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Canadian pole vaulter blames Air Canada for busted poles

Canadian pole vaulter blames Air Canada for busted poles

Old May 18, 2018, 1:52 pm
  #46  
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Canadian pole vaulter Alysha Newman receives new poles fully paid for by Air Canada | CBC Sports

Canadian pole vaulter Alysha Newman received a brand new set of poles from Air Canada on Thursday morning, two weeks to the day her equipment was destroyed on a flight to Doha for a season-opening Diamond League meet.

Newman said the airline covered the cost of the new set of equipment which, according to the London, Ont., native cost $10,000.​
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Old May 18, 2018, 4:53 pm
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Now hopefully she bought a second set of poles as a backup in case of disaster in the future... :P
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Old May 19, 2018, 12:46 pm
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No doubt she did. I'm sure she also has purchased a 2nd vehicle at home in case the first one breaks down, and has a duplicate water heater at home in case of failure in January, and a 2nd ticket to her next event on a completely different airline just in case of labour dispute or mechanical delay. Because these are all reasonable, foreseeably bound-to-happen events, and spending that extra effort and money is totally worth reducing the risk to a lower not-zero level.
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Old May 19, 2018, 1:04 pm
  #49  
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Originally Posted by CZAMFlyer
No doubt she did. I'm sure she also has purchased a 2nd vehicle at home in case the first one breaks down, and has a duplicate water heater at home in case of failure in January, and a 2nd ticket to her next event on a completely different airline just in case of labour dispute or mechanical delay. Because these are all reasonable, foreseeably bound-to-happen events, and spending that extra effort and money is totally worth reducing the risk to a lower not-zero level.
I'm not sure those are good comparisons.

My second vehicle is a taxi or Uber.
A broken water heater is annoying until it's fixed, but doesn't affect your livelihood. If all you need is a shower, you have friends, neighbours, family, or a hotel day room.
For flight issues, you can easily buy a last minute ticket. It may not be cheap, but it is easy.

With these poles, it sounds like you can't just buy a set at the last minute. If your livelihood depends on it, it's probably worth having a plan in place (as I just outlined for your three scenarios).

I have only once checked a bag that I absolutely needed to arrive. Or rather, the only time I recall was the LAST time I checked anything I absolutely needed (without a backup), because it didn't arrive, and I learned my lesson. When a baggage issue moves from "inconvenience" towards "life destroying", you need a backup plan.
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Old May 19, 2018, 1:17 pm
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Originally Posted by canadiancow
I'm not sure those are good comparisons.

When a baggage issue moves from "inconvenience" towards "life destroying", you need a backup plan.
We can debate the examples used. Or recognize my being facetious. My point remains: reasonable care was taken to guard against the likelihood of loss or damage. There is a certain segment of society who sees options as binary, as either 1 or 0 (am I even using this digital-speak correctly?). Such people sometimes have difficulties with using a risk-assessment matrix, to borrow an industry term, for the more mundane facts of life and travel. I think it's been ably demonstrated upthread on why shipping a backup set of high jump poles is problematic to most, no matter the, er, stakes involved.
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Old May 20, 2018, 5:41 am
  #51  
 
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What amazes me here is that AC is succumbing to social media extortion. Unless AC offered extra insurance on the poles (and I don't think this is common any more for checked baggage) and the vaulter bought it, there would have been an explicit limitation of liability -- either in AC's CoC or pursuant to some international convention (e.g., Warsaw or Montreal). IME, this limitation of liability is to zero for certain items (e.g., cameras, computers, and maybe odd-sized sporting equipment) to ~US$1500 for regular baggage (e.g., clothes, toiletries, etc.) It is nowhere near $10,000. So it is only due to the vaulter's social network fame that she got so much more than you or I would have. See: https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/...liability.html
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Old May 20, 2018, 6:19 am
  #52  
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Originally Posted by seenitall
What amazes me here is that AC is succumbing to social media extortion. Unless AC offered extra insurance on the poles (and I don't think this is common any more for checked baggage) and the vaulter bought it, there would have been an explicit limitation of liability -- either in AC's CoC or pursuant to some international convention (e.g., Warsaw or Montreal). IME, this limitation of liability is to zero for certain items (e.g., cameras, computers, and maybe odd-sized sporting equipment) to ~US$1500 for regular baggage (e.g., clothes, toiletries, etc.) It is nowhere near $10,000. So it is only due to the vaulter's social network fame that she got so much more than you or I would have. See: https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/...liability.html
Agreed, it is important to remind everyone that cases like this are subsidized by us, the fliers of Air Canada.
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Old May 20, 2018, 7:47 am
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Originally Posted by beachmouse
She competed today with borrowed poles (the announcers described it as asking a professional golfer to compete at a major tournament with borrowed clubs) and went out at 4.54 meters. Her season's best is a 4.75 at Commies a few weeks back, and assumption is she was in similar form here. 4.54 got her 7th place and two points toward qualifying for the very high paycheck Diamond League Final, which is the biggest event of the track & field sports schedule for 2018. (non-outdoor World Championships, non-Olympic year) The winning vault today by Sandi Morris was a 4.74, which got Sandi 8 points toward the Diamond League final .

Given that elite athletes only get a certain number of invitations to the 'regular season' Diamond League meetings, and that Newman underperformend compared to Commies with unfamiliar equipment, it's not that much of a pathway for the broken poles in Doha to lead to a failure to qualify for the final and high placing in the DL final, and as much as a six figure (USD/CAD) loss in income from prize money, sponsorship deals, and appearance fees an athlete who is A- list on the global track scene can get.
With respect, the idea that "I lost my chance at an Olympic gold medal [or whatever] and it's your fault" is not testable. People lose competitions in, for example, bobsledding even though they had the finest technology of sled in tiptop condition - but all it took was for the driver to allow the sled to bump the chute for 1/10th of a second and that was that. The top ten scores can be so close, it's almost a crap shoot.

In other words, the 'tolerances' of many high level sporting competitions are so fine these days, that it is anyone's guess why someone wins...or loses.

Back to the airline. If they accepted the poles as cargo, this in reality means at best, they could only guarantee the specifications of such processes as they control, they can't guarantee an outcome to any specific shipment.For example, they could promise that insofar as their handling equipment is concerned, stresses on the package won't exceed so many pounds per square inch or whatever (I am not a structural engineer but you get the drift.)

But they can't guarantee the outcome unless, amongst other things, they don't accept something as cargo until after they subject the cargo to whatever imaging technique would show up any hairline cracks that already existed (for example). It's also unlikely that they could guarantee that something else in the cargo hold adjacent to the poles wouldn't cause a problem given that while they load the cargo they accept, they don't pack the cargo they accept. Also, the packing requirements of poles is not something even the athlete would necessarily know in detail. "I shipped them before like this and it worked out okay" doesn't mean that that method was truly suitable for shipping the poles.

Bottom line, if the airline doesn't accept the poles, period, then the athlete's chances of even competing let alone winning are at zero. But if they accept sensitive equipment, there is risk. Can they mitigate that risk, could they have done so in this instance? Not enough information to know.
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Old May 20, 2018, 4:19 pm
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Originally Posted by seenitall
What amazes me here is that AC is succumbing to social media extortion.
A bit strong, do you think? AC's response was entirely voluntary, and the heat of public pressure - outside of this thread - was no higher than a very low simmer. Perhaps the vaulter's status with the airline may have been a factor in the settlement; she claimed to have spent a lot of money on flights. Perhaps the airline is actually responsible for the damage.

Like most stories, there's often a lot of information we don't know. But it's less fun to sit quietly and wait for details instead of rushing to make completely unfounded declarations such as:

Originally Posted by longtimeflyin
Agreed, it is important to remind everyone that cases like this are subsidized by us, the fliers of Air Canada.
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Old May 20, 2018, 6:35 pm
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Originally Posted by CZAMFlyer
A bit strong, do you think? AC's response was entirely voluntary, and the heat of public pressure - outside of this thread - was no higher than a very low simmer. Perhaps the vaulter's status with the airline may have been a factor in the settlement; she claimed to have spent a lot of money on flights. Perhaps the airline is actually responsible for the damage.

Like most stories, there's often a lot of information we don't know. But it's less fun to sit quietly and wait for details instead of rushing to make completely unfounded declarations such as:
It doesn't matter whether the airline "is actually responsible for the damage." If it occurs between the time that you check it at your origin and when it is returned to you at your destination, the airline is liable -- and the amount for which it is liable is stated in your CoC or the relevant international convention. As I stated, unless AC offered additional insurance coverage to the vaulter and the vaulter accepted and paid for this additional coverage, the amounts that AC is paying in excess of its ordinary liability of ~US$1500 is strictly a goodwill gesture -- and as longtimeflyin observed, one that can only be paid for by excess revenues collected from other pax -- at least in the business world of which I am aware. But because I only have about 7 twitter followers and not 117K, I doubt that if AC damages my $10K of camera equipment, they will offer me more than squat.
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Old May 24, 2018, 6:25 am
  #56  
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Destroyed poles blessing in disguise for Alysha Newman | CBC Sports

"The second tweet was a little aggressive and I should have been more mature," Newman said this week. "Every time I go into Toronto, Air Canada knows me and takes care of me. It wasn't Air Canada's fault since they hire companies to handle baggage. It was definitely a lesson learned, and [both sides] learned."
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Old May 24, 2018, 6:43 am
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Originally Posted by tcook052
Destroyed poles blessing in disguise for Alysha Newman CBC Sports

"The second tweet was a little aggressive and I should have been more mature," Newman said this week. "Every time I go into Toronto, Air Canada knows me and takes care of me. It wasn't Air Canada's fault since they hire companies to handle baggage. It was definitely a lesson learned, and [both sides] learned."
Air Canada asked her on Twitter to send a booking reference so it could investigate further to which Newman responded: "DM you??? I'll get a sorry and then maybe a 200$ reimbursement? ...
However she aint wrong ... AC love to take any issues to DM and all too often offer a tiny discount voucher (sorry seems far fetched).

I dont agree with much of this especially how my own fares could increase with cases like this but perhaps if AC customer service was more decent (especially for us non SEMM) there wouldnt be a need for these Twitter cases.
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Old May 24, 2018, 12:32 pm
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Did she learn her lesson though? She's learned she can use her fame to extort. Which we all pay for.

in the end ---- I have backup plans. I have backups of my critical day to day machine I use for work. Learned the lesson the hard way when I had a hard drive failure and had to spend thousands for recovery.

This should be no different. Buy a damn set of backup poles.
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Old May 24, 2018, 12:59 pm
  #59  
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Originally Posted by jazzsax
Buy a damn set of backup poles.
Easier said than done as not all athletes are millionaires who can afford such contingencies.I recall hearing the story of some Olympic hopefuls working 2 part-time jobs while trying to train before the 'Own The Podium' program was created. Just saying...
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Old May 24, 2018, 1:02 pm
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Bringing a backup hard drive is not in the same cost & logistical universe as shipping a second set of 5m long high jump poles.
Also: look up the definition of "extort". You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
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