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Olympian not happy with economy seating

Olympian not happy with economy seating

Old Feb 26, 2018, 10:13 am
  #46  
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Originally Posted by ffsim
AC is milking their Olympics support like crazy, and yet they can't find a way to do a little something for a gold medal winner. We've had 11. Eleven. That's it.
Figure skating team - 7
Curling mixed doubles - 2
2-man bobsleigh - 2
Ice dance - 2

+ 7 golds with one winner each.

The total is 20 gold medal winners.
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Old Feb 26, 2018, 10:15 am
  #47  
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Originally Posted by DoTheBartMan
Figure skating team - 7
Ice dance - 2

The total is 20 gold medal winners.
If you are going split hairs, split them right.
Ice Dance was also on the team, so -2.
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Old Feb 26, 2018, 10:15 am
  #48  
 
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Hahaha wow that was a terrible tweet for the guy. Bad publicity. Ripppp
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Old Feb 26, 2018, 10:34 am
  #49  
 
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Originally Posted by Jebby_ca
Ok... even if I take your understanding of what the hashtag applies to... what is his gripe? Clearly, he wasn't looking at getting a free upgrade from Air Canada if he was being sarcastic about his "what a great Olympic partner" remark. What if he was simply stating that 2 days ago, he won gold but now he's seated in 57A on his way home? Who honestly likes sitting in 57A anyway?
His gripe is that he believes he deserves a better seat than 57A. The "2 days ago" bit is to reinforce that he's an Olympic gold medal winner for Canada flying Canada's official Olympic airline. The sarcasm is that being assigned 57A by Air Canada makes them "a great Olympic partner."

Now that we've parsed that to death, it's nevertheless a tweet that absolutely reeks of entitlement and poor judgement.

The other party who has displayed some poor judgement IMHO is AC -- they ran a massive campaign based on the Olympics and should've anticipated that our country would produce a certain number of gold medal winners. They could've understood that doing a little something for these gold medal winners would've furthered the point of that campaign tremendously.

Put it this way: if RM can play with R space to prevent you from getting an eUp or securing an IKK, they can also ensure that a handful of gold medal winners don't end up in 57A.

Originally Posted by DoTheBartMan
Figure skating team - 7
Curling mixed doubles - 2
2-man bobsleigh - 2
Ice dance - 2

+ 7 golds with one winner each.

The total is 20 gold medal winners.
Way to be pedantic. I'd argue that AC should do something for all 20 (or 18).
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Old Feb 26, 2018, 10:38 am
  #50  
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I tend to agree with Jebby_ca (post 43). I take it that the athlete was trying to say that a Canadian Olympic Gold medal winner only flies in Economy. It might have been plainer if instead of indicating 'sarcasm', he had indicated 'irony'.

Canada is notorious for how little support our Olympic athletes get. Look at the video at the top of this link page and go to minute 3.19. Season 9: Olympic Medalists - Dragons' Den What you will hear is that a team that won 7 Olympic medals out of a possible 8, did not know if they be able to finish the World Cup season because they were running out of money. Is it hard to understand why such an athlete would post a remark that was intended to be 'sarcastic' or 'ironic', under those circumstances. We win Gold and have to worry about money, thanks for the support people.

Then someone responds with comments like, 'if you want an upgrade, pay for an upgrade'. With what?

I agree with the athlete giving Air Canada a thumbs down. How much would it have actually cost them to show our athletes a little more appreciation for their efforts and representation of our country. Instead, there he is, on the back of the bus.

Last edited by dulciusexasperis; Feb 26, 2018 at 10:43 am
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Old Feb 26, 2018, 11:07 am
  #51  
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Canadian Olympic Gold Medalist Angry Air Canada Didn't Upgrade Him - One Mile at a Time

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Old Feb 26, 2018, 11:20 am
  #52  
 
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This kid could show up on the doorstep of any home in Canada other than his parent's and the owner would think he's there to sell them cheaper Hydro. This is a bad look, he needs a dose of reality

He's young though (I'm guessing?). He should invest the $20K wisely and try to parlay his effort into a career that will be able to afford front-cabin fares.
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Old Feb 26, 2018, 11:21 am
  #53  
 
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Originally Posted by halls120
Over on the DL board, the Americans who won curling gold tried to get DL to give them an upgrade. Didn't work for them either.
Weren't the Americans nice about it though? They asked. DL politely said sorry. Americans responded with "cool". <My personal summary> Basically, how you'd imagine the stereotypical Canadian version would have gone, absent a few hundred "Sorry"s sprinkled about.

The #sarcasm tag here isn't clear as to what he's being sarcastic about. It can be read any number of ways.
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Old Feb 26, 2018, 11:22 am
  #54  
 
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Originally Posted by Jebby_ca
Ok... even if I take your understanding of what the hashtag applies to... what is his gripe? Clearly, he wasn't looking at getting a free upgrade from Air Canada if he was being sarcastic about his "what a great Olympic partner" remark. What if he was simply stating that 2 days ago, he won gold but now he's seated in 57A on his way home? Who honestly likes sitting in 57A anyway?
It's better than 57B, at any rate.
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Old Feb 26, 2018, 11:25 am
  #55  
 
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Originally Posted by dulciusexasperis
I tend to agree with Jebby_ca (post 43). I take it that the athlete was trying to say that a Canadian Olympic Gold medal winner only flies in Economy. It might have been plainer if instead of indicating 'sarcasm', he had indicated 'irony'.

Canada is notorious for how little support our Olympic athletes get. Look at the video at the top of this link page and go to minute 3.19. Season 9: Olympic Medalists - Dragons' Den What you will hear is that a team that won 7 Olympic medals out of a possible 8, did not know if they be able to finish the World Cup season because they were running out of money. Is it hard to understand why such an athlete would post a remark that was intended to be 'sarcastic' or 'ironic', under those circumstances. We win Gold and have to worry about money, thanks for the support people.

Then someone responds with comments like, 'if you want an upgrade, pay for an upgrade'. With what?

I agree with the athlete giving Air Canada a thumbs down. How much would it have actually cost them to show our athletes a little more appreciation for their efforts and representation of our country. Instead, there he is, on the back of the bus.
Air Canada has been a proud and very visible supporter of the Canadian Olympic Team. If you have ever left town upon the conclusion of the Olympics (which I have) or operated a flight (which I have) there is a mass exodus with barely a seat to be had. Equipment was upgauged from the usual 3/4 weekly 787-9 to a daily 777-300 to accommodate increased revenue traffic.
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Old Feb 26, 2018, 11:25 am
  #56  
 
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Originally Posted by codex57
The #sarcasm tag here isn't clear as to what he's being sarcastic about. It can be read any number of ways.
The thumbs down and the tag make it abundantly clear his sarcasm relates to his "AC is a great Olympic partner".
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Old Feb 26, 2018, 11:28 am
  #57  
 
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What an a--hole. If you want to fly in business class, try being a professional athlete with a high compensation package. You got transpacific transportation courtesy of Air Canada, that's more than the fans got. And I'm sure the flights were booked months in advance, especially the business cabin.
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Old Feb 26, 2018, 11:34 am
  #58  
 
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Originally Posted by Gig103
What an a--hole. If you want to fly in business class, try being a professional athlete with a high compensation package. You got transpacific transportation courtesy of Air Canada, that's more than the fans got. And I'm sure the flights were booked months in advance, especially the business cabin.
yes this....

​​​​​​​Young folks these days feel entitled....
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Old Feb 26, 2018, 11:38 am
  #59  
 
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Originally Posted by ACYYZ/SD
Air Canada has been a proud and very visible supporter of the Canadian Olympic Team. If you have ever left town upon the conclusion of the Olympics (which I have) or operated a flight (which I have) there is a mass exodus with barely a seat to be had. Equipment was upgauged from the usual 3/4 weekly 787-9 to a daily 777-300 to accommodate increased revenue traffic.
For those saying that AC should upgrade the guy because they are using Olympic athletes in their marketing, consider that AC has paid for the privilege of the using the "Official Airline of the Canadian Olympic Team" moniker. So AC, by striking that marketing deal with the COC, *is* supporting our athletes, with a chunk of good old cash $. As part of that deal, COC may have received discounted rates for athlete/coach/staff travel to the Games, but evidently guaranteed J seating for gold medal winners wasn't part of the deal. Had it been, given that a J seat from Seoul to Toronto is not cheap at any time let alone on the last day of the Olympics, one might presume that the cash component of the marketing deal would have been smaller.

So is this guy mad that AC doesn't support athletes, or that it didn't support him personally with a J seat? Which would you prefer our Olympic team to get - money they can use to help all athletes train for the Games, or expensive luxury perks for gold medal winners?

As has been noted by @24left and ACYYZ/SD, it's not as if there's empty J seats lying around for a complimentary upgrade at some ICN agent's discretion. To put this guy in J or PY they'd likely have to boot a paying passenger, so it would cost AC very real money.
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Old Feb 26, 2018, 11:53 am
  #60  
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Originally Posted by eigenvector
they'd likely have to boot a paying passenger, so it would cost AC very real money.
And bad publicity.

"Air Canada boots business class passenger to accommodate an Olympic athlete to celebrate his victory".

Gee, I'm fairly certain FT would erupt in flames and the general public would dislike Olympiads even more. Olympic athletes do not have a more honourable profession than veterans in my books, and I'm fairly confident others feel the same way. We don't offer veterans upgrades to business class for free, do we? If not as I surmise, Olympiads can pay to play or they can sit in the back of the bus.
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