When a flight is cancelled due to operational issues, passengers on that flight are protected on the next available flights with seats. Under normal circumstances, res agents would be assigned to the process of protecting these passengers on such open flights, and then begin to advise passengers of these arrangements.

With one or two such flights, this process works fine. But when the entire system goes down, and even those previously protected passengers are cancelled a second, or third time, there is no way that any carrier can do this in normal fashion.

When the entire system goes down, and it becomes an issue of handling the bookings of several thousand passengers, how do you expect this to be handled? It is just plain impossible.

AC, and any other carriers only option is to instruct passengers to call the res centre and one-by-one confirm new arrangements. Otherwise, how could the airport staff handle such rebooking without increasing lineups and irritation? And how could AC contact passengers when they are in mid-trip?

So there is nothing unusual with the request that was made. Having passengers contact AC res -- even with the tie ups on phone lines -- is the only practical means of handling the task at hand.

Can anyone here suggest an alternative that is both realistic and resonable?

Joe Clark, quoted in this morning's POST, and waiting in one of those lines at YYZ yesterday trying to get to YYC, said there are likely people who need to get where they are going, and who have been there longer than him. If he didn't get out on his booked flight, he could live with the disruption for a day or two.

No business can handle a total system breakdown of this nature. For people to expect otherwise is Hollywood thinking. It only becomes more difficult when economics dictate that the cost of providing service is not covered by the revenue generated. In AC's case, it has had to trim its costs, and thus staffing, to meet its revenue intake. Obviously, this means reduced expectations on what such pared down staffing can deal with.

This is not an apology for AC. It is facing the reality of the limits of the possible and practical. How many calls can you make in an hour. Now how many calls would it take to rebook 50,000 passengers? You do the math...