Aer Lingus has apologised to a Canadian family for the delay in issuing refunds after insisting an older member of their travelling party was removed from their flight home from Dublin to Toronto just before take-off because the crew deemed him too unwell to fly.The decision to remove Michael Rosien from the flight in April came despite the fact that he had received a “fit to fly” letter from his doctor and all the necessary documentation had been sent to Aer Lingus in advance, said his wife, Alexandra. She said they had travelled “on what was to be our last vacation to remember as my husband has vascular dementia” and added that while in Ireland, they were injured in a car crash.She suffered an ankle fracture and her husband was hospitalised with multiple rib and vertebrae fractures.“After some time in hospital, he received a ‘fit to fly’ from his doctor,” she said. “We gave all necessary documents to Aer Lingus [and] they told us we were good to go. We were booked to fly back to Canada on a flight April 23rd.”She said they ”were treated wonderfully by special services at the airport and boarded the plane”.He husband was sleeping in the business class cabin when they were told they would have to leave the aircraft as the crew were concerned about her husband’s health. “We were treated like criminals. Aer Lingus even called the Garda to the gate,” she said. “We were all taken back to Aer Lingus’s main desk and questioned for hours [and] during that time, and with that trauma, my husband’s condition worsened. By the end of the day he had to be transported to a hospital in Dublin.” She said he had to remain in hospital while the rest of the family travelled home the following day. Her husband was issued a new ticket and told it would have to be used within a month.By the middle of May it became clear he would not be able to travel before the new ticket expired, so the family requested a refund of his ticket. But the request was refused by the airline, she said.“I have requested a refund multiple times and have filed a formal complaint. Still they refuse. All I wanted was the ticket price refunded. If they would have let us fly home [on] April 23rd, he would be in Canada getting well,” she said.In response, an Aer Lingus spokeswoman said the airline “recognises the difficulties encountered by this family during their journey. The safety and wellbeing of our customers is always our highest priority and our flight operations team made the difficult decision that the passenger should not fly due to health concerns.”She added that Aer Lingus “sincerely regret the delay in processing this customer’s refund request, which has now been prioritised. We wish our customer well as they continue to recover.”