Air Canada is a Sub-Par Airline At Best
So here’s the Air Canada story I promised way back when and could not say much because I was so damn mad at Air Canada.
Overview:I’m on my way back from Denver, Colorado after a great week-end with my cousins (Sunday afternoon is my flight out) and all is going well till I get to the auto-check-in counter.
- When I get to the counter the system tells me that the flight is an hour late and I’m fly Air Canada as they are part of the Star Alliance with United
- It’s not a big deal and I have lunch with my cousins to pass the time and leisurely find myself at the designated lounge area about half hour before the plan is to leave
- Fast forward to me on the plane and all is going great. The plane looks good and I don’t have anyone sitting at the side of me, SCORE!
- We taxi towards the run way and stop before we take off. Multiple plans seem to start passing by us and that seems odd!
- The pilot comes on the intercom and announces that we are having minor wheel/brake problems and need to go back to the gate. He says that it wont take very long before we leave for Toronto.
- Once again nobody is too alarmed or worried. Then we see Fire engines, EMS teams and the police escorting us back. The pilot comes back on and says that it’s standard procedure.
- Once again no problem we trust the pilot. Then dudes in silver heat suites get out from the Fire engine and start checking the wheels and under carriage of the plane with heat sensor guns.
- Now most if not all the passengers and a little unnerved. The pilot comes back on and informs us that we have brake problems and that it will take about 15 minutes to fix, he then comes on another 10 minutes later to tell us that the plan is grounded and we will be met by a Air Canada representative outside for alternative flight arrangements and hotel stay if needed. He tells us to sit and wait till the person who has to meet us outside is at his/her desk.
- Then we get off the plane and guess what! Yup, there is nobody waiting for us outside. The Unite Rep who is there planning the next flight tells us that we need to connect directly with Air Canada as he knows nothing – So much for the Star Alliance (Alliance being key!)
- They then point in the general direction of the United Customer Service counter and leave us on our own. Oh! I should point out that All business class and above travelers where auto-booked on the next flight out and the captain even mentions this as we get ready to leave.
- Thankfully a woman walking out with me had an eTicket with the Air Canada 1-800 number. I called it as I was walking out and was put on the next flight out which was late as well (that’s another story). I had to pay CA $30 for the time it took me to stay on my cell booking another flight with Air Canada.
- I reached Toronto on Monday morning at 4:00 a.m. What did Air Canada or United do for me
– NOTHING – I’d like to thank the Star Alliance for real shitty service… Thank you folks much appreciated.
I travel with them again the week after next and will blog about my trip for sure… I have very little choice in the way of airlines from a corporate standpoint!
When will they learn?
just completed a 24-hour Air Canada flight from Boston to Toronto — or should I say “flight from hell.”
To be fair, there was a big snowstorm in Boston. Snow causes delays — especially for smaller planes on short-haul routes. I get that.
What rankles, though, is the way this delay was handled by Air Canada and the many system failures, manifest incompetencies, and lack of accountability that I saw at every stage of the journey.
The flight was scheduled to leave at 1:35 pm. During the afternoon and evening, we received minimal information on flight status. We were boarded and deplaned twice until the flight was finally cancelled nine hours later.
The second boarding was a joke… it was around 8:30 pm when we were hustled onto the plane. We were told that a short letup in the storm was anticipated in the next 30 minutes and the crew was trying to catch the window. We then sat on the tarmac for an hour and a half because the loading ramp was jammed. The snow never let up.
As we deplaned, the cabin crew apologized and (love this!) disavowed responsibility for the decision to board us in the first place.
The lineup to rebook took a ridiculous amount of time. Why can’t this process be simplified? Or, if you know you’re going to have to cancel flights because of very obvious snowstorms — hello! — put extra staff on the job and open a couple of additional ticketing stations so that passenger inconvenience is reduced a little.
Down in the baggage hall, ten passengers, including me, were hanging in limbo because their baggage had not come off the plane. Two baggage agents were chatting merrily to each other and basically ignoring passengers asking for information. They stated repeatedly that this was not their problem — that they couldn’t understand why the turkeys outside were not bringing the baggage in. Once again, lots of blame-shifting going on here.
The other passengers’ baggage eventually arrived; mine did not. I had to get forceful with the baggage agents in order to get them to make the appropriate phone call, which produced the information that my bag had been put on the wrong flight. So, I spent a very inconvenient night in an airport hotel with neither a toothbrush nor change of clothes. Nobody apologized to me for this one.
Next morning the snow has cleared. The plane is at the gate. Should leave on time, right? Nope. We’re 90 minutes late getting on board, and then the plane has to be towed back to the gate because the nosewheel is stuck.
And then, on landing, the terminal dock is stuck again and we sit for 15 minutes waiting for ground crew to fix it.
At all these failure points (except for the baggage loss) Air Canada staff apologized to us in cheery voices. On my way out of the plane I looked the pilot and purser in the eye, and told them at, after a certain number of failures, apologies do no good whatsoever. The cabin crew once again told me that it was not their decision to re-board us the previous night.
Finally, when I took my lost baggage tag to the agent he spent 10 minutes fumbling around trying to locate my bag. Eventually a supervisor had to intervene.
I believe this airline is broken. The people may be trying hard, but the systems supporting them don’t work. Bad service decisions are being made. The high number of small mechanical failures I saw on this trip makes me wonder about overall safety. And most importantly, people are pointing fingers, blaming others, and generally ducking responsibility when things go wrong.
I am copying this message to my company’s corporate travel department, with a request that they switch my airline preference to WestJet.