Man with artificial hip kept off flight because all-female security staff refused to screen him

Robert Hart has an artificial hip and wasn't surprised when it set off the metal detector at the Northwest Regional Airport in British Columbia, Canada. But he was surprised – shocked, really – when the security agent told him that he was going to miss his flight because of it. The retired social worker knew he would need to undergo a secondary screening after setting off the alarm, but the all-female security staff flat out refused to do it. Hart told CBC News:

I smiled at the ... lady who was holding her [security] wand. And the words that came out of her mouth were, 'You're not going to be able to board this flight. You can't take this flight. You have to be patted down by male [Canadian Air Transport Security Authority] staff and one is not available.

Hart said that he explained that he had a metal hip and told the screeners that he was willing to negotiate, that he would agree to a pat-down from a female agent, a male Air Canada staff member or a male police officer. The security officers weren't budging. Hart was told that because the two male screeners were unavailable – one was on vacation, one wasn't on duty – he would have to change his travel plans. "[The screener] said 'I'm sorry you're just going to have to book another flight. We're not prepared to negotiate at all on that,'" Hart said.

As a result, Hart had to delay his departure by nine hours, so that he could be at the airport when a male screener was manning (literally, I guess) the security area. As the CBC reported, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) website says that any physical search would be done by an officer of the same gender as the passenger, but a CATSA spokesperson said that there was no reason that Hart should've missed his flight. "I can't disclose these procedures specifically, but there are procedures to have passengers screened when there are no same sex officers," Mathieu Larocque said. "We will apologize because it was our mistake."