CZAMFlyer

Good morning everybody, nice to see you've all been active while I've been away.

Just to clear some air: at no point have I suggested the OP was wrong. Or right, for that matter. I've simply stated my opinion and posed some questions to consider. As many of you may know, I'm not an AC apologist. I've done what many of you are loathe or unable to do: voted with my wallet and taken the bulk of my flying business elsewhere because i feel AC and its program aren't as useful to me any more. I've experienced plenty of maddening AC frustrations as a customer and as somebody who has to work with them in certain capacities. I see and agree with many of the weaknesses we note in the company.

But I've dared to take a contrary opinion to what seems like all of you, and stated that I personally don't feel the need to seek monetary compensation for a brief (and yes, it's brief, and yes, I've heard of 'time is money' but please) delay. I'm the only advocate of not composing a complaint, yet have been advised I'm bent out of shape or nose out of joint or some such thing. I'm not...I simply disagree with you.

If a connection was missed (one wasn't) or an item was lost (one wasn't) or a significant delay occurred (one didn't), then I would support some form of compensation (costs reimbursed, discount coupon, whatever). To me - and clearly it's only me - the inconvenience of an extra hour or two waiting doesn't warrant being 'made whole'. The distinction has been lost on many that I do support compensation for some cases of delay & inconvenience, but not for every case. I don't know where my threshold is between what does vs doesn't warrant compensation; just that it's higher than spending an extra 1-2 hours at one's home airport. My feelings have nothing to do with the fact I work in aviation (we're not automatons and are capable of independent thought), nor do I feel this industry is more or less complex than any other, and have repeatedly dismissed insistent comparisons to that effect.

If Air Canada wants to learn from this or other incidents, great. If not, fine. I - and you too - can thus choose whether to continue buying their product. I've often said it's not that mistakes are made between company and customer, it's how they're dealt with after they occur that matters. It will be interesting to see how or if Air Canada reaches out to the OP unprompted.

I'm not so pure in thought that I haven't written emails to airlines with the intent of some form of compensation for what were unacceptable or preventable delays (spending an hour in YYZ's bag hall seems trivial when compared to running out of gas in an airline-supplied taxicab somewhere on the high prairie of Colorado at 4am - they actually bumped me a higher status level for the following year and I didn't ask for that). I believe life is an exercise of give-and-take, and many people here have demonstrated that the latter is a higher priority for them. That's fine - I respect your opinions. Please respect mine.

WaytoomuchEurope

Thoughtfully written and well conveyed. Point taken.

PointWeasel

Your math is off. I was not an hour.

If it was a domestic carousel error, then I would let it pass myself.

But to use a US/International carousel is a significant screw up, IMHO.

The OP needs to make AC aware and if it yields a 15% then I would consider the matter closed.

jc94

CZAMFlyer

OP stated they waited 1+45 hours from deplaning to bags arriving. Estimating an average of 45 min for bags to arrive normally - based upon what YYZ users have reported & complained about on this forum - I came up wth the 1 hour figure.
That the bags went to an international belt is of no import. The bags were delayed roughly an hour - why should it matter where they went in the interim?
The OP doesn't need to make AC aware; they were aware at the time it happened. It's up to the airline to decide if they wish to reach out to the customers with any form of acknowledgment.

The airline (AC handles its own bags in Canada) is responsible to get the bags from aircraft to the appropriate inbound belt located beside/underneath the terminal building. Once in the system, it's under control of the airport authority. However the airport has limited responsibility if the airline bag runner drove up to an incorrect baggage pier. Baggage systems are automated and barcode-driven, so I imagine the sensors and computers had some whiskey-tango-foxtrot moments as a stream of Calgary bags were passing along a customs-destined belt. Who knows, despite the wizardry within the bag halls, there may have had to be some manual hand-pulling to get things sorted out.

asovse1

Wait so do the bags have to go through CBSA since it was on a US belt? Or can they just get redirected back to domestic arrivals? And in the case of the former, I wonder what would happen if a domestic pax was legally intending to transport cannabis (or something else that can't be imported into Canada but can be transported within) and then underwent CBSA inspection?

CZAMFlyer

I would imagine that the bags would not require screening, but not sure how easy it would be to separate them from the bags from other arriving aircraft once placed on the inbound baggage belt. I don't know the journey the OP's bags actually undertook. As for cannabis, the passenger would have a pretty solid case that they didn't run afoul of any importation laws.