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Submitted byTheJudgeEarlier this week, I was away on business. If you’ve ever traveled with Air Canada, you would know that there is 50% chance of being inconvenienced in some way due to their incompetency, which I firmly believe is an official job requirement for any Air Canada employees who work with the public. I now believe that not only do they irritate their clients all the time, but I suspect it’s done on purpose. During my last trip, I was subjected to every possible incident that could ever occur to a traveler, excluding plane high jacking or a crash. It’s like they picked my name out of a hat and said “Let’s make sure that sucker remembers this trip for a loooooong time!”
It all begins on a wonderful Wednesday night. I’m schedule to leave from Moncton at 8:00 and arrive in Ottawa at 9:30, with a connection in between in Montreal. As I wait for the plane to arrive in Moncton, there is announcement that the plane will be arriving late and that we would get an update on how this will impact our flight connections later. I consider going back home because it looks like I’ll miss the flight from Montreal to Ottawa anyway. Long story short, the plane finally arrives an hour late and we were told that we would have 11 minutes to make our connection in Montreal. Their exact words were “It won’t be a problem. The departure gate is right next to your arrival gate. Also, we’ve contacted the Montreal airport. They know you are coming and your plane will be waiting for you”
“Great! There’s my incident for this trip! That’s not too bad. Everything should go well from this point!” I thought. Boy, was I ever wrong! We get to the runway to take off, and we just sit there. The captain announces that “they’re just resetting something” and we’ll be on our way shortly. What the hell does that mean anyway? I chuckle as I create the mental image of Seinfeld on a stage mocking them “We’re resetting stuff here so don’t panic. Don’t bother trying to understand what we’re talking about, that’s our business. You just sit back and relax and do and let us do what ever the hell it is we do.” 20 minutes later, the plane finally leaves. “Will I make my connection?” I ask myself. “Sure! After all, they said they would hold the plane. What’s an extra few minutes right? Our bags are probably not going to make it, but they’ll drop those off at the Hotel the next day. I’ll live”
We land in Montreal. I’m in the very last row of the plane and as usual, everyone gets up and anxiously waits to get off. The stupid flight attendants weren’t creative enough to come up with the idea of making the some sort of announcement to invite passengers with connecting flights to get off first. So I wait. I get off, run to the appropriate gate and… nothing. The plane left and didn’t wait for anyone from my flight. In fact, the plane left before we even landed. Also, there is no Air Canada employee in the area to assist us. Great… Eventually, I track one down who informs me to go to Air canada’s ticket counter. Someone would be able to assist me there. After talking to three different Air Canada employees, and getting three different instructions on how to get to that counter, I finally make it there and wait in line. And I wait. And wait. There’s about 20 people in front of me and they’ve been talking to the first guy for 20 minutes. Luckily, there are 3 employees at the counter so hopefully, this should move. But no. In fact, two of them get up and leave. “Later!” They tell the remaining co-worker. “Our shift is over!” Fucking cock suckers! They can’t stick around and assist? Hello? Claim some fucking overtime.
At this point, I’ve been waiting here for a while and think I better go get my luggage before someone steals it. I leave the line, which isn’t the end of the world because I was at the very end, and make my way to the baggage area to look for my bags. No luck. They are missing. I go to the lost baggage counter and explain the I flew in from Moncton, but never made my connection because my plane was late. “Are they sending you to Ottawa by bus tonight or will they make you sleep in Montreal and fly you out tomorrow?” the man inquires. “I don’t know. There’s a huge line upstairs and one person to assist all of the stranded passengers. I don’t know what they’ll do”. He tells me to go back upstairs and find that out while he looks for my bags. He tells me to return once I know.
I go back upstairs. Patiently wait. I notice a girl who says “I’ve called the bus station and we can still have over an hour to catch the bus that goes to Ottawa. Will you guys pay our fares?” Well… that requires the summoning of the client service manager. As she’s coming over to the counter I hear her whining in French about how she just finished dealing with angry passengers who gave her a real hard time. She goes behind the service counter and says “We will provide you with a hotel room, and we’ll flight you out tomorrow. We won’t pay for your bus. Besides, we can’t be responsible for getting you to the bus station. If the bus left from the airport, that would be a different story.” Hello! You’re responsible to get me to Ottawa you dumb bitch! But of course, being a patient man, I stay in line and keep my mouth shut. Eventually, I make it to the counter and I’m served by non other than the client service manager, who I assure you, knows very little about client service. While she makes arrangements for my flight the next day, she spends her time whining in French to the other employee, doesn’t ever look at me, or cracks a smile. After a while, I stop talking to her in English and address her in French. She’s a little surprised, but doesn’t really seem to care as she continues to bitch about this situation with the other girl. She finally tells me that I’ll be on the 6h30 flight tomorrow morning. “Next!” she says. “Excuse me!” I reply. “While I’m happy that you have arranged for me to get in Ottawa on time for my meetings, what the hell am I doing tonight? We’re am I staying? What’s the deal here?” She points to her colleague and says “She’s preparing some hotel vouchers for you. Go talk to her.” And she looks the other way as if I no longer existed.
The other lady is unable to multi task. I can see her filling out the hotel vouchers. She tells me that I’ll get a $14 allowance for supper and a $7 allowance for breakfast the next morning. Then, she stops what she’s doing and leaves. She returns a few minutes later and starts to chat with the people in the line. “Excuse me!” I holler at her sarcastically. “I can see my reflection in the window so I’m obviously not invisible. When you’re done with your little chat, do you mind finishing what you’ve started and get me a frickin’ hotel? If it’s not too much trouble, of course.” The customer service manager looks at me as if I was the one with the problem. “May I help you?” I ask her. She pretends I don’t exist. I end up with a hotel voucher with 4 names on it. She says these are people that were on my flight and we can catch the shuttle bus and go to the hotel together. Fine. But I have to get my bags first.
I go downstairs and tell the baggage guy that I’ll be staying in Montreal and flying out to Ottawa the next morning. He says he’ll send the bag to my hotel if he finds them. I say “what do you mean by “If”? the plane left from Moncton and stopped here. There were no connections as my plane to Ottawa left before I even landed. We went from point A to point B. How the hell do you manage to loose a bag when there’s no connections involved?” he says my bag may be in the storage room, then he stands there grinning like an idiot. “Well, can you go check the storage room?” I ask. “Oh, well do you really need your bag tonight? We can ship it to your hotel tomorrow”. I reply “First off, I won’t have a hotel in Ottawa since I’m not sleeping there tonight. Tomorrow, I fly to Halifax for other meetings I have Thursday so yes, I do need my bag and I need it tonight. I don’t want to wear the same suit for 3 days because you think making your way over to a fucking storage room is too much trouble.”
You have to understand that I’m a very patient person. Too patient sometimes. But now, the tone of my voice is changing and I just can’t help it anymore. The baggage guy leaves and later returns empty handed. “Can’t find them. They’re not in the storage room.” he says. I tell him he’ll just have to check in the luggage loading area. “The bag left the plane, but didn’t come out from that little hole in the wall so logically, it must be in somewhere in between.” He calls someone and 30 minutes later, the baggage belt starts moving and my bag comes out. Finally!
I head back upstairs at the service counter and ask where the 3 other people listed on my hotel voucher are. They look at me as if I was an alien. I have to explain that I was given this hotel voucher which would provide everyone listed on it with a hotel room. They start hollering out names and I finally track down 2 out of 3. Fuck it. The fourth person is on her own. I tell the other two people that we need to catch the shuttle. “Oh, we have to go get our bags first”. OK, no problem. Right this way. I bring them downstairs and they start looking for their bags. No sign of them. I spot the baggage guy and I go over to him. I tell him these people were on my flight and their bags didn’t come out either.
He goes trough the whole questioning process, and offers to ship their bags to them tomorrow. He stands there and grins like an idiot. “Listen!” I say “My bag was lost somewhere back there, and you found it. Using the exact same methodology, get their fucking bags so we can get the fuck out of here. I have to get up in 4 hours to catch my flight tomorrow morning. He explains that there was maintenance on the belts and that one section was deactivated and that is why the bags never came out in the first place. “I don’t care. Just get the bags”. He calls someone and they start up the entire system. No bags come out. He says, part of the belt is still not working and your bags are on that section. That’s why they won’t come out. We’ll mail them to you tomorrow. The passenger next to me says “If you know where the bags are, can’t you bring them over?” “No sir, as I said, that part of the converyor belt is broken.” He replies. I jump in and say “I am aware the the job requirement at the service counter requires incompetency and lack of customer service, but I was unaware that the baggage handler positions required employees to be without arms. CAN’T YOU WALK OVER TO THE FUCKING CONVERYOPR BELT THAT IS NOT FUNCTIONAL, USE YOUR ARMS, PICK UP THE FUCKING BAGS AND CARRY THEM OVER HERE?”. He calls someone again. Moments later, the bags come out from the belt. We also managed to spot the fourth person listed on the hotel voucher so we’re off to the hotel. We get on the shuttle bus, arrive at the Ramada hotel and are welcomed by the hotel manager, a man named Francis. When he sees a bunch of people with Air Canada vouchers, the first thing he says is “There will be no $14 dollar meal. The kitchen is closed. Also, if you leave before 7:30, there will be no breakfast. The kitchen won’t be opened.” Wonderful!
He takes my voucher and says “OK, you guys will get a room with two double beds” We all exclaim “What???” simultaneously. “We don’t even know each other! They said they would give each one of us a room!” Francis tells us that the vouchers are filled out improperly. It says number of passengers: 4. Number of Rooms: blank. They didn’t fill it out. We get into a whole argument and he says he can’t get paid for 4 rooms if it isn’t indicated on the voucher. I grab the voucher from his hand, lean over his counter, grab a pen and write the number 4. “Here you go, now get me a room.” He freaks out. He says that this won’t match the original voucher and he won’t get paid. If he doesn’t get paid, he doesn’t rent rooms. Period. We argue and tell him that it’s clear there was a mistake, but he has a contract with Air Canada and he should sort it out with them afterwards. It’s not our problem. He says he’ll give us two rooms. That’s 4 beds for 4 people. It’s logical. I tell him he should polish that logic a bit more because he’s not about to get the Mr Spock title any time soon.
Long story short, the 4rth person on our list happened to have a voucher of her own so she was fine. That left 2 rooms available and 3 people. Francis wouldn’t budge. He said he could get his driver to bring us back to the airport to get new vouchers. Obviously, no one would be at the service desk at this hour se we just collectively chip in and rent a 3rd room. Now we all have rooms. “Would you like a wake up call sir?” he asks me. “Yes. Yes I would! 4:00 am please” He looks at me and chuckles. It’s 1:00 am right now.
Alright, now I’m set! I need a fucking beer. I walk in the bar and the bartender informs me he’s closing up. “Sorry!” “Awwww come on! Just give me a beer and I’ll be done in 10 seconds!”. He says they’re closed. I manage to convince him that my new friends and I really need a beer and he agrees on the condition that we take it outside to our rooms because he wants to close. We go upstairs in a common room, we drink we bitch, I go to sleep and two and a half ours later, I’m back up getting ready for another long day at work, and a trip to Halifax at 7:00 PM that night.
After I spend the day sleeping in meetings, I head back out to the airport, get my ticket, pass security, look at the departures board. All green lights except for one entry which stands out in yellow and reads “AC flight#xxx from Ottawa to Halifax: Delayed”.
I’ll just stop it here for the sake of remaining sane. But now you can see why I strongly feel like Air Canada just pulled my name out of a hat and made sure that whoever’s name was drawn would remember their trip for a long long time.
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