A Ghanaian lawyer and her brother have filed two separate lawsuits against KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Ethiopian Airlines at the General Jurisdiction High Court in Accra, alleging wrongful denial of boarding on separate flights to Toronto, Canada, where they had planned to attend an international legal conference in October 2025.
Esther Addai, an associate at Sam Okudzeto and Associates, and her brother Isaac Addai filed both actions through their lawyer, Diana Asonaba Dapaah, on Friday, May 15, 2026.
The KLM Claim
According to court documents, the plaintiffs purchased tickets on October 3, 2025 for a KLM flight from Accra to Toronto to attend the 2025 International Bar Association (IBA) conference. Their outbound flight was scheduled for October 28, 2025, with a return on November 9.
The plaintiffs allege that upon check-in at Accra International Airport, KLM officials pulled them aside and subjected them to two hours of questioning covering their visa application process, educational background and family circumstances. Officials reportedly justified the interrogation on the basis that the visas had been issued two years earlier but were being used for the first time, and that some travellers had previously used Amsterdam as a transit point to seek asylum.
KLM officials subsequently denied them boarding, claiming their visas required re-validation before they could proceed. The plaintiffs contend that no documentation or legal basis was provided to support that determination, and that no such re-validation requirement exists under Canadian, Ghanaian or any other applicable immigration law.
The Ethiopian Airlines Claim
Following the KLM denial, the plaintiffs purchased new tickets and departed Accra on October 30, 2025 on Ethiopian Airlines toward the same destination. They were successfully transported to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, but were refused onward carriage to Canada, with officials citing a flag placed on their passports by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).
The plaintiffs contacted IRCC directly to clarify their status. In an email dated February 4, 2026, IRCC confirmed their visas were “valid for travel,” directly contradicting the justification Ethiopian Airlines had provided for refusing to carry them onward.
Court documents further note that Ethiopian Airlines had cleared and boarded the plaintiffs at Accra International Airport on the same travel documents the airline later claimed required re-validation in Addis Ababa, raising questions about the consistency and diligence of the airline’s passenger checks.
Reliefs Sought
The plaintiffs are seeking ten categories of relief from each airline, including a court declaration that both refusals were wrongful and in breach of their respective contracts of carriage, written apologies from each airline, full refunds of ticket costs, recovery of non-refundable IBA conference registration fees, reimbursement of pre-booked Toronto accommodation valued at USD 1,804.26, and general damages of GH¢5,000,000 for each of the two plaintiffs per action.
The cases are pending before the court. Neither KLM nor Ethiopian Airlines has publicly responded to the filings at the time of publication.
