Shareholder,
While it is easy to generalize, I usually resist the temptation. As an employee of Air Canada, I have witnessed many of my colleagues going above and beyond the call of duty during the last few weeks, under very difficult conditions. While there have been teething problems at this early stage of the merger, the politicians and the media in particular, have been quite biased. Many of the examples of merger related poor service put forward by the politicians and the newspapers, have little to do with the merger. Let the liberal politicians not forget the reasons behind the merger in the first place or the reason why Toronto aiport does not have a completed large modern air terminal.

This media scrutiny has given a segment of the flying public license to abuse Air Canada public contact staff. I have witnessed several episodes of passengers using supposed merger related frustrations as an excuse to let loose on customer service agents. Apparently, the merger is now responsible for mechanical problems and weather related delays. In fact, an agent in T2 was punched in the face by an irate customer, who was not happy that weather had closed down the airports on the U.S. eastern seabord.

I just got back from a trip which started with a Telaviv flight delayed 4 hours by YYZ thunderstorms(last Friday night). Even though my crew had the right to not work the delayed flight because of a 17 hour duty day, which started at midnight, they all elected to work the flight. And they did so with a smile, despite the many barbed comments from some of the passengers. Some of these people truly expected Air Canada to control the thunderstorms!
Most of my colleagues have aquitted themselves admirably under difficult circumstances during the past several week. Is the only news that is newsworthy, bad news? We could use a break for a little while until this merger is a little further down the road.