I had a horrific experience with them a few days ago. Long story short, it boiled down to inadequate staffing. The result was twelve hours in Pearson Airport and an arrival 32 hours after the original schedule, which meant we were 90 minutes late for the event we were attending. Highlights:
The entire section of Pearson Airport (gates in the F90s) had zero airline staff and zero airport staff, locked drinking fountains, and broken vending machines; the board kept delaying the flight in increments of 30 minutes, including 10-minute breaks where the flight disappeared altogether, which meant that we all sat their without food or water for six hours because we couldn’t leave the gate long enough to get snacks (the main part of the terminal was a 7-minute walk: 7+7+time in line > 20).
When staff appeared, they were unprepared for the needs of the situation (the partially blind woman in the wheelchair, for example, was a surprise to them, as were international passengers in transit who could not leave the airport and thus could not be lodged overnight in Mississauga).
Rebooking was done by bot, which meant that we had to hang around for an extra few hours to get changed so that we were on the same plane.
The actual issue was a mechanical one, which took so long to fix that the crew was over their hours and could not fly. That’s a totally reasonable thing to happen, and had Air Canada had staff at the gate and a willingness to communicate, it would have been annoying but an easy fix. As it was, it was terrible, and caused us to have to miss and rebook our rental car at the destination and our covid test for return to Canada, neither of which was easy.
I had a teacher in high school who’d taken a trip to the old Soviet Union in the 60s. I wish I could remember the details, but he had us rolling in the aisles with his tales of flying their airline. He was a great story teller. And it was definitely third world travel.
They flipped the script, and lied to the staff, instead: the manager who came to deal with it told me that she had been informed that all the passengers had boarded, been on the airplane for an hour, and then de-boarded. This was not even close to true, and we had plenty of witnesses who had been at the gate for the entire six hours between the orginally scheduled departure and the cancellation.
After what you described, I can’t say that I blame you. I’ve never had anything like that happen even when Air Canada was less than stellar. Personally I would have written a letter to their Customer Support department giving all possible details, with a copy to the Office of the President, and mentioning your intent to escalate to the Air Passenger Protection Bureau of the Canadian Transportation Agency if you were not compensated for a major delay that was clearly their fault, with rude treatment on top of that. I would also have asked to speak to a supervisor, and if they ignored that, too, I would have added that fact to the letter. Things like this piss me off so enormously that I get mad just reading about it.
Interestingly, I did ask to speak to a supervisor, and they completely ignored me, talking amongst themselves while pretending I was not at the counter.
I certainly thought of writing to them, but in the end decided that it was not worth my time or my blood pressure and just let it drop. Until I saw this thread.
ETA: They left about 10 minutes later - and were replaced by … nobody. I think they were at the end of their shift, and really just could not be bothered to help out one last customer.
Came in here to say this. Delta flat out sucks. Every flight I’ve had with them has had mechanical issues, delays, and/or snarling attendants. I’ve had bad flights with AC and Continental as well, but Delta… bleh.
I just had my Vegas Vacation completely blown up by Delta, working with Westjet.
I had booked a nice Ottawa-Toronto-Vegas, Vegas-Calgary-Ottawa plan. I woke up one Monday morning to an e-mail saying they’d re-booked some of my flights.
Firstly, they had canceled the Ottawa-Toronto flight completely, then booked me on a flight Toronto-Vegas that left a full day later than originally booked. How to get to said flight from Ottawa was left as an exercise for the passenger. They of course didn’t offer to refund any money.
Secondly, they added a stop-over in Toronto on the way home, with the added twist that the Calgary-Toronto flight landed in Toronto 6 hours after the Toronto-Ottawa flight was supposed to leave. When I went to their website to check that, being sure I must have mis-read, they helpfully pointed out that one of my connections was impossible. Gee, thanks guys, maybe you could point that out to whatever entity it was that booked the flights, since I had nothing to do with it?
They then asked if this plan was acceptable, or did I want to cancel the flights (and let them keep my money).
Angry phone calls ensued. I’m supposed to get my money back, but of course it will take two months.
My worst Air Canada experience was a.flight that left once a day around midnight. After spending hours at the airport, we were informed the flight was cancelled. Frankly, I can’t remember the reason but possibly not the airlines fault. They gave us a hotel voucher, a meal voucher and booked everyone the following night. It was a pain not relieved by their actions, but they did do something.
Air Canada often wins awards, according to them. The inflight meals on long flights are okay. You pay a little, but better that than adding it to the ticket price. Options on shorter flights vary a lot.
I’m not sure I trust this, given bad experiences with Delta in the past, but the airline is currently ranked #1 by several ratings organizations, including J.D. Power and The Points Guy (woo-hoo). Another ranking has them at #19.
I’ve yet to see Air Canada mentioned on any lists of top airlines. Maybe they’re a well-kept secret.
Whatever flight I take (there have been very few in recent years) seems to be on Rat’s Ass Airlines.
I was of the same opinion as the OP for a lot of years. I have a nephew who flies a lot for work, some 15yrs after my opinion was formed, who swears it’s way better now, not like before, there’s way worse out there!
Still, solid opinion dies hard. But last journey to SEAsia, searching fares, routing, arrival times, connections Etc, saw me decide to roll the dice and give them another try. And I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised.
The return fare (Toronto, Inchon, Singapore) was under $1k, the connections went off flawlessly, check in/boarding, arrival, all were smooth. The service was prompt and friendly, even the food was edible. I confess it turned my opinion around entirely.
To some extent, that is comparing a Yugo to a BMW. Air Canada is (I believe) a major, full-service carrier. Jetstar is a cattle car with wings AIUI - you should be happy if they get you there around the promised time.
Update: unprompted, they sent us $100 each… in the form of an Air Canada voucher. But it’s more than nothing at all, so there’s that, and we do need to go to Saskatoon so it might come in useful.
I’ve never flown Air Canada that I can remember, although I flew Pittsburgh-Toronto-Vancouver once and do not remember the details.
All of our flights originate in Pittsburgh, so the airlines we fly are limited. “The worst carrier ever” tends to be whichever airline we flew most recently.
It’s actually the fifth largest airline in North America, both in terms of passengers carried and number of flights, after American, Delta, United, and Southwest.
Writing from Europe here, I have seldom had the pleasure to fly Air Canada, and the experience was not memorable. Meh. But for really bad experiences, nothing used to beat Sabena, the Belgian carrier. The name was supposed to mean Such A Bad Experience, Never Again, and I fully buy it. Now they have changed their name to Brussels Airlines and have improved, now they are only grumpy, late and unreliable, and you hardly notice the smell. Much better.
The worst company now seems to be Alitalia. I mean, even the Pope knees on the tarmac after every flight and kisses the ground, go figure!
Iberia is horrible too, avoid Madrid Airport if you can.