Originally Posted by
contikipaul
To be fair, I have met some good employees as well. However the proportion of rude employees is far higher than in any other airline I've ever met. The other thing with AC is the awful employees have a much larger footprint than other airlines. The web support, the 800 number, aeroplan, the check in attendants, the gate staff (ESPECIALLY THE GATE STAFF), the crew and finally the customer complaint email all have a healthy portion of people who simply are not happy at anything they do on the clock.
5-10 years ago I used to avoid AC exactly because of the staff attitude. I did most of my flying on NW, KL and CO (was top tier on NW for years). Have also flown JL, NH, SQ, NZ, LH, SK, AG, LX, AF, AY, BD, BA, UA, US, AA, etc etc so I have some perspective (admittedly no CX or EK but unless those two are amazingly special ...).
I started switching to AC (and *A) in 2007, and these days I find vast majority of the AC staff at least helpful, polite and professional (and many helpful and friendly above and beyond the call of duty). But then I find that being friendly and polite to AC staff (as well as any other people one deals with day to day) tends to produce the most friendly and helpful responses as well. That goes for FAs. SDs, GAs, the E/SE agents -- and even most AP staff (who are not AC employees). Sometimes someone will be having a bad day, but we're all human, and I can accept that once in a while.
Complaints staff? Web support? I use the web forms for that, and even there the responses are professional, even if not always what I wished for in terms of substance.
But that's my personal experience, each person will see things differently. In my old age, I have amazingly begun to see the glass as half full.
