I just had an extremely odd experience on Air Canada today. So flight from Denver to Toronto via Air Canada. Upon browsing Reddit turns out this seems to happen before to someone else, but would still like potential advice on this in case things have changed since those posts.
I checked in online the night before. My parents digital pass was generated without a glitch however mine had an error and said I had to get a paper boarding pass. No big deal still had to go to the check-in agent due to check-in. There was some confusion and delays at check-in at the airport due to queues, overflow and limited staff potentially, but it is what it is. Get checked in and was asked if we want a paper boarding pass. I say yes since I do have the issue with my digital one.
Anyway when boarding Air Canada has a facial recognition thing, comes up with an error to see agent. Staff member tells me to try again, so I approach the camera again. Same issue so I get told to speak to the gate agent. They look me up and say I'm already boarded so must have been an error and to continue boarding. So I get to my seat and there's already someone there. I kindly ask them if they are in the right seat. They say yes and they show me their ticket. Same seat number, I advised him I also have the seat number. Crew member comes to see what the conversation was about. Turns out this other man has also got a paper version of my board pass. Weirdly he realized it didn't have his name on it but didn't think much of it. He was promptly taken off the plane after some discussion which did delay us a little.
This is just a bizarre experience because there are so many checks we need to go through and it's technically an international flight so it's weird how this happened. It's also wild to me that he noticed it wasn't his name on the boarding pass and didn't care. Also that he didn't return and there were seats available so this might have just sat on a plane and ended up in a completely different city/country to what he was expecting.