canopus27

westjet.com?

Jagboi

Could be a consolidator fare, package as part of another offering ( cruise etc), industry fare, staff buddy travel, there are all sorts of other more restrictive fares.

I think she was saying that it wasn't anything special, just what was offered on AC's website to the general public. A "full retail" fare if you like.

eigenvector

If you are confirmed on a flight but with a GTE seat assignment, is your luggage tagged as stand-by?

Jumper Jack

LMAO

Sean Peever

no.

YYT82

No, it's still tagged per the flight you're booked on. And in the case of VDB/IDB, it's handled the same way as a delayed baggage. In some cases, they may arrive before you.

flyquiet

I read "I paid full price" as a cash purchase rather than points or miles redemption. (Perhaps she thinks those who pay now outrank those who paid previously in the process of earning the points or miles.)
Anyway, it seems clear she booked Tango, didn't OLCI, and didn't understand GTE, and CBC is trying to make a federal case out of it.
They only look ridiculous. She travelled on the flight she booked, and her only adverse impact was experiencing being "not impressed". I am not even sure how you make her whole for that particular loss. Impress her? Do some magic tricks? Give her some free pickles? Any ideas?

canadiancow

I really need to start boarding with zone 5 so I can watch these shenanigans.

Then I can walk up, and as someone like this is complaining, say "thanks for the free upgrade" (referring to either eUps or FP complimentary upgrade) as I hand over my BP.

Or if I'm on an Aeroplan ticket, "thanks for the free flight".

I just want to troll these people.

tracon

From the article...
"she checked in at an Air Canada counter at Toronto's Pearson International Airport about two hours before her March 27 flight. In Vancouver, she was to meet a connecting flight to Whitehorse."

That means she was checked in for the YVR-YXY segment about 8 hours before it's departure.
Surprising that a seat wasn't available with that much notice.


"If she had been bumped to a later flight, she says, she would have been forced to spend the night in Vancouver."

Had an AC agent mentioned it would have been at the airline's expense, a lot of her angst could have been avoided.

Jumper Jack

Are we sure about that?
I mean they did left a boy sleeping in the terminal in YYZ

tracon

Six months later there will be ZERO recollection of the bad experience when this airline has the lowest fare.

canadiancow

Could it have been the YYZ-YVR flight that was the issue, with a wide open later flight causing her to miss her connection?

Without going into the details about that incident, they offered him a hotel, but since he was a minor, he was unable to check in. That would not have been an issue here.

eigenvector

Thanks. So since the article mentions "the luggage was tagged differently" can we then surmise that confirmed but with no seat assignment was not what happened here?

Transpacificflyer

Some comments are unduly cruel and arrogant. As was explained, most consumers purchasing from AC are unaware of the fare rules or of the need to do OLCI or of the importance of purchasing a seat in advance.

It is telling that some of the more vociferous critics have not taken the time to consider why these consumers do not know. I will dumb it down for the arrogant geniuses ridiculing this woman's "ignorance". The airline could easily have a more transparent and effective means of warning customers. I believe AC does not do this because the airline does not want the customer to know. If it did, then the fare savings the customer thinks he/she was getting would vaporize and the AC strategy of overselling and easily bumping customers would not be so easy to do. AC is less than transparent on its fees and had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the point where its airfares included taxes and set fees. The corporate culture did not change at AC in this regard.

It's wonderful that some people are such experts. Perhaps if I spent much of my life on an airplane, I too might have the time to be an expert on fare rules. In my multinational corporation, none of the senior executives knows much about airline fare rules either. Their salaries range from a paltry few hundred K to several million dollars. They are also pretty well educated. Yet they too have had some issues when flying. Are they to be treated as idiots because some have been bumped over the years? We expect our CFO to keep our corporate finances in order, not to keep up to date on the intricacies of the various airfares.

It is not an unreasonable expectation for a customer who purchases an airline ticket from Air Canada's website to expect to be able to fly on the date selected, barring weather or mechanical issues. Some heap abuse on the woman because she was stressed out by a possible delay. Infrequent, non status flyers use the kiosks and the baggage drop lines for checkin. They rarely have an opportunity to talk to a check in agent, let alone receive an honest explanation of what is occurring. It is obvious that no one took the time to provide clear and explicit communication with this customer. Flying is a stressful event for most people. Not everyone likes to hang around drinking or sitting in an MLL eating cheap macaroni.

What's a FT thread without a cheap swipe at Gabor, right? He is the only person that these consumers can turn to because there is no one else. No one. This is Canada where airline consumers have limited legal rights and have been abandoned by successive federal governments. I don't see any of this forum's omniscient critics helping these people at their own personal expense. Feel free to step up to the plate and make a difference on a national level as he has, and take the heat.

Low Roller

Most people would find this situation stressful, and I agree that AC doesn't communicate well. Yes, it might have been avoided by OLCI, but many infrequent fliers don't know that. So, I can feel sorry for her, right up to the point where she decided to contact the CBC and leverage a minor inconvenience into her 15 minutes of fame. If she had actually missed her connection and been forced to overnight in an unfamiliar city, that would be worse, but none of that happened. She got on her original flight and left on time. I just wish someone at CBC would have told her that this wasn't worthy of printing.