After a quick YQT Easter weekend, I have a question about how AC handles boarding passes:

On Sunday, I flew YQT-YYZ-ORD-GRR. On the two AC segments, the F/As on board the aircraft ripped the small part of the card (on the right) as I entered. They had a whole stack of them sitting there, from each passenger, I assume. I have never noticed this before and it certainly was not the case when I flew up on Thursday or on any of my other flights last month.

Would this be to sort out passengers seated in the wrong area (couldn't they just ask to see the BP) or to reconcile pax numbers on-board? Is this a new procedure (did I miss something? ) or is it individual lead F/A preference? Maybe A Flygirl, CPYVR, or some of the others could shed some light? Thanks!

This is generally how I've seen AC handle their BP's. At the gate, they do the coupon lift (if you're using paper tix), then either scan the BP barcode or type in the seat number before handing back the whole BP. Then when you get to the aircraft door, the FA will take the small part of the BP and leave you with the big part.

The only thing that gets me is how AC keeps the small part and hands back the big part, whereas every other airline does it the other way around. So if you're flying on AC with BPs issued by another airline, invariably you get the wrong portion back and trying to get retroactive credit (if neccessary) becomes an even bigger headache.

FewMiles..

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Is this different when coming to Canada from abroad? I flew YYZ-LHR last week and they ripped off the small part and handed the large one to me when I entered the plane. On the way back though, I kept the whole thing - they just glanced at it and pointed me in the right direction.

You guys should realize by now that AC doesn't do anything consistently. I have a stack of boarding passes on my desk (about 200 of them). At least 90% of these have the small portion torn off. Once in a while they don't bother removing the small segment.

I flew four segments on Easter weekend. Two boarding passes were returned to me whole. Go figure the system.

Inconsistency must be the name of the game - this is the first time that AC has ever taken part of my BP upon entering the aircraft. Funny how that works: the crew on my YYZ-ORD segment take the BP, but don't even bother to do a seatbelt check prior to landing. Whatever.

I have received different parts of the boarding passes on my last couple of trips. I got the whole boarding pass back on YYZ-YVR. They kept the small stub portion and gave me the bigger portion of the boarding pass on YVR-SEL. They gave me the smaller portion of the boarding pass on SEL-YVR and kept the bigger portion of the boarding pass.

Last week I got back the whole boarding passes on YYZ-YVR and YVR-ICN.

Way back when, the stub was always taken on boarding. Even after coupon lift at the gate was introduced, the practice of taking the stub continued.

The remarks area on the stub was used to identify all manner of cabin service issues (SPML, WHCH, CONs, etc.) There used to be special holders in the F galley where the stubs would be put to assist with passenger identification.

Now, all of that information is spit out on the manifest in myriad ways, making the stubs irrelevant. But many FA's, from decades of habit, still tear them.

(It was always weird to me to be left with the stub... I first experienced it when CX went to new style boarding passes in '94.)

Thanks Ac*SE,
You hit the nail right on the head. The manifest is all that I need. If I don't receive it due to an operational problem, the pertinent info can always be datalinked from the departing station. In addition, there are many different styles of boarding passes out there, depending on the airline of origin. Some customers board with only one small part ( no punn intended). If I took this stub, some people would never find their seat.

Purser@AC maybe you can answer more fully why some I/C's still rip off the small portion of the boarding card as I've noticed this discrepancy too. And you're right; all the information you could need or use is on the final manifest.

I've had customers board presenting their boarding card with the separation of the perforated card thoughtfully started. They are then quite surprised when I don't finish the job and keep the stub.

For J class I will often pull the stub to put on the hanger with the customer's coat or jacket but other than that, it doesn't get pulled.

An explanation for some of the cases where "now they do, now they don't" could be accredited to the origin of the crew. Both AC and CP metal operate flights into the same cities, but at different times of the day. No former CP crew will pull the stubs - we've never been instructed to, but an original AC crew might due to past practice.

I see this inconsistency often on the eastern Rapidair flights where the operation is split between the two fleets. AC metal pulls (sometimes), CP doesn't.

Maybe it's time to bring this to the attention of the customer service or inflight department so that steps can be taken to put us all on the same page.

One of the flights I just took (probably BD), they stuck the complete boarding pass into a machine and only the little part came out.

andrew

Was it an AC issued BP? If so (i.e. printed on the AC-type BP stock), they shouldn't have stuck it in the BP reader because there's no magnetic stripe for it to read in the first place. However, most airlines I've seen use mag stripe type BPs and the industry standard seems to be that they keep the big part, you get the small part. I've seen mag stripe readers that return the whole BP to you (AA's in the US) and ones that spit out only the small part (e.g. BA's in Europe).

FewMiles..

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No, it was issued by BD. I wasn't surprised at the time (since I'm used to having the BP ripped) but in the context of this thread (it's an anachronism, not really necessary).

andrew

On UA this past weekend, the BP reader only spit out the small stub. The BP was printed on UA stock.

I guess this all depends on type of boarding pass reader that was used.

Some of the readers come equipped with a "paper cutter" feature that automatically does it (like the ones CX uses), while some of the older ones don't have the "paper cutter".