"I train people to dupe passengers."
He explained airlines maximise revenue by selling more plane tickets for a flight than there are available seats.
The unnamed attendant also claimed he told airline ticket agents not to tell passengers as they would get upset — instead, they should send them to the gate.
The revelation came after Air Canada employees revealed how they were trained to hide information from passengers regarding their flight ticket and whether they had been given a seat.
The former Air Canada agent said he's gone public because he wanted travellers to know how often staff are forced to scramble to find seats for passengers stuck on oversold flights.
He explained he soon left the industry saying he couldn't continue lying to customers.
"I told them they had nothing to be worried about, and it absolutely killed me," he said. "The chances of them making it on [the flight] were slim to none."
He revealed some of the stories of travellers being "bumped" from flights, such as a couple on a honeymoon together or a family on their first holiday.
In an email to CBC, Air Canada spokeswoman Angela Mah disagreed with the allegations and played down the impact of overselling.
"Overselling ... accounts for less than 1 per cent of passengers booked," wrote Mah, explaining that the airline flew approximately 51 million customers in 2017/18.
