How paying agent Sh. 406,000 for an air ticket to Canada; got returned to Nairobi in Ethiopia.
A Kenyan national who had planned to visit Canada on a tourist visa has spoken out about his experience of being refused boarding at the Ethiopian airport after flying in from Nairobi.
Despite the passage of over four months, the Kenyan claims he has yet to get a refund for the cost of his return flight to Canada. The whole sum is more than Sh. 400,000. Here is the anecdote he shared:
I arrived at my first stopover in Ethiopia at Bole International Airport at around 8 p.m. after a problem-free departure from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Things got rolling with the check-in procedure at around 9Pm.
We were ordered to stand aside at A16 along with seven other passengers. Just before our flight was to take off, an immigration officer approached and began interrogating us on our visas, the application procedure, and the reason for our journey to Canada.
On the verge of an immigration desk, he seems to be using a laptop to verify our responses.
The responses in our portals did not match what we had entered, we were informed. It was mentioned that we had worked with unregistered agencies.
We were informed that our trip to Canada would not be going and were instead redirected to Nairobi on the next available aircraft.
The airline booking agent has my money; what do I do now? It has been September 2023 since the agency supposedly emailed Ethiopian Airlines, but they have yet to hear anything.
Since neither I nor my return ticket ever made it to our intended destination, I should be reimbursed in part for my expenses.