jlisi984

@xray had this once, flying J YVR YYZ, and the J line-up was so long that she missed the cutoff and they wouldn't reopen it! She wasn't even late, just came from the Fairmont YVR 1h before or so.

vernonc

I am keeping an open mind. Just find it hard to think that all these 15 passengers out of 50 were 'late' specially since the claim is that the agent left them there and took off for the gate. Since the passengers were checking bags at the airport they were not connecting and 15 passengers would mean that 30% of the passengers showed up late for checkin?

canadiancow

At SFO, they do leave the check-in desk after the last flight closes. If there are still people in line, they wait around, but at T-55, if there are no customers, they head to the gate.

I'm curious about the actual times too.

ffsim

Of course ultimately it’s AC’s fault and up to AC to make it right. Customers may not know, and they may not care. They make take to Twitter to vent after a year of absence, they may spend future airline dollars elsewhere.

This thread’s title is perfect for CBC, or the Toronto Star. But this is FT; we sweat the small details. How many threads exist simply to make the distinction between one seat and another based on the number of nearby windows or the availability of overhead bins? Let’s not pretend that this audience doesn’t understand, appreciate or care for the difference between airline and contract staff.

I get it. OP hates AC and wants to show them in the worst light possible — this thread’s title is further proof most of us didn’t need. But some of us prefer to look at details more objectively.

Fair enough, I should’ve known better. I had “hypothesis” in mind but actually wrote “analysis” for some reason. “Speculation” would’ve been an even better choice.

xray

I even had OCLI but needed to drop off my bag. At one point, I asked to move up in the line but agents rebuffed that attempt. When I finally got up to the counter, the agents told me that AC had cut back the number of agents manning the priority counter in the am.

Thankfully, Fairmont YVR let me back into the room I had just vacated.

YZF_Elite

Not a lot of facts here. My guess is that the number of passengers was less than 15, that the check-in agent was a little to hasty proceeding to gate duties, and some people got screwed/screwed themselves by being late or right at the cut-off. Usually in these situations there's blame in more than one place and 'facts' are often overstated to build a better story. AC should have someone at check-in until all those who have tickets are processed or until at least some grace time after cut-off.

I know when small stations I frequent like YQX, YZF and YXY adjusted to the 45 min cut-off, there was some patience required on the part of staff and passengers, but I don't recall people being intentionally turned away or desks being vacant. I still often arrive at YZF 50-55 mins before a flight and line up for 15, but nobody gets turned away.

InTheAirGuy

OP here. I don't "hate" AC. I do 125-150,000 miles a year on them, or partner airlines. I've been SE for every year there has been SE, except in 2003, post 9-11.

What I do find frustrating is a customer-service oriented culture that is lacking, that is debated here and elsewhere as in continual need of improvement, and a corporate leadership culture that just does not seem to care. I, like many other folks, have experienced this culture-fail multiple times in my close to 2 million miles with the airline.

So this isn't driven by a 'CBC' type agenda. I just find these situations to be galling.

ffsim

I see. I must’ve been fooled by the thread’s sensational title and its opening sentence, "a new low for the world's worst airline.”

InTheAirGuy

So folks get emotional.

ffsim

I don’t even know what that means. I didn’t notice anyone getting emotional. Was it a question or a statement?

Let’s try to advance the alleged cause of this thread. Some of us attempted to establish the timeline of events based on two tweets from 1 passenger at a tiny AC outstation that you managed to track down. How would the world’s best airlines have handled a similar situation?

General consensus here suggests that walking away from queued customers is never good. Letting contractors ruin your customers’ experiences is never good, either. Hanging out at the check-in counter with less than one-third of a plane load of passengers while the other two-thirds sit at the gate you’re supposed to be manning is also not good.

I feel like if I was in that situation and if I had pax in front of me who missed their check-in cutoff but I really had to get elsewhere to do my job, I’d have to leave. I’d make an announcement that anyone still in line will have to be rebooked, that I have to head to the gate and that I’ll handle said rebookings as soon as I can get back to the counter. I’m sure that would anger those in line, but I’m not seeing a whole lot of alternatives.

What would you do?

Jane42

Perhaps the OP was saying HE may have gotten emotional when he chose the title of his post......