Delayed in YVR, what do I do?
 

For spring break had Hawaii booked on flight 1831 tonight YVR-HNL @ 1740 departure time. Family of four with a 10 and 7 year old.

Delays delays delays due to maintenance, get a call saying 1900 is the new departure time. Later told 20:00 is the new departure time. Transborder MLL at YVR closes at 8pm and kicks everyone out.

Get to the gate and ask what they think and am told they are optimistic and we should depart around 2130. Being proactive I call the concierge routed to Toronto and let them know the situation and that it doesn't look good and ask them to possibly get us a room for the night and figure out how to possibly reroute us for the next day. We're staying at Aulani in a one bedroom villa, as you could imagine quite costly for a night and don't want to arrive at 10pm and waste another day/night. Concierge runs through a number of different routes through SEA, SFO and LAX but because of march break many are full and it doesn't look good.

She tells me she'll contact the local station and have the concierge meet me at the gate to sort me out. The flight is completely full and around 300 people on board and I want to get out of there before the herd. I flag the concierge down as she comes into the gate area and they start to make an announcement and she tells me she wants to listen. She asks me to wait where I am and she'll take care of me. They announce the flight is cancelled and the concierge walks to the podium and leaves me standing.... There will be a new flight leaving Saturday 850am.

They announce that all passengers should go pick up their bags and clear customs and go to international check in and they'll sort everyone out. They announce that J class and SE will be helped at the gate. At this point I realize the concierge isn't coming back for me so I make my way up to the zoo at the gate. There are 6 SE passengers on board and 4 have families. When I get there she sorts out of two SE passengers and prints out their hotel vouchers and sends them on their way. She tells since I'm local all she can do is give me taxi vouchers and to come back in the morning. She also tells me my family can't be seated together as the flight is full and I let her know that the concierge on the phone let me know there's plenty of room. She tells me I have to wait over there and she'll rebook me and let me know when it's done. The next SE she helps is also local and a family of four whom I was talking to in the lounge. She prints off hotel voucher and sends them on their way in the blink of an eye. So they're local and get a hotel just like that and get sent on their way. What gives? I was the very last passenger at the gate by this point when she finally gets back to me. I was proactively calling hours before to get his sorted out so this wouldn't happen. So much for being SE and having the concierge there to help us out!!!

Concierge tells me I've been rebooked and be back at the airport around 3pm for my flight...here are your taxi vouchers. I ask why would I not be on 850am flight? The Toronto concierge had told her all the details and how I would like to be rerouted it possible. Instead she tells me you asked me to rebook you on the same flight for tomorrow and that's what I did. I said that wasn't the case why would I want to spend another full day in YVR when I'm paying a thousand dollars a night for a hotel in Hawaii?!?! She gets us on the proper flight and tells me again about taxi vouchers as we're local and I said I had requested a hotel if at all possible as we're quite a ways from the airport. She again pushes the fact that we're local and that she has no rooms left to give us? I let her know that the Mr. SE she put in a room was also local and he was helped after us and the reason I called the concierge in the first place was to get out of the airport before everyone else, isn't that a benefit of being a SE? I was the last person out of the gate, what gives? She lets me know that the Fairmont does have one room available but it's a smoking room. So now there is a room available???

Wife is rather unhappy at this point as we're the last ones getting sorted out and the children are melting down. It's now past 10pm.

I asked the not so helpful concierge if they could have our bags sent up to our room as the hotel is attached to the airport. She says no you need to pick them up and bring them back in the morning. I once had my bags lost 3 times over a 2 week period and each time the concierge had them delivered to my hotel....

Get to the hotel and there are four of us and check in and yes only smoking rooms available but VIP rooms are available but I'd have to pay... Also told only kind bed rooms are available. Call the concierge again (YYZ) to see if we could get two rooms. She says she'll have to ask YVR concierge and find out but it shouldn't be a problem. I ask the front desk to just get us two rooms and process the second once the voucher is delivered. She says she can't and I just tell her ill pay for it now to get the children up and to bed and to just fix in when the voucher gets there. Finally get to room and get a call from concierge asking where I am and I say I'm in a room at the hotel and she's asks if everything is ok. I tell her I just paid for the second room and just deliver the voucher and sort it out. She tells me she can't as they're out of their allotment, but they could have moved us to a different hotel and not sure what to do. I should email customer relations and they could maybe offer a possible partial refund. I ask her if we should just forfeit the second room and just sleep on the floor. Room does have the stench of smoke and am really unimpressed. I let her know the reason I proactively called was to get sorted out quickly and settled in somewhere as we enjoy the first day of our vacation. Apologizes and says there's nothing she could do, if there was something she could have done she would have already. I guess that is sort of like the concierge at the gate telling me I'm local so take a cab home but instead gives all the available rooms to the other local SE passengers...

Nowthe children are grumpy, the wife is upset. I'm paying over a $1,000 for a night at Aulani that I couldn't use, $350 for a night at the Fairmont for two of us, AC paid for the other room.

Totally unacceptable? Or is this what the concierge does for us now? Would love to hear Ben has to say about this? Am I overreacting?

Would love to hear the comments of the community...

The grumpy children, upset wife and the 1000$ a night at the Aulani are pretty irrelevant; You as an SE know that delays and cancelations can happen, and that during peak periods this can result in a mess.

None of the above is any fault of AC and do not add to your story at all; if you have proper insurance then the 1000$ a night is of no loss, and if you do not have proper insurance, you gambled and lost, move on.

Typically AC does not give hotel vouchers at your point or Origin so if they did, then consider your self lucky. If only one hotel was available to the concierge when she made the arrangements (remember AC's IT system is very limited) then it sounds like she tried. If others rushed the gate and got served first and you where last then this also is sort of irrelevant to the story.

Calling the "concierge call center" on the other side of the country ~2.5 hours into the delay (again in peak travel season) is also not too "pro-active".

Sounds to me like you got caught up in a ...... situation that regularly happens, it is simply part of the air travel experience. Aircraft break, it happens. It would have been nice if AC was more proactive and worked on freeing up another A/C to do the run (Potentially the 330 that sits in YVR as AC195 returning 12h later as AC150) but due to crew issues and potential maintenance that is not always possible.

My 0.02$

Yes the grumpy family and night for unused hotel around the hotel are irrelevant. Yes I understand this is very common, I get stuck in IRROPS very often, but I'm never with my family and the concierge has always gotten me out of there because I call ahead of time.

My pain points are the YVR concierge was relayed all the details from my initial phone conversion and she knew what I wanted. I did what the YVR concierge asked me to do, to wait where she asked me. I did request the concierge to come meet me as the situation was about to get worse. I suppose 2 1/2 hours isn't very protective but it did go from 540 to 7pm to 8pm to 9pm to 915pm to 930pm to cancel. Not much they could tell me before 7pm. I was in the lounge the whole time till they booted us out and checking in ever 30 minutes.

It's ok to for the concierge to give out a room after she told me she can't because I'm local, yet the SE she helps directly after me telling me to wait over there a room and the two SE after him?

Concierge telling me I asked her to rebook her on a different flight when I did not hence the waiting game.

Calling the concierge to meet me at the gate to help me out and get me out of there only to be the very last passenger to leave the gate.

Paying $350 for another room to have my family sleep on a bed instead of the ground!

Also it took AC over an hour to get our bags to the baggage carousel.

Maybe I'm just grumpy too being at the airport for 9 hours at the start of a vacation is never pleasant.

I think the Concierge should have been more consistent. She also should not have asked you to wait and should have walked you over to the desk and dealt with you instead of asking you to wait. If you are SE, that is the level of service you should expect, not inconsistent arbitrary application of service policy

My .02 cents

Are you sure the info was ever even relayed to the Concierge in YVR (IE, did they get it?) Are you sure the concierge you flagged down was the one that potentially received the info?

Uh, what?

If the problem was mechanical was stated in the opening post then the airline has significant responsibilities.

Doesn't matter.

If someone's flights are messed up due to mx, and a concierge gets involved, then it's their responsibility to see that any other required concierge activity is provided.

Wait. The Fairmont at the airport has smoking rooms?? News to me

I don't know but if I'm at my local airport and they tell me "your flight today is cancelled, it's going tomorrow morning", I call a cab and head home pretty much instantly. No place like home.

You're missing the point, the comment was that angry wife/kids and a hotel room paid for in another city are not the airline's problem. Their problem is to get you A to B and the requirements in between (IE: a hotel room in your connecting city if the cancellation is their fault).

Now for my $0.02, yea do you not have some kind of travel insurance? Honestly I don't even know what I have but I know my credit card has SOMETHING and having learned from this board, it's not half bad. While waiting for the concierge I would've seen what I could do for myself. Then hey if you end up with 2 hotel rooms, so be it.

I can't explain some of the other stuff, I can't see why they'd help another SE behind you if you were ahead. Unless he/she was solo and easier to help, then it makes perfect sense. But if all things are equal it makes no sense to take one family over another.

I hate rolling delays, as someone who worked in the industry I can usually see them coming and I'd much rather just be told "lets say 2100" at 1800 rather than given 1830, 1900, 1930 etc etc, cuz then every time you get excited and go check...you get disappointed/pissed off again.

The situation sucks, but SE or not this was gonna be a tough one, they flew the rescue flight and really that's all you NEEDED to get in return. The $1000 hotel...that's pretty insane, and ESPECIALLY if I were paying that I'd have insurance to cover it. But the fact you're local, and at that time of day on a Friday, there's no F'ing way I would've stuck around. I live in New Westminster and unless you came up from Bellingham or down from like Powell River, I would've up and left immediately told the wife to drive then gotten on the phone in the car. (Btw, never called the concierge, I heard there was a new central number, but isn't it still the option to just call the YVR one directly?) Now even in that situation it would likely take a little while to get your bags back, but at least then you could just bounce, go home, chill out and hammer away at the phone for various things.

Was I the only one surprised at the very beginning of this story to se an SE willingly flying Rouge :)? Not that it has anything to do in THIS situation though....now just checking on the flight, was it really cancelled today as well? Scratch that, looks like it's just delayed about 5 hours today. Looks like the rescue flight went out fine today, as a mainline 767 so at least that's a plus and I guess one of the upsides to not flying true LCC or charter, these guys can at least replace aircrafts when need be.

Gotta say I'm thankful that I've never been put in one of these situations, I've missed a flight or had one cancelled but it's never been with more than just me solo or a long range flight.

Man that really sucks, sorry for the situation you ended up in. I have no suggestions being a noob around her, but I will say that you expressed yourself very objectively.

I am not sure that I could have done the same. The situation with the concierge seemed very unfair, especially when other locals were given rooms and when you made sure you did everything you could to be proactive and ahead of the queue.

Hope everything goes smoothly from here on in.

Aloha,

R.F.

I am guessing due to the Lack of A333's operating out of YVR that they could not source a crew for the frame that sits in YVR overnight... its a pity but I suppose the price to pay for not having a common fleet.

I'n in with you. I like my bed at home.

No airline in the world has a common fleet the size of AC that has short and long haul routes.

We had similar problems with 1831 on Mon. We eventually left YVR around 11pm and got to HBL about 6hrs later than expected.

It was a gong show after 7:30pm, as every food place was shutting down for the night. AC Rouge gave everyone $10ea to use at any food vendor that was still open. AC Rouge later brought a zillion Tim Horton sandwiches, then TimBits and coffee, etc. Great wiring up all the kids on sugar to then go cranky on a six hrs flight...

When it came time to board by zones, they finally noticed the part of the boarding pass they printed the food voucher on was the only part that showed the zone number. Doh! So they called families with kids, and that was 75% of the plane...

AC sent a 10% off code for two. Great, there were three of us on the ticket, so that doesn't sound fair. And what if we booked on points? I'd rather have 10% of my MarketFare returned to me

Travel interruption insurance to cover lost prepaid reservations, hotels enroute (although few carriers and fewer policies cover hotels at the origin point rather than taxi vouchers absent some extraordinary reason), covers all of this. It's generally relatively low cost and is one of the best investments out there.