Aeroplan - Establish by year's end 3 Service Centres with a combined staff of over 870 full-time Agents in Montreal and Vancouver. Training starts 30Oct with first agents online 20Nov00.

General Reservations - Hired and trained more than 350 full-time Agents. All Call Centres (YYC/YWG/YYZ/YUL/YSJ) to have General Reservations functions. Effective October 21, all AC & CDN Call Centre Agents answer the phone "Air Canada / Canadian Reservations", reflecting our current status as separate operating airlines. Effective November 14, CDN Call Centre "on-hold" messages will direct customers to the Air Canada phone numbers and eventually, the CDN phone numbers will be discontinued. Canadian Plus phone numbers will remain active until the end of the year.


Montreal - Increase Agency Elite staff to enable more call handling from other parts of Canada.

I can't help thinking about the cost to Air Canada of all of this. And this makes me wonder how much could be saved if AC would simply implement a decent self-service Aeroplan and reservation Website.

I don't think we have to worry about $$ for Milton... especially after they made over $100M last quarter.

Where is the third Aeroplan centre: Montreal, Vancouver and...?

Hmm... I always get a bit nervous when they start to tinker with the phone lines

The reference to 3 call centers actually refers to 2 offices in YVR. Both the CP and the AC res office are starting Aeroplan training next week. Until such a time that a decision is made as to where YVR will centralize, it will have 2 offices with approximately 450-500 agents.

I agree with afterburner. It seems goofy to
exclude basic Aeroplan members from
PTO-think of the time and $ they could save
if they could get some more bookings done on-line. Is it because PTO is not good enough
yet to handle the volume? or do they think we
basic members aren't smart enough or familiar
enough with booking flights to be able to
operate it? CP had confidence in their basic
members to send them their on-line software!
Is is really considered a "perk" to qualify
for PTO? Don't they know we can see the info
& do the same on ITN?

This PTO thing does not make sense as it is being advertised in En Route magazine with no apparent restrictions.

I tried PTO once. I HATED it. Possibly one of the worst pieces of software I've seen in my life.

Also, the PTO approach is idiotic. My computer has a web browser for this purpose. Imagine if all companies offering online services shipped custom programs to access these services!

Ya, I never understood why they wasted the money on it. I think I said way back it must have been some ancient internal project that was allowed to run its course.

What they should have done is funnelled the $$$ into making their online booking engine worthy of atleast a regional carrier. Online booking on the AC site has got to be the weakest aspect of the carrier.

Dorian



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Dorian's Star Alliance RTW Price Chart: http://www.informationlab.com/rtw.htm
Blondebomber's Star Alliance Comparison Chart: http://members.home.net/deercroft/starall00.html

A regional carrier?? I've seen Mom and Pop bed and breakfasts with better online booking engines

Seriously though, the level of sophistication of their website is pathetic. It's laughable. And there's no sign that they're making any improvements. A world class, international airline. Right!

I noticed that they did add the capability to book award seats online. If I recall correctly, I tried it and it disallowed my request because it had to be done 7 days in advance of the travel date. What's that about??

[This message has been edited by After Burner (edited 10-27-2000).]