Lousy Kiosks at YYZ
Has anyone else had trouble with Air Canada Kiosks at YYZ (more specifically the ones in Trans-border flights area)?
I was travelling today with my wife and kids back to the US and had to check two bags. I don't usually check bags when flying myself so I don't often use the kiosks at YYZ.
We did OLCI and arrived at the airport 3 hours early (we have heard US customs is totally unpredictable these days... with some lengthy waits) to make sure we had plenty of time. Went straight to the kiosks to print bag tags per Air Canada agent.
First kiosk took forever to recognize/scan passports and finally timed out once we got to passport #3. Realizing that something was amiss with this machine, we went over to another, which was at least recognizing when a passport was inserted. It got to passport #2 this time and then after not reading properly on the first attempt, kicked us out and told us to see an agent, which I decided to do.
Agent at the line entrance of course was of no use (friendly at least) and told us to get in the full service line with others which was lengthy and not moving fast at all (I have no status obviously). It looked as though other people were having the same problems and everyone was clogging up the line for the same reason. I decided to leave my family in line (even though the Agent said that once the kiosk kicks you out, it often will not work at all) and figured I'd keep trying since the we would be forever in line and had nothing to lose.
I tried yet another machine, got to passport #3 and it did not read properly twice and kicked me out. Did the same thing again got to #4 and kicked me out. Finally I got through all 4 passports and it printed bag tags! Of course my family had barely moved 3 feet in line. So we luckily avoided waiting maybe in an hour lineup.
Luckily no line up in customs (everyone was probably still trying to check bags!) and we had loads of time to kill. Although this whole process to get to the gate still took an hour.
My question is how are the kiosks so bad at reading documents? Is this Air Canada's responsibility for maintaining these machines or is it the airports? One thing is for sure, the agents were of absolutely no help whatsoever. You would think they would know that the machines were at least finicky and provide some assistance. It certainly would shorten up lines and make passengers less frustrated. It is interesting to note that the US pre-clearance machines read each passport immediately on the first try without a problem.