In an affidavit filed in the federal court case, the fluently bilingual Michel Thibodeau highlighted the lack of bilingual staff on a flight from Charlotte to Toronto on May 12, 2009.
“At 11:46 a.m., the flight attendant came by and asked my wife and me, ‘Anything to drink folks?’ Lynda said, “Rien merci” [No, thank you]. I told her “Je vais prendre un 7Up s.v.p.” [I would like a 7Up, please]. She served me a Sprite.”
A similar incident happened with Michel Thibodeau in 2000 when he tried to order a 7Up from a unilingual English flight attendant on an Air Ontario flight from Montreal to Ottawa. He filed suit in Federal Court for $525,000 in damages.
To the best of my knowledge Air Canada does not serve 7UP but offers Sprite instead not unlike substituting Coke for Pepsi so what was the big problem to begin with?