I was on a flight today, from Toronto to Ottawa - basically a puddle jump. Flights every hour on the ten. Tonight’s flight was scheduled to depart at 1910 (7:10 PM for all you non 24hr clock folks). We board on time, I get to my seat (another moron story here for another time), and we sit there. 1910 rolls around, and an announcement comes on - [Paraphrase] On behalf of Air Canada, we are sorry, but the flight will be delayed because the pilots scheduled for this flight just came in on a flight from Havana, and are still clearing customs. When they arrive they will have to do the pre flight check, which will take another 10 - 15 minutes. Thank you for choosing Air Canada [/Paraphrase].
I want to know, who in their right, non drug adled, hyper-unionised mind actually thought that pilots from an international flight could possibly make it to their next domestic flight on time?
WTF? Sure, I’ll fly Havana to Toronto, and just for a lark, to complete my day fly Toronto to Ottawa. Has anyone in the scheduling department at this abysmal airline ever heard of crew rest? What if the Havan flight had been 3 hours late? Oh well, fuck all the people who want to get to Ottawa - they can grab hotel rooms.
NEWS to Air Canada: I’m not made of money (or time - missed a date, thank you), and neither are you!
Chances are good that the pilots for your flight were flown back to Toronto as passengers so that they could fly you to Ottawa. Granted the timing was cut way close, but Air Canada may not have had a choice - could be these were the only guys available for that flight, given other scheduling considerations.
Personally, I’d rather be told the pilots were running late going through customs than hear a generic “mechanical difficulties” explanation.
Airline routings and schedules are indeed a thing of mystery. At least be glad your crew was only a bit late; and as has been pointed out, be even more grateful that they were honest with you.
And a suggestion to get at least some satisfaction from the whole ordeal: Write them a letter and tell them how much you appreciate them being honest with you. Daughter whiterabbit did that last year with a U.S. carrier, and they sent her a $50 flight gift certificate to thank her for being nice to them for a change!
I could write a book about the customer service issues this company has.
When they finally die (sooner rather than later, I think), they should be studied as an example of how NOT to run an airline.
Anyways, I digress.
I have an example of Air Canada’s organizational ability.
I purchased a Winnipeg - Toronto ticket online about a week in advance.
A couple of days later, Air Canada phoned me to let me know that the scheduled departure time had been moved up by an hour. That was fine with me - leave at 0700 instead of 0800 - whatever.
I checked in, proceeded to the gate and waited with all of the other passengers who had obviously been notified of the earlier departure. We waited. The boarding time came and went and we continued to wait.
Finally at about 0650, there was an announcement made that while all of the passengers had been notified of the earlier departure, they had not notified the flight crew. They had just arrivied and were preparing for a 0800 departure. yadda yadda yadda, “thank you for flying Air Canada”.
The thing is, it did not strike me as particularly surprising. This seems like a normal mode of operation for our flagship carrier.
Anybody ever have a trying experience booking online with Air Canada?
I live in Toronto; when I have business in Ottawa, I drive. The flight will take 3.5 hours if everything goes perfectly, and then I either have to rent a car there or cab it everywhere. It isn’t worth 90 minutes to fly.
The flight from Havana was late getting in. The pilots (Captain and FO) were actually flying the Havana flight - confirmed from 2 sources [Sabre FLIFO and Air Canada by phone]. The reason for the delay on my flight was “Crew delay due trnspt infield term”. Same type of aircraft (A321).
I’d rather they not lie to me at all, but would have apreciated updated status - one announcement, and then nothing until push, when the Captain came on and apologized (which I admit was nice, you normally don’t get much from crew).
As to the drive thing, I have friends who’ve done YTO to YOW in 3 and a half hours, but my prefered mode of transportation is the train.
Spelling mistakes are mine, and don’t get me wrong, I will continue to fly Air Canada, sorry JetsGO, but 3 co-workers were on them, and all 3 got their bags mangled, and were told “not our responsibility”.
Totally off topic for a second. I just learned something that probably won’t interest anybody else, but I’m a little less ignorant and I thought I should share.
I’m a dispatcher for a non-scheduled aviaiton operation. We have private aircraft that fly domestically and internationally on a moments notice and we’ll go anywhere with a 5000’ strip. We have an aircraft based at Toronto’s Pearson International (YYZ).
I’m pretty well versed with airport identifiers and I was ready to point out your error regarding YTO, mcott. I was feeling confident, however I thought I should see if YTO is an actual airport somewhere, so I searched and found this:
YYZ:CYYZ:43.6772222:-79.6305556:568:Lester B. Pearson International, Toronto
YTO:CYTO:43.7833333:-79.4666667:614:All Airports around Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Who knew? I’m sure you’re all as impressed as I am.
I apologize for this interruption. I feel somewhat geekish now.
No, that was Braniff. Those people could not, under threat of death, get you and your luggage to the same place at the same time.
I flew from Austin, TX to Omaha, NB for a job interview with Mutual of Omaha. I dressed casual for the flight, packed the interview clothes. I arrived, suitcase didn’t. I went ahead and showed up for the interview and explained what happened.
The sole response was, “Flew Braniff, didn’t you?” They were so used to that happening that it was just routine by that time.
Be grateful you were merely late to your appointment. Not that it makes it less irritating, I know, but there are bad experiences and then worse experiences…
Air Canada has a massive customer service / public relations problem. Write a nice letter to them explaining your problems and they will most likely throw frequent flier miles at you to get you to shut up.
Also: Fly WestJet.
My problem with Air Canada came at Christmas. I was heading back home after visiting my family. I arrived at the airport to be told that my flight was cancelled because there was no crew available to man it. They were taking down names and phone numbers for the passengers and indicated they would call me at my parents home around noon to let me know what was happening. By quarter to 2, there had still been no call, so I called customer service to find out.
I’d like to break in here to point out that I much prefer WestJet.
I told the customer service person that the people at the airport were taking down names and she condescendingly bitched me out, ‘You’re not talking to the airport.’ No fucking kidding. I was talking to the call center in St John’s, but I had assumed, and apparently this was stupid of me, that the people in Prince George would do something useful with my phone number after they collected it. Like type it into the computer.
It turns out that the people in customer service had rebooked me on a different flight. And how did they choose to notify me? Well, they called my home number. In Toronto. Where I was going, not where I was coming from. Useful, that. The Prince George airport later phoned me to tell me they had contacted customer service and booked me on such and such a flight. I resisted the temptation to point out that I had contacted customer service and booked me on such and such a flight. I’d already been yelled at once, and wasn’t up for the experience again.
Note: Please dear God, WestJet, amen.
When I finally got on that flight, I had yet more delightful problems, because the people in the Prince George airport had messed up my boarding cards. I got yelled at in Vancouver because I didn’t have a ticket coupon. I kept trying to explain to the guy that I didn’t have a ticket, but was travelling on a rebooked e-ticket, but he just kept demanding my ticket. Finally he did something else to determine that I had an e-ticket and let me get on the plane. With no apology for the fact that he’d yelled at me for a mistake made by an Air Canada staffer.
mcott… at least Air Canada didn’t get you stranded in Chicago when you started at BWI and were trying to get to Montreal. An entirely different story though.