Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder.

And can you believe I am recording a third podcast completing the trilogy on Air Canada this month?

You might remember that towards the start of August, I was

slightly cheesed off to find that I was still in Chicago when my ticket said I should be in Montreal,

and I ended up in Quebec's largest city in the early hours of the morning. Then I actually spoke to

you, middle of the month it was by then, from an Air Canada plane which inexplicably was delayed,

leaving Toronto airport. Nobody knew why. Nobody seems to know why. Well, so why am I talking to you

again about the Canadian National Airline? Well, it is entirely because of the Harry Potter star,

Matthew Lewis. You might recall him, he played Neville Longbottom in all eight Harry Potter film.

So therefore, he counts, my goodness me, as a celebrity. And he deserves to have been treated

better than he was, by all accounts. He was at Orlando Airport in Florida, booked on Air Canada, well, actually Air Canada Rouge, which is the

budget subsidiary of the national airline, which some would say is even less well disposed

towards their passengers than other parts of that organisation. And he was downgraded.

He wrote on social media,

kicking me out of first class to back of plane is what it is,

but doing it at the gate, literally tearing up my ticket.

I can imagine that, yes, the boarding pass would be torn up.

No explanation other than full flight.

Said if I wanted to sort it out, I should go to customer service. I asked where that was Toronto. I'm in Orlando. Well, there he was.

Canada Rouge says you can sit back and relax in our comfortable economy class cabin,

but that didn't appeal to Mr Lewis, who was looking

forward to an exclusive cabin with wider seats and more space to stretch out as Air Canada Rouge

...