Cellist turned away from Air Canada flight after his instrument wasn't allowed to board

A cellist’s quick trip from Baltimore to Montreal turned into a two-day odyssey after Air Canada refused to let him bring his instrument on the plane. This despite the fact that he had paid full fare for a second seat specifically for the instrument, crafted in 1695 and worth over a million dollars, to fly with him.

Amit Peled is an Israeli-American cellist , conductor and teacher who has performed at venues around the world and released more than a dozen recordings including The Jewish Soul and Cellobration.

He’s no stranger to travelling by air with his instrument propped up in the seat next to him. “Almost every week of my life,” he told National Post in an interview “That’s what I do. In the last 30 years, I’ve been traveling all over the world.”

This week he was on his way to the Orford Music Festival near Sherbrooke, Que., where he was due to perform and also teach a class. But after driving from his home in Baltimore to the airport in Philadelphia, he was told by an Air Canada employee that his cello couldn’t board the plane.

He was flabbergasted. He’d had issues before — often because his musical companion doesn’t have a passport — but they’ve generally been solved at the airport.

“However, this time in Philadelphia, the lady at the counter said: You can’t bring the cello with you because it was not named the right way in the computer.”

He said the employee informed him that she could make a change but that it would cost $700. “And I said, well, I already paid a full-price ticket. And here it is. It’s right here in front of you. You can see it. And she said: I’m really sorry.”

Peled decided to go through to the gate anyway, hoping someone there would help him, but he was given the same answer. “Everybody goes on the plane, and I told her, I’m going to miss my flight, and thus I’m going to not be in the festival where I have to teach and play,” he said. “She didn’t care. And then, of course, the door closed and I missed the flight.”

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Angry and stranded, Peled shot a short video in front of the gate, showing his cello and suitcase and explaining his plight.

“I have a full class of students waiting for me there from all over the world,” he says in the video, posted to social media. “I have my cello ticket, my ticket, and just here at the gate I’m denied entrance because the procedure to ride for the cello was not right on the computer.”

He ends by saying: “I’m really really sorry and I hope to be able to teach the students on Zoom. I can’t perform on Zoom but I’ll teach them on Zoom. I’m going home and never ever ever fly Air Canada again.”

Peled then called his daughter to pick him up for the two-hour drive back to Baltimore. But as he got home, his phone rang. “I get a phone call from somebody from Air Canada, and I’m shocked. And that person is in charge of customer service, calling me,” he said.

The airline had seen the video. “Can you believe that? I mean, it’s the first time in my life, honestly, that social media did something good for me. I was absolutely shocked. I mean, it’s not just somebody from Air Canada. It’s like the guy who runs customer service calling me, and he says: I’m really sorry, but I saw the video, and first I want to apologize.”

Peled was then booked on the same flight the following day. “And the same people, the same people that were there the day before: ‘Hello, Mr. Peled, how are you and the cello? Here are the two tickets.’ I went on the plane, no problem. And I’m here now in Canada.”

Not every airline experience has been so bumpy. Peled recalled a trip on Austrian Airlines several years ago, during which he fell asleep leaning on his cello, and missed dinner. When he woke up he went to the galley and asked the attendant if he could still have a meal.

“And she looks at me says, ‘Oh, you’re the guy with the cello.’ And I said yes. She said, ‘Well, if you bring the cello here and play for us, I’ll give you dinner from business.’ So I did.” The attendant took a video of the performance, and Amit later uploaded it to YouTube .

National Post reached out to Air Canada. “We continue to review this matter as it appears the cello was not booked correctly using our process for transporting instruments in the cabin, creating uncertainty about ticketing at the airport,” a spokesperson said. “Unfortunately, we were not able to recover in time for the flight, but we did reach out to this customer immediately afterward to rectify the situation.”

In addition to bringing instruments as checked baggage or (for smaller instruments) carry-on, Air Canada has a policy by which travellers may purchase a second seat at a 50 per cent discount. (Peled didn’t know about this, and paid full price for his second ticket.) The airline notes that “seated” instruments must be shorter than 162.5 cm (64 inches) and lighter than 36 kg (80 pounds).

Also, instruments cannot travel first class. “If you are seated in Air Canada Signature Class offering Executive or Classic pods, your musical instrument will, for safety reasons, be placed in Premium Economy or Economy Class,” the airline says.

But that’s better than not travelling at all. Last December, another cellist, Britain’s Sheku Kanneh-Mason, had a similar problem with Air Canada on a flight from Cincinnati to Toronto. Barred from boarding, he had to cancel a concert at Koerner Hall in Toronto, and reschedule it in June. He too had purchased two tickets, after his flight with another airline was cancelled, but Air Canada requires 48 hours notice for such arrangements.

The New York Times covered that incident and reached out to Peled at the time for comment. His response: “Welcome to the club.”

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