jlisi984

I flew YGR YUL so far today, worst flight of the pandemic so far. I don't want to be dramatic or upset (but I am a bit of the latter). YGR boarding gate would be awful in normal times - very cramped quarters. For a full DH4, it was absolutely insane. I have literally no words... (I do have some for CATSA & AC & the airport). It's so ridiculous that we "distance" while waiting for check-in, security, etc. and the first thing they ask you before & after you've gone through security is to sanitize your hands... only to walk into this.




I pushed back. Said to CATSA agents as it was: this is ridiculous... they said "well you'll be cramped into the plane anyways". Does this area even have any ventilation?! AC agent says "this is why we wear masks". No, this is not why we wear masks. Masks are a last-ditch effort. They also blamed it on the bigger plane AC is sending, full flights... etc. But in the boarding announcement, "in order to maintain social distancing, we ask that you board using the zone number on your boarding pass". Right.

YUL is also a zoo today (Friday afternoon, not so surprised). YUL-YYC has 5/14 booked in C. 4 on eUp list it seems , and another 3 non-rev.

jlisi984

Forgot to add - on my YYZ YUL July 29th - no service in J other than water bottles.

on YUL-YGR same day, service was offered. Coke, Diet Coke, Ginger Ale, Coffee, Tea. No ice though and you get full can.

same on the return YGR YUL today.

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YUL YYC today (A320) had video safety demo. 12/14 after eUps and staff. One staff is QK captain, sitting next to me. Lots of MEA BP stock and saw some green passports too (Africa IIRC).

canadiancow

YUL-YGR is longer than YYZ-YUL (where they're pretty clear there's no service).

yyzgigi

while I get that it sucks, not sure the airport could build a bigger terminal. If you’re not comfortable flying if too many people do the same might be better to stay home. Is kind of a problem to complain about crowds when you’re part of the reason there is one.

TheCanuckian

For those wondering, the transborder temperature check is within the security screening area. You have your temperature checked before scanning your boarding pass and going through the standard security process.

mathemagic

Had my first of the "new" breakfasts in domestic J today. Overall I thought it was a nice breakfast for a flight. Gotta give a shout out to the ice-cold Camembert and almost-broken crackers. But seriously the cheese is the weak point of the package and it would be nice to have better quality.

Coffee was with powdered creamer. No juice because..."covid". Really? Chef-name meals and alcohol and canned soft drinks, but no juice? "Because covid" = "because we're bleeding cash". Also, no sparkling wine!

Still, I'm glad to see some resumption of on-board service. Doesn't make me want to fly paid J as much as before, but they are getting closer.

eigenvector

If the airport terminal does not have sufficient space for physical distancing, its maximum occupancy should be reduced until it does. That's what every other business has to do.

AC boarded from a portable prefab building at YCD for years while it was under construction, I don't see why that can't be done expeditiously here if we're actually trying.

Public health can't be left up to individual action.

canadiancow

I agree. There are so many options, some easier than others. Here are three more:

1. Add an outdoor holding pen for people. It's summer, not winter. You can very easily increase capacity this way.
2. Move the security checkpoint to increase the airside area (I've only been in YGR once so I'm not sure how feasible this would be)
3. Stagger people going through security. There's no reason I have to be through security when boarding begins.

HerpaYvr

Flew on AC176 YEG-YYZ this morning, The flight was full with one open J seat and two open Y seats. The gate area in YEG was fine, we can always complain about social distancing, so what do we do line up outside and let one passenger in at a time and have a two-hour boarding zone? We are all close together once on the plane, so as we did in the army, suck it up and carry on.

There was a manual safety demonstration and besides the traditional bag of Covid-19 safety PPE & bottled water, we had one drink service where we had coffee, pop, water and that was it.

AC442 had an equipment change from A320 to A321 but the flight was empty, they had to move some folks to the back of the plane for weight & balance issue, 3 in J.

Nice to see fuller planes, more folks are willing to travel. Yes airports get crowded, we have limited space, how much do we want to pay for tickets if you insist in bigger buildings, so many people forget or do not understand business acumens.

Nice that the in-charge or the concierge come up to us now and welcome us back and thanks us for our loyalty. I like this

Fiordland

That airport does have space before security with seating. Should not have been a problem to ditch priority boarding and have people board in the order they make their way through security.

EdmFlyBoi

You probably shouldn't be flying if you feel this way. Airport infrastructure is what it is and there isn't a lot that can be done about it. AC lost almost 2 billion last quarter. The whole industry has been devastated. The aircraft are doing very few turns per day so they can be cleaned and they are running mostly wide bodies on the transcontinental flights. It's unlikely to improve any time soon as more people start flying again for various reasons.

eigenvector

I wasn't aware that the amount of money a company lost last quarter was relevant to the implementation of public health measures.

If that's the case, every business in the country should have free reign to stop implementing physical distancing on their premises because they too have been hit hard by the pandemic and are working with constraints on the size of their building.

That kind of approach across all of society would land us back where we were in March in pretty short order, with everything shut down.

If airports, restaurants and bars are packed, it doesn't only affect the people who choose to go there, it affects everyone.

"Suck it up" is not a phrase that makes a lot of sense when dealing with a contagious disease, because it has a cascading effect through society.

As canadiancow pointed out, airport infrastructure can be adapted to accommodate more physical distancing. A reduction of close contact between large groups of people will result in less risk of virus transmission, and hence benefits to all of society. Reducing potential for transmission in all activities helps ensure that we'll be able to keep doing those things for the next 1 year or more until a vaccine is available without rolling shutdowns due to virus flare-ups.

AC and others in the industry want travel to resume and the best way they can make that happen is to do their utmost to make travel safe. Airports should adapt sooner rather than later instead of trying to fire their customers. Cutting corners as in the photo shown by jlisi984 is short-sighted and "penny wise, pound foolish".

Transport Canada has really dropped the ball by failing to mandate a minimum amount of physical space per person in airports as provincial health authorities have mandated for nearly all other public places.

rankourabu

Or more likely the schedule got cut so much everyone is on the same flight or two, so it seems busy.

canadiancow

Exactly.

It doesn't take much. Like literally of businesses who have outdoor areas that customers need to enter anyway, airports are at the top of the list. Turn an aircraft stand into a seating area. Throw a few beach chairs there, wrap it in caution tape or something fancier, and you've tripled the YGR gate capacity, made it outdoor (so unlimited ventilation), and it costs what... $1500 with "nice" chairs? And the lack of use of one stand, but I suspect the decreased demand has led to a decrease of supply such that it wouldn't matter.

It's not like a restaurant (where they have significantly capped capacity restrictions) that may actually struggle to close down half of Bloor Street in order to stick more tables outside.

Small airports have it easy.

That photo should be Tweeted to CBC+AC, talking about how AC is doing "everything they can".

Biscuittin

But it is why we wear masks, isn't it? The general advice as I understand it is to wear masks when a distance of 2M from other people can't always be maintained such as in stores and public buildings such as airports. I gather you're a seasoned traveller, so if the scene in the departure lounge worried you could you not just have waited until boarding was nearly complete to clear security?