Every Friday, Consumer Reporter Lynda Steele dips into the mailbag to answer your questions. This week, Steele on Your Side investigates payments on BC Ferries and a four-year old who was forced to sit alone on an Air Canada flight.

BC Ferries payments

Christa wrote CTV News to ask why BC Ferries doesn't accept debit cards and insists on cash or credit cards only.

BC Ferries told Steele on Your Side the current technology for debit cards takes too much time to process customers and if it accepted debit payment that would ultimately lead to sailing delays.

However, debit cards are accepted at self-serve kiosks at several terminals.

BC Ferries says it's waiting for improvements with debit card technology and will consider that method of payment if the processing time can be reduced.

Airline seating incident

Jen wrote us after she was unable to sit next to her 4-year old daughter on an Air Canada flight from Puerto Vallarta. She wants to know how this could have happened.

Airlines must have policies and procedures in place to make reasonable efforts to make sure children are seated next to their parents. Those policies include pre-selecting seats at time of booking or during online check-in.

If that doesn't happen, a passenger can request a seat change at the gate or get a flight attendant to ask passengers to volunteer to switch seats.

Air Canada says it's very rare that passengers won't switch seats to accommodate a child and parent together and says it's regrettable it happened on Jen's flight.