Originally Posted by
segacs
.....AC probably has no greater incidence of these issues than most airlines, that's true. But the combination of no legal protection and the way AC treats its non-status passengers makes the experience exponentially worse.
I'm an economy class passenger with no status.....
....My best experiences are typically with Porter, WestJet and Delta in North America and with airlines like KLM overseas. My worst are with AC. I avoid them like the plague, because at least the other airlines still treat me like a human being. AC doesn't.
Thank you for explaining and providing your experiences.
Originally Posted by
WR Cage
Comparing my NZ vs AC experience, NZ was worse but AC is more frequent......
.....While AC mitigation actions were better than NZ, I am involved in more inconvenience situations with AC. Further, I can't avoid AC like NZ.
Thanks for clarifying.
So along with no Canadian government-legislated protection like EU 261, and comments about AC's (and Aeroplan's) "craptastic"* IT, and poorly launched and instituted policies (hello bag police) and comments that AC really treats Y pax worse - especially during IRROPS, and the other reasons posted here, it seems Frequency of Exposure to Air Canada (i.e. you fly them more), increases the odds that you will be on the receiving end of some cranky or nasty staff and experiences.
Kind of sad.
One of the theories long used in my industry was "Frequency Modifies Behaviour". This theory was related to the advertising message having a certain number of exposures to the target group within a defined period of time (the purchase cycle), and that the right number of properly crafted messages, would modify consumer behaviour such that they would be more likely to buy your product or service.
If what we are observing is that frequent exposure to Air Canada (flying with them as well as their ad messages and other communications) is making some people angry and thus giving them reason to bash AC, then I am not sure there will any fix any time soon.
If so, and even if a small percent of things were fixed, I wonder if the attitude would ever change.
(*thank you adam.smith. Awesome word.)