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I would like to share the very unpleasant experience I had with Air Canada this last Sunday. I had a reservation from Montreal to Delhi with a layover in Toronto of 1 hour and 1 minute with seats in business class, and I am a SE flyer with 1MM. In Montreal I checked ahead of time that the plane would be at the gate without delay for 19h00, and it was, having already landed in Montreal 2.5 hours before the time of my flight departure. So I though everything would be on time and I would make the connection (no security anymore to go through in Toronto with these connections). Everybody boarded the plane 15 minutes prior to departure, but between that time and the scheduled departure time we were informed that the pilots were not on the plane and they would be arriving soon. The same announcement was made at 19h00 then at 19h15. At 19h30 the pilots arrived and we were told that it would take them 20 minutes to perform their checks. At that time I sent a message to Concierge to ask them to assist me with my connection in Toronto as it would be tight and I did not want to miss the flight. We finally took off at 19h50 instead of 19h00, but when we arrived in Toronto (21h00) we waited an additional 10 minutes for the ground crew to assist us(!). I finally left the plane and met Concierge at the gate at 21h10, but I was told that my seat was not kept despite me asking that my seat be kept, and that there was still 15 minutes before normal departure time. The concierge assisted me to arrive by the gate and we were there more than 5 minutes ahead of time, but I was told the gate was closed and I could not board the flight.

Very often I board a plane and we are told to wait an additional 10-15 minutes for passengers to board because of their connections. Why then was the gate closed ahead of time for me when:
1) The delay was 100% due to AC, not due to weather or something else
2) AC knew at all time where I was, so it is not that they did not know I would arrive EXACTLY 5-10 minutes before departure time
3) I specifically ask Concierge to assist me and make sure I make the connection (if I miss the connection then I am automatically arriving the following day in Delhi as there are no other direct flight until 24 hours later)

What good is a Concierge service for SE frequent flyers if they do not help you in these cases when the delay is entirely AC’s fault? In the end I had to cancel the flight completely as I could not miss one day in India out of only a 3 day trip. So I lost a complete day for this back and forth flight to Toronto, I needed to cancel all my meetings in India and my hotel reservation, and will now have to find time to rebook this flight later on in the year and make sure that I can have my meetings again at this later time.

AC’s response was that they have to follow strict rules for airplanes and they could not hold my seat because of them. That is not a satisfying answer when I know of all the times I experienced delays because of delayed passengers and/or AC staff. In the end, to add insult to injury, this particular flight was even delayed and left Toronto at 22h00 instead of 21h25 (!), so this is even more frustrating that I was not allowed on board when by the gate between 21h15 and 21h20, when the delay was 100% AC’s fault and Concierge was supposed to help.

Not too long ago I took a flight with Swiss airlines and we were to miss our connection in Zurich. I was not too stressed as it was not the last flight of the day to LHR. But at the gate, Swiss had a bus for us and brought us to the LHR gate in time and had a special customs agent meet us so that we would exit the border before boarding. All this and I am not a frequent flyer on Swiss, there was a border to cross, and I had an economy seat. That WAS service. AC would do well at seeing what others do.