denied," they wrote. “[The traveler] was not 'denied' boarding; they were unable to show that they had the requirements (outlined in the tariff) to be accepted for carriage."
Canada’s APPR defines denial of boarding as the following: “For the purpose of these Regulations, there is a denial of boarding when a passenger is not permitted to occupy a seat on board a flight because the number of seats that may be occupied on the flight is less than the number of passengers who have checked in by the required time, hold a confirmed reservation and valid travel documentation and are present at the boarding gate at the required boarding time.”
The Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) says a passenger may be owed up to $2,400 in compensation, depending on how late their flight arrives and whether it wasn’t due to a safety issue.
Less Than 6 Hours Late $900
6+ Hours Late But Less Than 9 Hours $1,800
9+ Hours Late $2,400
According to the CTA, compensation applies only to situations within the airline’s control, though situations outside the airline’s control, like this incident, still entitle passengers to refunds or rebooking — the passenger said she received the latter. While the CBSA stated it did not experience an outage, it did happen earlier this year.
In May 2026, the agency warned on social media of an outage. Several travelers boarding international flights to Canada were delayed, according to the CBC. The 12-hour outage also delayed travelers arriving in Canada by disrupting inspection kiosks.
CBSA told TheTravel that in events like these, "air carriers process and verify travellers’ information manually which can delay boarding."
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