canadiancow

Pregnant woman? No issue.
85 year old? No issue.
2 year old? No issue.
Someone with a medical condition? No issue.

But when there's 5 of each of those categories on board, there's now 20 people from Y who are using a lav meant for 14.

Until you've had some fat Y pax's butt literally in your face because the line to the J lav stretches past your seat, and the person has to lean over your seat to let another Y pax back to the back, you may not get. But part of the J experience is a cleaner, less busy lavatory. One exception doesn't disturb that. But I don't really feel like a pregnant woman is any more or less deserving than any of the other categories I listed, nor do I think that's an exhaustive list.

24left

Yes, I already pointed that out in post 12.

In unrelated news, I'd bet if Global was even aware that this was being discussed on a forum such as FT and initial comments had listed CBC as the source of the news article, someone at Global might be enjoying the moment.

Funny how many are conditioned to think that a negative news story involving Air Canada is automatically a CBC story.
.

Plumber

Haha- My first thought when I read it was "OMG- a negative story about AC that does NOT come from CBC!"

Stranger

I would bet she can afford paid J more than I do.

All pre-tax.

And I would argue that being eight months pregnant, it would have been a wise thing for her to do.

But again for the SD to deny an eight month pregnant SE the use of the front washroom got to mean something. Very likely that they had enough of her I would say.

YEG_SE4Life

As stated above, there are different sides to this story. Of course, this is from the customer's perspective and I don't blame AC for not making a statement. I have a couple of comments myself:
1) It sure would be nice if the SD had given her the permission to use the front lav, if required. However, as some have stated, there are those in J who take exception to someone from Y using the lav in J. It is in the 15 Touch Points outline that the SD uses that it is the SD's responsibility to ensure the exclusive use of the J lav for J customers. There are many on here who would like to see the SD, or other employees, being given the opportunity to use some judgement. Then there are those on here who have jumped all over an AC employee who used some discretion which was contrary to what those individuals thought only they should be entitled to. it is a difficult situation with no easy answer.
2) It appears that the SD did take steps to protect this particular passenger from her perceived issue. The SD moved the passenger, who appeared to be overly aggressive, to another row. In addition, it seems like that passenger was warned about the interception from LE, if the behavior continued. We don't know what constituted the bad behavior and as a result, really don't know what the SD did use to aid in the judgement with regards to the J lav. It does appear, though, that the plane took off, traveled, and landed without further incident to the pregnant SE. It is possible, therefore, that the logic used by the SD may have been appropriate.

It is very likely that the SD believed that s/he had taken appropriate steps to eliminate any threat and the results do speak for themselves.

IMHO

B407

Exactly why the flight crew probably didn't allow this to happen. Although, in this situation, we are dealing with a pregnant woman who felt threatened by a passenger near the Y lav, not simply just a pregnant woman. If it were me on the flight crew, I would have let her use the J bathroom, and nobody else from Y. Anyone who had a complaint about one Y pax using the J bathroom, I would have said something along the lines of getting the flight in the air as soon as possible.

jazzsax

The reporter did their job.

"In addition to being eight months pregnant, Freed is an Air Canada Altitude 100K customer. She said her company spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on flights with the airline annually.".

A simple google search will even tell you she owns the company. Wasn't hard for me to find the info. So she can obviously afford to fly J if she spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on travel annually. Maybe she didn't see value in it at the time...

canadiancow

Was there a threat? If yes, someone should not have flown.
If not, then was there a perceived threat? If not, the woman should not have been given any extra treatment.

Clearly there was a perceived threat. I think my issue here is that based on the account (passenger moved, threatened with law enforcement), it's much closer to the "threat" category than the "perceived threat" category.

I do not think she should have been allowed to use the J lav, because the only way that would make sense is if it was all in her head. If this was real enough to warrant reseating and threatening a passenger (with police involvement), he should have been removed from the flight.

jazzsax

Good analysis and in my opinion --- bang on. The SD's have clear instructions... they followed them and made the right call according to the guidelines.

Let's play a game and change the scenario a bit and see if we all have the same amount of compassion...

8 month pregnant lady buys Paid J --- but doesn't have status.
8 month pregnant lady gets last choice of meal.
8 month pregnant lady gets meal choice that unfortunately because she's pregnant makes her want to gag / throw up / vomit on fellow J passengers (let's assume it's the fish... LOL). Asks for accomodation from AC and is told, sorry that's your only option. She sees people served in random order.

8 month pregnant lady goes to CBC (yes, CBC... not global, because Global has decided they ran their token A/C story) and CBC writes disgruntled AC story about nearly making 8 month pregnant lady ill and being non accomodating.

Different opinions here? Would you feel as accomodating? Staff followed the policies (meal choices by status), passenger may have still felt "threatened"...

I know I'm reaching here... but thought it was worth creating conversation. :P

canadiancow

I flew with a friend who couldn't eat eggs on a SFO-YVR breakfast flight. We were at the back of the cabin. When my order was taken, I said "he can't eat eggs". In that case, if she said anything other than "okay I'll give him the healthy option", I would have changed my order to the healthy option. However, my point is more that if you're looking at a menu and see that you can only eat one of the choices, you need to be proactive.

I can't imagine that on a flight with fish (i.e. PLH or international with 4 options), that there would ONLY be one choice left. I'm sure it's theoretically possible, but even when I say "I don't care, come back to me at the end", there are generally 3 of 4 remaining. Sometimes 2, sometimes 4. Never 1. If it's a "meat or pasta" flight, that could be different. But again, that's where you need to be really proactive. No airline boards one of each choice per seat (I even read an FT post the other day about an LH F flight not having enough when every passenger (only 3 of them) asked for the same thing).

Now, I also think an acceptable response (even if not the best service) to the meal issue is "if you have dietary restrictions, you need to request a special meal in advance". If I can't eat eggs, and I don't order whatever SPML covers that when I book my ticket, why penalize the SE who wants the fruit/oatmeal?

But the meal issue can be solved in advance, with a SPML (however, my opinion on SPMLs is also that if yours isn't boarded, you get first choice of meals, regardless of status).

This incident was only apparent after boarding, where the woman doesn't really have an option, except for getting off. But they didn't seem to want to allow that, presumably due to getting her bag off.

mapleg

Hi folks, this is the Captain speaking. We anticipate a 45 minute additional delay. One of our elite passengers does not like her seat mate. We have moved him to another seat, but have been advised this is not satisfactory and we need to off load her luggage. Sorry about that, and thanks for flying Air Canada.

Stranger

But what would her view on the issue be when she sits in J?

Le me guess...

RangerNS

Or ever. That someone "owns a business" or even a fourth generation business, and that business means flying a lot for the executives doesn't mean that she personally brings in more than a middle class income, or that her 4 generations of cousin-owners would approve of even the CEO flying in J. In fact, one of the top articles on the PAX in question is her fear that the CF getting out of Afghanistan would bankrupt the business.

I've only skimmed through the first few paragraphs of a couple of articles, but if the factory you run is in Winterpeg, and your potential customers are in Ottawa (CF and RCMP) or Toronto (the center of the universe) it doesn't take 5 sales or executive goons doing weekly travel to get to "hundreds of thousands" of dollars of flights, even sitting in the back.

And, of course, she well could be exaggerating the "hundreds of thousands" claim.

drvannostren

Can you imagine if they had asked her to move to the back of the plane?

Transpacificflyer

No. The information was to provide background as in, she is an experienced flyer. This is all about perspective. Some see a glass 1/2 full, others see a glass 1/2 empty.

I don't think anyone would object to a bulging pregnant woman using a lav. Everyone except the dinosaur generation knows that there's a point when the baby can sit on the bladder and cause the female to have to pee frequently.

As pointed out 36 weeks isn't an issue. It is only after week 38 that there is concern. Besides, 36 weeks is well into the 9th month of pregnancy. For example, Jan 1, 2018 @ 36 weeks brings one to September 9.

Perhaps the only seats available were in Y. There have been times when that's all I could get and I was forced to sit amongst the great unwashed. In respect to the FA, it is possible she had one of those infamous gems working the plane. All it takes is one jerk FA.


BTW, which one of you male nasties was the one who gave this poor woman a hard time?