AC's ResIII computer system is down systemwide right now. They expect it to be up within about 45 minutes. From my speaking with an agent on the Elite Exec line, I think that the airport operations are being seriously impacted upon this evening.

The last time that I remember such an incident impacting on me, I was on a YYZ-YUL flight and we couldn't get a gate dispatch due to the inability of ResIII to function. My 1.25 hour flight ended up being about 4 hours. I also worked on the other end of system failures this summer at National Car Rental. Our system went down about 3 times while I was on duty over the summer. It's not fun, I can assure you. I can only imagine how much worse of a problem it is in the airline industry.

Anyone else have any horor stories with downed computer systems?

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My worst experience was with CP on the weekend they were switching over to Sabre in November 94.

I was handling 3 VIP departures out of HKG after the PM's Team Canada visit--two premiers and a federal Minister, with their delegations, heading to four different destinations.

It was an exercise in frustration trying to keep four sets of bags separate, and properly tagged, while the poor CP agents were frustrated trying to figure out how to print boarding passes; link handwritten bag tags to sequence numbers, etc.

All this with one flight a day. I shudder to think what T3 must have looked like!

Flyboy: What leads you to the conclusion that the AC agents in question were lazy? You seem to assume that there were no external factors involved in this situation, which is both insulting and unwarranted.

I firmly believe that any service provider should be called on bad service or misconduct--but not without a fair assessment of the circumstances.

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Well, bear in mind that CP staff were still operating CP systems on CP equipment. That hardly demonstrates laziness on the part of AC staff--it demonstrates two different systems handling two different sets of people.

For all we know, AC cancelled a previous YOW rapidair, and had a hundred extra passengers on its hands.

AC does have an established method of clearing lists.

1) Must Rides--deadheading crews, etc.
2) Revenue pax confirmed on the flight
3) SE/EP in order of checkin
4) E/G in order of checkin
5) P/C in order of checkin
6) non-status pax in order of checkin.

RESIII clears all standby lists after the flight is closed, and the flight is under gate control. To do otherwise would cause problems for revenue J/Y seeking to rebook onto earlier/later flights. If standby lists clear early, then you have wind up shutting out a higher priority, revenue passenger. Also, you run the risk of shutting out a last minute SE/EP in favour of the earlier E.

Standy is precisely that, standby. The computer clears those lists pretty effectively.

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Flyboy,

Your comments regarding the Air Canada rapidair agents are not even worth refuting.
Obviously, your comments are based on previous negative travel experiences, rather than the reality of the Rapidair product.
Canadian Airlines agents have been quite surprised by the number of flights that an Air Canada agent has to work during a given shift. In addition, they are not used to having to turn a narrowbody aircraft around in 35 minutes. Canadian agents were used to a 60 minute turnaround time. Gone will be the twenty minute break that they enjoyed after each flight.
Until the work forces are intergrated, Air Canada is unable to effectively utilize, the underutilized Canadian agents.

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If fly on Rapidair regularly and seldom experience the problems you state but it does seem that people who fly out of Toronto are experiencing a higher degree of problems than others.

If we just want to be anecdotal, a CP check-in agent was quite rude to me last week, didn't bother to check the boarding pass (Executive Class) when giving me a boarding pass for an earlier flight (meaning he had to go back to the computer and get me another boarding pass) and even though I handed my Super Elite card to him (he said he didn't need it), failed to enter my frequent flier number. When I pointed this out (politely), he said brusquely "we are very busy trying to board this flight, you write down your ff number on the boarding pass stub and I will enter it later". In fact, it was about 5:45 for a 6 AM departure flight, all other passengers had boarded and there wasn't another soul around.

I will not attribute this bad service to CP only to a "rogue" agent who may not be a morning person.

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Flyboy,

Let me start by saying that no large corporation has a monopoly on good people. I believe that the true measure of good performance, is how a person performs under pressure. It is no secret in the airline industry, that due to union deals, Canadian Airlines had far too many employees per aircraft. This included airport agents. Things were nice and comfortable over at Terminal 3 in Toronto prior to June of this year. Canadian had plenty of airport staff and inefficient,longer aircraft turnaround times. Larger numbers of agents worked a given flight and then usually had a break before moving on to the next flight. It is very easy for a public contact employee to be helpful and polite when they are not under pressure to move on to their next assignment. You state that you don't care about Air Canada's internal problems. You are correct to a degree. But please try and remember that the inefficiencies at Canadian Airlines were the ultimate cause of its' demise. The ideal in any airline, is to have just enough staff to run an efficient operation. This is difficult to do, due to the peaks and valleys, in the daily and yearly schedule. While I look forward to more staff joining Air Canada, I certainly hope that we don't emulate Canadian's past practices.

I don't profess to know anything about past CP union deals and how it may have contributed to inefficiencies. The question that is to be dealt with is: what is the optimal staffing level to deal with the situation at hand? Yes, AC's quick turnarounds are efficient, but they are also more vulnerable to schedule delays (weather etc.) when there is less time and staffing available to act as a sort of buffer or cushion. Likewise, CP's more relaxed schedule is/was certainly easier on its staff, but is/was it making good use of its staff resources? I think AC has realized that it has been very short staffed as of late so I am pleased to see the new AC/CP growing and creating new jobs. Hopefully, the additional staff will help the airline to continue to grow and improve.

I think it is unfair to paint AC's staff as lazy because they had problems with those Rapidair flights. At worst, it is a symptom of having a too few staff to handle the situation at the time. Likewise, would it be fair to counter that by saying that CP staff had it real cushy with a less cramped schedule and could therefore afford to be lazy?

Why should I bother to say a word in defense of AC? I was never a big fan of AC; I've always cheered on CP (and flew with CP mostly) and I have lots of good things to say about CP . However, that certainly doesn't mean I don't have anything positive to say about AC. In the previous year, I've almost always had great service from AC staff (on the fewer times I've flown AC). They were most helpful to me on my recent trip.

The reality is that AC and CP are now one airline and there is no going back, so it serves us best to concentrate on continual improvement rather than sniping at each other about the past situation.

FewMiles..

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I agree with Fewmiles that we should be looking to the future and not to the past. Both Canadian mainline carriers excelled in certain areas. One can always find anecdotal evidence to the contrary, at both companies. Unfortunately, the strategy pursued by Canadian Airlines, was poorly conceived and executed. This despite the hard work of the great majority of their employees. As an Air Canada employee, I'm looking forward to working with my Canadian colleagues. I always strive to offer former Canadian customers the best possible service, just like all of my customers. I would ask that Canadian customers please refrain from using current Air Canada travel experiences to reinforce a previously held anti Air Canada bias. Please give us a little more time to successfully merge the two airlines. This summer has seen record numbers of people travelling, with the merging of operations just starting. I hope to see you on one of my flights!

Fly Boy,

While in recent times, the AC res and Aeroplan (I used to jokingly call it Errorplan ) phone systems have been swamped and the waiting times unbearably long at times, I've found that I can get by for most enquiries by calling CP res or CPlus lines.
Also, if you find that AC operated flight quite crowded, why not try to find a CP operated flight? Recent months' stats seem to show that AC's load factor keeps creeping up while CP's is falling. More seats available and perhaps cheaper fares because the inventory is available.

I think the public for the most part does not realize that Canadian still operates a second reservation and FF telephone line for AC, nor do they recall that CP operates a whole slew of flights.

wdk: AC is under especially intense scrutiny by the media and the public which is why it is particularly critical that AC exhibit continual improvement. Those who hold an anti-AC bias are unfortunately going to be among those who judge the new AC and they will be particularly harsh judges too. Hopefully they will see the light of airline striving to improve itself.

FewMiles..