Not sure if this belongs in UA or AC - Mrs. RedTop took AC 7979 today, RDU-YYZ, ground staff is UA. There are flights at 11:30AM and 3:15PM RDU-YYZ. We got to the airport around 10AM to check her in. There is no OLCI and no kiosks, and it's international so they cancel you out if you get there 59 minutes before the flight (or less). So we want to plan for the day, not stay tethered to the airport so that we can check her in. (I live about 10 min from the airport, and the lines are short, so it's nonsensical for her to get there an hour ahead.)

We stand in line with the pax for the 11:30 flight, and we ask to check her in, and the agent says "no." Basically just no, it's not within 4 hours of your flight, and I'm not going to unlock the computer for the 3:15 flight. (Note, she has no bags to check, in which case I could understand a 4-hour window.) There are two agent checking in, neither will do it.

We go to find a supervisor, who is checking in a UA pax at the other end of the counter. Meanwhile, the line has cleared for the 11:30 flight, two agents doing nothing at all, my wife goes back and they still won't check her in.

I tell the supervisor, as nicely as I can, that with no OLCI and no kiosks, that they really need to provide positive, not negative customer service. After a bit of fussing, she agrees to go down and check my wife in.

As I'm leaving, there is a couple checking in (apparently for the 11:30 flight) and I hear the agent telling them that "We're sorry but the Air Canada computer system changed." I am a bit irked, maybe I'm wrong, but I know to a moral certainty that the UA system changed, I have no reason to think the AC system has, and it sounds like the agent is just trying to pass the blame. I make the gratuitous comment as I'm leaving that "It was the United system that changed, not Air Canada." The supervisor who checked us in says, just loud enough for me to hear clearly as we're walking away, "It was Air Canada - you could have just thanked me for checking you in" in a mildly annoyed tone.

Side note, my wife takes this flight 20 times a year. Having a smooth convenient way to check in is pretty significant to us. Before the changeover, I could take her passport to the airport and run it through the kiosk, and we were done. Now with no OCLI and no kisosks, and the less-than-flexible UA ground staff, we have a 3-hour window to check in, from 4 hours to 1 hour before the flight. It's not a trivial, one-time inconvenience.

Who was snooty, me or them? Or both?