RCyyz

We fly a lot and we all have our opinions and our experiences on what's good about air travel and what's not.

AC of course is in a somewhat unique position in that it has a lot of geography to cover with relatively little pax (compared to some markets) yet it still needs to compete in particular with US airlines but also with the Europeans, the Asians and the ME3. It can't be easy but AC has been largely successful at making a go of things particularly with WS making inroads on select routes.

Recently there's been a lot of noise in the media about flying; I've actively contributed to a few threads here. But I thought it would be interesting to peel the onion a little and see what's really going on. I managed to find some interesting stats which I now reproduce here.

From the Canadian Transportation Agency we find a summary of complaints submitted by carrier. The CTA notes:

There's also an interesting collection of stats from, as one would expect, Statistics Canada. One of the nice things about StatsCan is that you can select data, manipulate it to a limited extent, then download it as a csv file all for free via a cool little tool called CANSIM.

With that in mind, let's take a look at the stats starting with thousands of passenger-kilometres flown per year, then moving to thousands pax flown per month and finishing with # air travel complaints per year.

RCyyz

Some general observations on the numbers above:

• Unsurprisingly, AC carries pax far further than WS. In the first table we can see the number of passenger-kilometers for both AC and WS. The passenger-kilometer is “determined by multiplying the number of unlinked passenger trips by the average length of their trips”
• On an annual basis, AC flies about 3x as many passenger-kilometers as WS does but this gap is gradually closing.
• For the years 2015 vs 2010, AC grew the number of pax carried by 9.4 million compared to 10.2 million for WS
• i.e. AC carried 19.9% more pax in 2015 vs 2010. WS carried 33.7% more.
• Like clockwork, each carrier hits a peak in August and a trough in November. Clearly, Canadians like their summer vacations but are hard at work in November!
• WS has climbed to the point where, at their peak, they can carry as many pax as AC does in the November lows. This slow and steady growth of WS is interesting to see.
• With respect to complaints, AC has always had the majority of complaints to deal with. This is unsurprising since AC carries the most pax the furthest distances.
• What is quite interesting though is the proportion of complaints leveled against AC. AC now has a solid 80% share of air travel complaints. Yet in 2015, AC carried 56.7 million pax to WS 40.6 million. Looking solely at these two carriers, this means AC carried 58.3% of pax to WS 41.7%.

Of note is the number of air travel complaints on a yearly basis. Up to the end of 2012, # of complaints is relatively low but climbs suddenly in 2013 then again in 2014. I’m not able to find any real detail here. While the number of complaints against Sunwing doubles, they’re perhaps 10% of AC numbers. Similarly, complaints against WS have tripled, but they too are at most 10% of AC numbers. So one could argue that there’s a general trend to increasing numbers of complaints against Canadian carriers, but it’s undeniable that AC is leading the charge here.

Compared to WS, AC carries the most pax the furthest distances. Yet AC has, overwhelmingly, more complaints through the CTA process. The split of pax carried between AC and WS is almost 60/40 but the split of complaints far exceeds this.

For the period 2010 to 2015, WS has increased by 40% the number of passenger-kilometers they fly and by 33% the number of pax carried but their complaints have tripled as well. For a company where “owners care” I think WS should be paying attention that their complaints don’t continue this trend in the wrong direction.

For the period 2010 to 2015, AC increased their number of passenger-kilometers by 29% and number of pax carried by 20%, but their complaints more than tripled, pushing them from 60 – 70% of industry complaints to 80%. To me, it is shocking that one corporation can have 80% of industry complaints.

It’s entirely possible that WS has more complaints than AC, but that WS is simply successful at resolving the complaints internally whereas AC complaints all land with CTA facilitation. If this edge case is true, then it means AC has a major problem with their inability to resolve customer complaints internally.

Practically this doesn’t seem likely though. AC must have some capacity to resolve complaints through normal processes that do not require facilitation from the CTA. In this case, it would indicate that AC truly does have an issue with the number of complaints firing in their direction. It would behoove AC to start doing some root cause analysis to eliminate the sources of complaints at source.

Also of note, as stated above, WS has climbed to the point where, at their peak, they can carry as many pax as AC does in the November lows. That WS has accomplished this without any real FF program or true participation in any of the 3 major alliances is remarkable. It seems to indicate that the success of WS has been accomplished not through a general cornering of high-value customers, but rather one customer at a time. Is there a general trend where more Canadians are flying more (and thus WS is simply riding a rising tide)? Possibly. But it’s interesting to see that AC’s growth in pax carried was minimal from 2010 to 2012 and dipped noticeably in 2013 whereas WS experienced good growth that never stopped.

Many of us here on the AC forum tend to associate WS with the usual Canadian airports as well as low-fare travel to boilerplate sun destinations such as CUN, PUJ and the like. But WS year-over-year growth of pax carried and passenger-kilometers flown is steady and quite possibly sustainable. If WS chooses to grow to a true international (TATL, TPAC) airline, their growth could be very interesting.

skybluesea

What is shocking is the complete lack of understanding between a complaint that is legitimate, and a complaint for the sake of making a complaint.

Where is the table that shows complaints versus resolution. Before you reach conclusions of your claim of AC ineptitude, what proportion of complainants are actually found to be in the right for which the CTA finds fault with remedy.

I suppose the point that OP is trying to make is akin to "when did you stop beating your husband or wife", which of course can never be answered in a positive way

jazzsax

I would be more interested in seeing the above numbers with outliers removed, ie, complaints for Gabor Lucas.

jasdou

I am not convinced that this argument holds water. I think a high percentage of complaints would be generated pre- or post flight, at the booking or check-in steps, at the gate (delays, overbooking...), at the bagage caroussel (missing luggage) or caused by misconnects or other similar situations.

Once a pax is in his seat and the plane is airborne, I suspect that there are much less sources of complaints, besides broken IFE or non-French 7-Up cans. As such I doubt that the relation between # of complaints and passenger-kilometer is linear.

RCyyz

Actually, the point I was tying to make was nothing akin to wife / husband beating which is criminally wrong and IMHO, morally wrong as well. To equate a complaint against an airline with a criminal matter is something I would classify as a complete lack of understanding.

In the interests of maintaining transparency, here's a look from the CTA on outcomes of complaints. The numbers won't line up completely since a complaint will be lodged, then take some time to wind its way through the process. Nonetheless, one can clearly see that the majority of complaints against airlines are resolved, at least in the opinion of the CTA. Perhaps 10% of cases are withdrawn or go through some other form of mediate / adjudication / resolution mandate.

RCyyz

It's likely not a linear relationship, but what I meant to imply is that there is likely a relationship. For example, I think the likelihood of a baggage complaint might increase.

I do think there is likely a stronger relationship between number of pax flown and number of complaints. But I don't think the proportions (AC vs WS) are in line.

24left

"Perception is 90% reality"....they say

@ RCyyz

Thanks for this thread. Given my work, this is actually interesting and perhaps insightful, depending how one interprets the data that is available and how tinted one's glasses are.

One stat that no one seems to track is how many people complain to the CBC vs complain on FB vs complain on Twitter or RFD or even daily newspapers. And of course let's not forget the complaints posted on FT.

I would be really interested to see those numbers and equally important, the percent those complaints represent out of the total number and compared to each other. I do not think that type of tracking is available but it could be useful (and possibly humorous).


Whether Air Canada is the "winner" because they get 80% of the complaints, I'd like to know what those complaints are. It could be 10% serious, 90% fluff, or 60-40 or whatever.

Also, absolutely critical in any discussion of this data is how Air Canada responds to complaints of any kind versus how others respond. Maybe WS and WN and B6 have different resolution procedures and more importantly, the resolutions handled at airports by their frontline people perhaps get issues resolved more quickly and they don't end up in the media-sphere. Air Canada may have a FB page and a Twitter team and of course there is the online form, but maybe in today's world, that just isn't enough.

Further, Air Canada still seems saddled with negative public perception. This perception is then fed by our tax dollar-funded public broadcaster. In an effort to get more eyeballs, they zoom in on an often easy target, AC.

So, statistics......

"Perception is 90% reality"....they say

jjclancy

The hypothesis "the rate of illegitimate complaints varies substantially between carriers" is an interesting one. Find us some data if you think this is case.

In the absence of that, this is the best we can do.

I found the OP to be even-handed and factual. Your suggestion is that they're promoting an agenda, and using underhanded rhetoric to accomplish that. That suggestion is nonsense.

skybluesea

It is up to OP, who went to a great deal of work to pull all this data out (thanks), then follow up with another table that shows the general complaint outcomes, to demonstrate the assertion, which is what I'm challenging, that AC is inept on customer service.

For sake of your argument (which I don't accept for logic based reasons) and to continue with a friendly debate, let's assume every single CTA complaint is legitimate. This translates into an error rate of .001%, or better yet a success rate of 99.988%. Well you might argue many other complaints go unreported, but then I would reply with how many of the CTA complaints are valid.

Now, this success rate not quite six sigma, but getting pretty close so granted improvement is necessary - although rightly so shareholders should ask the question, what is the benefit of perfection, and the relative cost for It's achievement.

What however appears to be missed in this race to demonize AC, is the passenger carried table, where except for 2013, the marketplace is willing to tolerate these errors, with a consistent passenger growth rate.

I am sure we are all quite sophisticated in using statistics to make whatever point we want - also plenty of debate whether Samuel Adams (Mark Twain) originated memorable quote about "figures" 😇

The smallest state

This is a great post. Complete with Stats Canada graphs and numbers. While I think I am missing the boat somewhere with the number of complaints (AC had only 449 last year stats were available?????) they go from 59.1% of complaints in 09/10 to 80% of complaints in 15/16.

THAT speaks volumes to me and seems inline with AC. The difference between AC and WJ is huge when it comes to little things like customer service and common courtesy, no doubt it is big when it comes to this.

jjclancy

No.

You (quite rudely) raised a concern with OP's analysis, without even a hint of data to support your concern.

It is up to you to provide support for your hypothesis.

fin 645

From my experience, "Perception IS reality".

skybluesea

If I understand the logic from OP and your assertion is that ALL complaints are legitimate unless proven otherwise.

wow, i'm pleased more than ever now that we live in a society based on the rule of law - and thus offering even a hint of a non-supportable complaint does NOT get you drawn and quartered.

OP advanced us statistics from CTA - thus what goes with the original argument is also the process for complaint resolution. AC is NOT guilty until proven innocent in front of the CTA - rather the complainant must make the case that the airline has failed in it's duty to comply with relevant regulations, and the airline has an opportunity to respond to such assertions.

If you want more details on the process, send me a PM, and I will ask a former chair of the CTA if I can share your email and you can contact this individual directly.

Symmetre

Thank you to the OP for posting this, and for having taken the time to dig out the data. It's an interesting read.

Obviously all data is subject to some level of interpretation. But the suggestion that AC is the subject of 80% of the complaints while carrying just 58% pf the pax should raise a few eyebrows at AC, at the very least. One would hope that someone there would start the internal conversation and maybe look into what's happening. Sadly, I doubt very much that that will happen.

But you can bet someone at Westjet will read this and have a fit over the suggestion that their airline is having a greater number of customer relations issues. Maybe that's why they have so few of them to begin with.