canadiancow

Okay then you and I are also talking about different things. I'm happy when they do what you describe.

24left

What I described with the bouncers was in addition to the YUL experience and the unprofessional check-in agent at YVR, telling me, while I was standing in the SE line, "that line is for Super Elites. The other line is over there" (pointing with her finger). I said "yes, I know". She said it again and I replied again.

When I got to the counter, I showed her my plastic SE card and asked her why she assumed I was not in the line where I was supposed to be. She did not reply. She never apologized. (And neither did the rude agent in YUL). When I finished my transaction with her, I asked for her name. She gave me a name which I then gave to someone I knew at YVR who said, we do not have an employee with that name. So, she knew she had made a mistake, which could have easily been resolved at the counter, but she chose to lie. These are not the kind of people I would want as customer-facing employees.


IMHO, all of these examples, including you being accused of using your father's account, Kardinal Offishall being told that the Business Class line is "over there", are not appropriate. To some, there may be nuanced differences. To me, they are not the way to handle things. Maybe AC needs to have some of those who "work at the airport" be trained by the staff who handle AC at TPE, NRT and HKG, because they seem to manage to get everyone where they need to be without making incorrect assumptions prior to verification.

songsc

Had the exact same experience multiple times at YYZ checkin and gate, usually when I was not dressed "like a J pax". Never had this kind of nonsense elsewhere, let it be SQ FCL or some small airports in China.

As a customer it's not my job to understand how and why it happens. My observation is AC regularly put unqualified employees to the front, to me, it indicates AC management either don't care or incompetent, which suggests I should take my business elsewhere, and I did.

mamau

Same. Says failed but when you go to chose a seat, you're in J. Do it over and over and you get billed numerous times the same amount. Just poor, very poor IT.

RangerNS

Man, y'all must have really low limits and/or don't value your time very much if you engage with AC to "fix" this billing problem.

Just do chargebacks. Its obvious its duplicate charges. CCs will take care of you.

And the bonus of AC getting hit with $50 fines per chargeback should really cause some flags to go off.

canadiancow

I'm pretty sure two of the first questions I've been asked every time I've tried to initiate a chargeback were:

1. Did you authorize this charge?
2. Have you contacted the merchant?

I've never tried answering "yes" and "no", but I suspect they prefer you at least TRY to deal with it that way.

MaxFlying

The fact that I thought elements of your post problematic does not mean I have some kind of delicate sensibility. I am always troubled when someone uses the charge of "political correctness" in some form as a means to defend against a criticism. More importantly, if you believe systemic (and interpersonal) racism no longer exists in Canada then you are simply wrong. Take a look at "The Black Experience Project" which is research based in the GTA. (Happy to send you a copy of the report or it can be found online)

The fact that colonial practices such as slavery and, in the case of Canada, residential schools no longer exist does not mean their legacy and effect is not still present in many of our current systems, institutions, practices. I am not quite sure what you mean by an "ethnic community" - but find it a really odd term.

RangerNS

Its possible a particular agent was racist in this case. Its also possible this particular agent was elitist, with a very specific view of who is elite, and is equally horrible to 401 year old computer nerds with wardrobe by MEC.

Or is universally horrible.

Upthread and previously here there have been lots of examples of ACs being elitist or universally horrible. I believe TPFs basic point is that that is a safer assumption than racist, without excluding racism as the core problem in this specific incident

canadiancow

I agree with you in this case. I wasn't there, I don't know exactly what was said or how it was said. Maybe the agent was just "elitist". I've met plenty of those.

I don't read TPF's point the same as you. I read it more like "the agent is verifying that you're entitled", whereas what I see more often is "the agent assumes you're not entitled". Many times that would fall into your "elitist" category. But sometimes there's very clearly specific forms of discrimination at play.

American Bovine and I once boarded an SFO-YVR, in J, and the SD came by a bit later during meal order time to ask if we'd switched seats. It took quite a while for us to understand the question was really "where are the two SEs who are assigned to the seats you're occupying?"

I guarantee her standard intro to two SEs is not "did you switch seats?", and was therefore some form of bias based on our appearance (presumably "young").

"Are you using your dad's Aeroplan number?" is another example of that (and I don't need to make any assumptions about it being based on age). And that one is the most egregious, in my opinion, because this isn't even a case of "you don't look SE", it's "you look so non-SE that even though my computer says you're SE I simply don't believe it".

Tone and demeanor make a huge difference. I recently walked up to a zone 1/2 line after 3 had been called. The GA noticed, asked "zone 1 or 2?", I said "one", and she boarded me. That's fine. But if she'd said "Sir, that line is only for zone 1 and 2", and then not accepted my BP, that would not be fine.

Then there was another flight where the 30+ SEs were all greeted and served with professionalism (including the one in Y), whereas the <30 SEs (myself and a 7 year old) were basically ignored the entire flight. There was enough of a sample there (3 30+ in J, 1 30+ in Y, 2 <30 in J) that I wrote in about it.

I'm obviously (well, if you know me) never going to experience gender or racial discrimination on AC. But I've seen the age side of it enough* that I completely believe the others occur.

*I don't mean to say this happens daily, or monthly, or even yearly. I think I listed every situation in this post where I'm confident enough to say it was based on age (rather than just poor service), out of ~750 flights. But 3/750 is still far too high.

Davvidd

It basically comes down to training and also the culture of the airline too. If this happens in an airline like SQ then for sure the staff would be reprimanded and the customer would receive a written apology from the airline. If the passenger is not entitled to be in that particular line then there is always the option of telling him/her that they are not yet boarding that zone once they come to the gate. That way it saves everyone the embarrassment and the hassle of trying to decipher which is which. If a passenger gets told of that he or she should be in a different line just because of the way he/she looks or dressed then that is profiling.

RangerNS

Absolutely.

And while I'm confident that Kardinal Offishall has experienced racism in their lives, and that Air Canada does surely have horrible agents, that isn't enough that this particular incident can automatically be categorized as racist in nature.

Its a special kind of privilege to assume that someone being an ....... to you isn't just an ......., and they have selected you for their wrath.

canadiancow

To be fair, it wasn't Kardinal who used the word "racism" anywhere. It was the media making a HUGE leap to infer "they're racist" from this statement:

@24left pointed this out way upthread, but most people seem to have missed it.

24left

Correct. And I pointed that out in post 12 of this thread (added bolding):

eigenvector

Chargebacks are not consequence-free. If you chargeback a merchant frequently, especially without making any effort to resolve the situation with them first, they have every right to fire you as a customer. And if you're an Altitude member, AC has a unique identifier for all of your business with them.

Jagboi

My bank has a policy that you must try and resolve the dispute with the merchant first. The bank wants to be the last resort, not the first.