Air Canada bills unruly flier $1,350 for flight delay=20 Air Canada has billed a passenger that it says verbally abused its employee= s $1,350 for delaying a trans-Atlantic flight by 27 minutes. The passenger,= Gus Fuentes, was apparently in the correct row but wrong seat on a March 1= 5 flight on Air Canada. Flight attendants asked him to switch seats, and a = heated argument ensued that ultimately ended with Fuentes receiving a polic= e escort off the Toronto-to-London flight. About a week later, Fuentes rece= ived a letter from Air Canada=E2=80=99s legal branch stating that he must p= ay the airline $1,350 by certified check or bank draft by April 5. Air Cana= da spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick tells the Toronto Star that the $1,350 bill = covers costs such as overtime for flight crew, extra baggage handling and o= ther unspecified expenses. "It's not a fine," Fitzpatrick says. "We can't f= ine people. We're a company. But it's standard practice in the airline indu= stry in cases where people deliberately delay a flight that we will seek co= mpensation because it is causing us damages. It is very costly to delay a plane." Fuentes was forced to return to Toronto on a American Airlines flight via N= ew York. Upon his return, he filed a complaint with the Canadian Transporta= tion Agency (CTA) over his treatment by Air Canada. In the claim, Fuentes s= ays that he was not an unruly passenger, but rather the victim of a "flight= attendant who had called him a name and laughed at him after asking him to= move," writes the Globe and Mail of Toronto. The airline, of course, offer= ed a contrary account of the situation, and two other passengers on the fli= ght gave written statements saying the attendants responded professionally = and calmly while Fuentes was verbally abusive. The CTA reviewed the complai= nt and ruled that Air Canada had acted within its rights. Meanwhile, the 26= -year-old Fuentes is showing no sign of contrition. "They (Air Canada) will= never admit that they were wrong, so I won't pay, but money is not the iss= ue," he tells the Star. Air Canada did reimburse Fuentes $338 to cover the= unused portion of his London-Toronto ticket before billing him the $1,350 for del= aying the flight.=20 The Air Canada story comes just a week after Canadian low-cost carrier Zoom= Airlines claimed in court that a British flier=E2=80=99s "booze-fueled rag= e" cost it $188,000. The man in that incident was sentenced to 240 hours of= community service. =20 =20 View our videos at: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=3Dewrw4co =20 Roger & Amanda La France