The 180 Reasons are for the 180 minutes / 3 hours late on our return Air Canada flight from Las Vegas and the 1 Reason is for the attitude of the Air Canada agent at the gate.
(This is a blog where I get to have some fun and blow off some steam.)
This is compounded by Helen’s Air Canada flight being 6 hours late on her flight down to Las Vegas. (Helen is my good friend who happens to be Laura’s mom.)
Our Air Canada flight home from Las Vegas was scheduled to leave at 7:30am Friday, September 15th.
7:50am We are sitting on the tarmac – “this is your captain speaking. We have just discovered an oil leak and the repair crew is working on it. We will keep you posted. Sorry for the delay.”
8:20am We are sitting on the tarmac – “this is your captain speaking. The repair crew is working on the oil leak and are conferring with Air Canada in Montreal and hopefully they will not have to come back.
8:50am We are sitting on the tarmac – “this is your captain speaking. We have just received clearance from Montreal to take off”.
Oil leak, oil leak, oil leak! Another airline would have said “mechanical work” or something like that.
Air Canada employees seem to have a hard done by attitude and a chip on their shoulders and it really shows in their communication.
Don’t take my word for it. I Googled “Air Canada complaints” and here are some links to some web sites with customers that have the same views, one of the most notable is; www.My3cents.com
I’ve flown 50,000 + air miles on WestJet this year and I always sit in the emergency row to get the extra leg room. It is mandatory that the WestJet steward explain the operation of the emergency doors in the row and it goes something like this. “Good morning (in a happy, welcoming and warm voice) and thank you for flying WestJet and welcome aboard. In the unlikely event of a mishap and that we have to make and unscheduled landing are you prepared to help with the doors? Before you open the doors, please make sure that it is safe to do so and that the passage way off the wing is clear. Thank you very much.”
With Air Canada it was more like “In the event that we have to make and unscheduled landing are you prepared to help with the doors? Before you open the doors, please make sure that there is no FIRE and if there is, don’t open doors.”
In true Great White North Canadian I’m thinking – Yeah! Take Off Eh Air Canada! The plane sat at the airport all night. Why did we have to load the plane and then check for the oil leak? You would think that with an aging fleet, they would take extra care and pre-check the planes in advance. Air Canada’s planes are just too old.
11:15am We are 15 minutes from Vancouver and our connecting Air Canada flight has just left Vancouver without us.
11:20 This is the captain speaking and for those of you who are going on to Victoria, you are pre-booked on Air Canada flight XYZ at 2pm and an agent will meet you when you land to give you directions. “Oh, that’s good we think”.
11:45am Our jet lands.
12:00noon We are still sitting in %$(@&^$ plane waiting to get off the plane and the reason that we can’t is because there is not agent.
12:10pm We approach Canada Customs lines that are 50 deep because 5 jumbo jets landed at the same time that we did.
Where is the Air Canada agent?
12:45pm We just got through Canada Customs and we are at an Air Canada check in and they confirm that we are pre-booked on Air Canada flight XYZ at 2pm and they will give us our seats at the gate.
I tell Laura and Helen that we should make a run for the gate for the next plane because I want to make sure that we get our seats.
1pm At the Air Canada gate for our flight and we are told that we are “only” pre-booked and that the flight is full and that we are stand by.
We exclaim: “Why were we told we were pre-booked!
“Well there are 21 passengers coming off the Air Canada Las Vegas flight and 5 of them will not get on the flight at all”.
. . .
“We have a new development, your plane has just had mechanical trouble and it has been replaced with a smaller plane and none of you will get on”.
We ask; “Can we book seats on the next flight?
“The flight at 3:40pm is full also”.
. . .
1:10pm “The original plane is now fixed and you can have your seats.
This is bitter sweet. We get to fly twice in one day on Air Canada wondering which part is going to fall off the plane or which oil line is going to blow.
1:40pm We start boarding for our 2pm flight.
2:20pm We take off.
Once again in true Great White North Canadian I’m thinking – Yeah! Take Off Eh Air Canada!
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