I am on the last Air Canada trip, of my life. Having migrated Stateside some 23 years ago, my interactions with the onetime “Peoples’ Airline” have been few and far between lately, the last coming over 4 years ago.

Normally, I transit between my home airport (RSW, Southwest Florida International) and Vancouver, 2 or 3 times a year, using DL, and connecting at MSP. However, DL had gotten so greedy since my last trek, in November, that they were almost 50% higher than AC, when I sought to book passage, early in December. Swallowing hard, I accepted that connections at Pearson were in my near future.

Sunday, I boarded a 767-300, and felt myself transported back to the ‘80s, when I was based in Ottawa, and then Toronto, covering Canada and frequently visiting the U.S. The Gimli Glider-era aircraft was unchanged from that long-ago part of my life, other than a garish Rouge paint job, and sloppily-fitted fabric seat covers, replacing the mauve “Executive Class” ones that dwelt in the dark recesses of my memory.

Including the overhead luggage compartments, conceived long before wheeled rollaboard suitcases became the inseparable companion of every business traveler. My 4-wheeled Tumi 22” bag would not fit in the space available, despite my having boarded with the rest of my fellow Business Class travelers. Unable to spare room in the forward (crew) closet, the FAs insisted on airside checking it. I specified that I would retrieve it at YYZ, fearing the added risk of a connection, with a handwritten tag stuck on in haste. And, the notoriously slow YVR handling process awaiting me at my ultimate destination.

They lost it.

It failed to appear on the carousel in Toronto. A report to a disinterested “baggage service” agent in the immigration hall instilled little confidence, and all I got was a piece of paper that let me escape past the crack Canadian border agents into the insecure area at T1, forced to re-enter with the thronging hordes because I thought I was going to get my bag back.

On the connecting flight, I got a text message from my wife in Florida. She reported that someone with AC in Toronto had called her (her contact info was attached to the bag, as was a Delta SkyMiles tag bearing my name), and she informed them that I was going to Vancouver. The agent assured her that he would put it on the next flight to YVR, which would have left either 1 1/2 or 3 hours after mine.

I contacted Nordstrom, and had clothes to my specifications delivered to my hotel, as I had a business meeting to attend the next morning, and felt that the chances of the bag showing up in time was pretty slender.

I filed a report with “baggage services” on arrival in Vancouver, with tag #, description, and the location I needed the suitcase sent to, expecting to find it in my room after the meetings ended, the next day.

But, no. Further inquiries, by myself, and the executive assistant at the firm where I was engaged in meetings, resulted in no useful information being produced.

After all the meetings concluded, I returned, myself, to the YVR domestic baggage service counter, fairly confident that it was gathering dust in an unattended corner of their storage area, and that the immediacy of having a deeply unsatisfied customer physically present might prompt some initiative on the part of the good UniFor members. Astonishingly, the agent informed me that the bag was due to arrive in about twenty minutes....on a flight from Whitehorse!

Bear in mind, this is a carryon bag that I expected to roll all the way to my Vancouver destination, and back!

Irate, I sought to rebook on another carrier for my return journey, but there were no palatable alternatives. So, I find myself on AC 104, winging my way for what I expect will be my last visit to the airport where I used to watch Constellations, Viscounts and North Stars take off and land, with my father, when we lived in a new subdivision a few kilometers to the east of the airfield.

To those who believe, as I do, that private enterprise offers a far more effective alternative to provide products and services people need, than public sector stewardship, Air Canada stands as a glaring contradication to that dogma. My experience shows that they have made no progress since the “We Aren’t Happy Until You’re Not Happy!” days as pork-barrel Crown Corporation, staffed with ruling party flunkies and entitled bargaining unit members.

And, so, Air Canada, farewell. Pasting stickers on every fuselage quoting a magazine nobody’s heard of naming you the Best North American Airline doesn’t make it so.


I’ve never been to Whitehorse, but my carryon has!

I am not inclined to bury my bag back in steerage, on a widebody vacation flight, with a cnx awaiting me, when I’ve paid for a front cabin seat.