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Canadian: Air Passenger bill of rights [Merged]

Oh I forgot about KLM flight from Toronto To Amsterdam.  747 a/c nice interior, lots of leg room.  Friendly staff even with their unpleasant dutch accents.  Great food, good entertainment, free beer.  :-)  Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij is defiantly a keeper.   ;)   
 
TCBF said:
- Me, I LIKE Dutch accents.

I was waiting for someone to take the other side to that comment.  :P

I just find their language itself very nasally and congested sounding when they talk.  Same with Czech. 
 
My best Air Canada flight:  Toronto to Tel Aviv 10 years ago.  Whole row to myself.

My worst Air Canada flight:  Vancouver to Ottawa via Toronto on a Sunday night 7 years ago, middle seat, plane full of kids on a school trip.

My preferred air canada flight in 2008:  WestJet
 
MedTechStudent said:
I was waiting for someone to take the other side to that comment.   :P

I just find their language itself very nasally and congested sounding when they talk.  Same with Czech. 

-  You haven't been re-reading the May 1976 National Lampoon's "Foreigners" issue, have you?

http://www.olimu.com/Notes/Foreigners/Foreigners.htm
 
Having flown lots I try to avoid Air Canada like the plague.  No major horror stories, just not too many of them seem to enjoy there jobs.
I prefer Westjet.   :)
My worst flight ever was on KLM, nonstop from Vancover to Frankfurt, Germany.  (I don't know the name of planes, it was huge, not a jumbo, but with 7-8 seats in the middle and 3-4 on the outside)  And we had NO air conditioning, it conked out fairly soon after we got into the air.  It was unbelievably hot and stinky, so, we decided to have a few drinks to take off the edge, still didn' t help.  Luckily, or so we thought, we arrived early by about 1 hr.  So, early we had to take a bus from the airplane to the terminal we were so far away from it.  And then we had to good fortune of them loosing everyone's luggage. :P  We pleasantly suggested looking on the plane we had just got off, seeing as it was a direct flight.  ::) 2 1/2 hrs later, somehow they found it.  It was not a great day.
 
TCBF said:
-  You haven't been re-reading the May 1976 National Lampoon's "Foreigners" issue, have you?

http://www.olimu.com/Notes/Foreigners/Foreigners.htm

No truth be told I'd never even heard of that.  :P
 
Last night on The Hour (Hillier was the Guest), George was talking about a Scandanavian airliner that cut costs (approx $12m) just by flying 80kph slower, the only cost to the customers was arriving about 10min later.
 
Until about two years ago, Air Canada seemed to take sadistic pleasure in losing my luggage.  But, I have to say that in all fairness, I have noticed a great deal improvement in customer service- to the point where I will now fly Air Canada over West Jet. Maybe I have just been lucky  :)


 
And then they go and do this:

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=0cc9ebb7-bba3-4545-a9fe-be0d84b52748

Air Canada flight fiasco

Peggy Curan
Montreal Gazette

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

DORVAL - Passengers on Air Canada flight No. 874 joked they'd never seen a crew mutiny before.

Montrealer Sandra Dow said her June 26 trip from Montreal to Frankfurt could qualify as "the flight from hell" - if the Boeing 777 had done more than taxi back and forth on the tarmac at Pierre  Elliott Trudeau  International airport.

It took flight crew and ground personnel four hours to decide that funny noise in the cargo bay - Dow thought it sounded like popcorn - was nothing to worry about.

Except for sporadic updates from the pilot over the public address system, passengers who boarded at 7:15 for an 8 p.m. flight were left to fend for themselves and watch a movie. There was no food or coffee and only passengers with the gumption to go to the galley and ask for it got water.

At midnight, when the flight was finally cleared for takeoff, passengers were parched and famished. But by then the flight crew was ready to bolt, and the flight was cancelled.

"It was terrible," Dow said. "It was a pure screw-up."

Over the course of the evening,  the crew checked the cargo doors and the plane was hoisted on a hydraulic jack to check the tires and gears. When that didn't yield results, a mechanic was brought on board to investigate, but the plane was making the same noises after he left. That's when passengers and crew members started to bail.

"It's still going pop-pop-pop," Dow said. "There's a passenger in the front who says, 'I'm getting off the plane,' and he makes a big fuss. Other people may have gotten off at the same time. ... And one of the cabin crew left. So they have to get the luggage off."

The pilot told passengers he wanted to make one last check of the plane's seals, which took another 30 minutes

"The captain gets on and says: 'Okay, everything has checked out just fine and we're going.' So we pull out and we get down right to the point where we are cleared for take-off and he says, 'I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but some of the crew want to get off ... and any other passengers who want to can leave as well."

Back at the gate, the pilot again apologized for the delay. "We are just waiting for our new crew to arrive. They should be here in about an hour and 20 minutes and then we are good to go."

It was after 11 p.m. and passengers were also starting to look worried. En route to Milan to meet her 20-year-old daughter, Dow was anxious to get going. "And then I look around and, think that the passenger on my right and the passenger on my left have a point. If the crew won't fly it, why should we? So you know what, I think I'm going to get off the plane, too. Inconvenient as it is, I've never been on a plane where the crew won't fly."

Just after midnight, the captain shut down the engine. "We're not going tonight, the flight is cancelled, take all of your belongings," he told passengers.

But Dow said there was only a skeleton crew on duty at the ticket counter.

"We lined up and were told our flights were being rebooked, but (they) could not say how."

An hour later, travellers who had been turfed from the plane were fed up of waiting for a shuttle bus to the hotel. Many were halfway to the Hilton on foot when they were stopped by airport security and ordered to surrender their baggage carts.

"It was a very rough walk the rest of the way," Dow said. "When we arrived at the Hilton, it was a free-for-all in the lobby." She finally got to bed at 2:30 a.m., knowing they had to be back at the airport by 7 a.m.

Some lucky passengers had scored vouchers for Tim Horton's at the airport that night. Others were promised breakfast - only to learn they had to make up the difference between their $7 voucher and the hotel's offering - a $20 buffet. "Most people shelled out for this since no one had eaten the night before."

At 10 a.m., passengers left Montreal for Frankfurt.

"They told us they had checked the aircraft overnight and decided we were good to go. That's the plane we were on, minus quite a few people who decided they were not getting on that plane."

Before landing in Frankfurt, passengers received a letter of apology with a $100 voucher, redeemable on another Air Canada flight within the next year.

Dow, a university business professor and frequent flier, has filed an official complaint with Air Canada, but she's not holding her breath waiting for answers. To date, she has received an automatic email response advising her that processing time for "general customer concerns" is 21 days - lost luggage claims take eight weeks.

Yesterday, Air Canada's Isabelle Arthur confirmed the flight was delayed 13 hours because of a maintenance problem.

"Safety is our number one priority and is never compromised. This is why it took quite some time to undertake the necessary safety checks," Arthur said in an email reply. She was unable to explain the nature of the problem.

"Unfortunately, once the flight was cleared, crewing and curfew issues forced further delays until the next morning. We understand that these types of delays disrupt our passengers' travel plans. We have offered compensation to passengers (including meal and hotel vouchers when needed) and apologized for any inconvenience this situation may have caused."

Arthur initially said water was served, but later conceded some passengers may have had to fetch their own.

"As for vouchers, we sometimes hand some out, sometimes we just tell customers they can go to a given restaurant at the airport and show their boarding card and don't actually always physically pass out cards. A delay affects everyone differently, and the compensation was provided as a goodwill gesture."

Dow said the $100 coupon is a poor substitute for the 230 euros  (about $340) she spent on her room in Milan, overseas cellphone calls to alert her daughter to the delay, stingy meal vouchers and the disruptions to her journey.

"I heard many people saying they would never fly Air Canada again," Dow said. "My ticket price was almost $2,000 for economy class. I think the $100 discount is a joke."

pcurran@thegazette.canwest.com

© Montreal Gazette
 
Four pages and nothing at AC has changed. It has only gotten worse. Absolutely and totally disgusting for ANOTHER tax payer supported organization. We need real capital commercial corporations in Canada. I'll pay a little extra for a meal and proper, courteous service, just like other carriers. Just like CBC, VIA and the rest. Sink or swim. Cut them off the public teet and let them fend for themselves. If they can't, good riddance. There's lot's of private carriers that will step up and take over. They just don't at the moment, because you can't compete with gov't subsidised, tax payer funded corporations.

Socialist bullshit.

Now I can go to bed ;)
 
I've never been a supporter of Air Canada until my last trip. I'll describe booking arrangements. I visited all the discount airlines and web pages for flights Ottawa to Edmonton and to my amazement Air Canada had the best prices and best selection of flight timings! :o

Arrived at Ottawa airport a little early and went to get my boarding pass, when I was asked if I would like an upgrade to business class. Sounds like a great idea I said. Flight was on-time, food was actually quite good, movie selection was not bad.(I had already seen most of their selection) They even got my bag to the same airport as me. 8)

Return trip was almost the same, without the business class upgrade. I was asked if I would like a seat by the emergency exit as it had more leg room, again I said that sounded great. My baggage again made it to the Ottawa airport. Zero complaints overall.

I realise that this might be a one-off lucky trip as I have had my share of nightmares with Air Canada over the years, primarily with "misplaced" luggage. (With this trip I think I'm running about 50% in "misplaced" luggage)

Just thought I would add a different view. Have a good one.
 
recceguy said:
Four pages and nothing at AC has changed. It has only gotten worse. Absolutely and totally disgusting for ANOTHER tax payer supported organization.

No it isn't.  Air Canada was privatized almost twenty years ago.

Being cut off from the "public teat" doesn't seem to have worked, nor have the expected other private carriers stepped up and provided a solution (though a few have tried).
 
I haven't flown Air canada since December 2001, when they ripped apart my knapsack and diaper bag, pulling every single item out(including my tampons and breast pads because I was still nursing), asked me to remove my shoes and the shoes on two of my three children, and then refused to help me get everything back together. Just left it all spead out on their table. The kids were 5mths, 3.5yr and 7yrs old and I was travelling by myself heading from Vancouver to Ottawa. I understand it was post 9-11, but I was travelling within Canada with a Green Passport...that's gotta mean something if I got less hassle from the US Border Patrol then I did from Air Canada.

I have travelled with WestJet since and am happy to continue giving them my hard earned money.

If I ever need to travel internationally, I will sooner book with a US airline out of vancouver or Seattle then have to deal with Air Canada again.
 
You do realize it isn't the airlines who do the security checks, right?
 
Well at least that flashy color scheme is not totally light blue like the rest of the fleet(if that the right word, fleet?).  You know that shade of blue that looks a lot like the sky, brilliant. 

Best paint job IMO goes to this Qantas Beauty


 
Grando said:
wow there's so much misinformation in this thread

If that was in regards to our little paint scheme discussion...ok.  ???


And if not, could you perhaps enlighten all us folk?

That one liner is a little vague.

Cheers,

EDITED TO ADD:  :pop:
 
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