What exactly are the IATA rules that require the presentation to be in such an unfriendly format? Expedia (for example, back in the good old days) was able to extract the important information and present it in a much more readable fashion.

But the worst part is the execss and duplicated verbiage. On many fare rules, there are two sections, on applying before some random date in the past, perhaps three or more years ago. And typically, the entire fare rule is duplicated verbatim, making it even harder to correctly interpret.

It's hard to criticise an agent who misinterprets the rules when they are so muddled and incomprehensibly presented. That cannot be blamed on IATA.

Just to be clear on this issue and the others, I have posted their responses, not my views :)

I don't think they came up with a good answer for this one at all. The verbage is IATA, but the exact question came up: wasn't it IATA before, or on UAL's site, etc., and yet you can actually read it? And I think that one just sort of frittered away. Probably deserves some follow-up.

The issue also arose regarding domestic/transborder not showing the fare class itself, just Fun, Latitude, etc. They were fairly sure that the re-jigging of letters into classes is now complete, so as far as certs are involved, this should no longer be an issue.

I did also hear from one of the AC/AP folks that there will be a new bucket for upgrades, splitting it out from discounted business (C).

Simon

Well life is full of surprises I guess.

I certainly would not want to work in the company you work in where you personally would assume direct and full blame for something out of your control. Your boss in this case would in my view be considered an a**

And don't forget that one response (the one I know of anyway) has been to extend the validity of the previous years certificates. Perhaps there have been other reactions that we have not yet heard of.

Glad to see our resident cynics are at it full tilt booggie.

I suppose you can believe anything you want in your alternate reality KH. However, each aircraft is assigned to flight and routes more than a week ahead. Most widebodies are slotted months ahead, as they basically fly the same routings day after day until they enter their mainentance downtime. Moving one out of its pre-planned slot causes ripples throughout the system and is avoided at all costs, save technical or weather problems. Airline ops are a bit more complicated than you appear to believe they are, and there always have been quite valid reasons for why those YVR-YYZ-YVR 767s and 333s/343s may get mixed around, not because a flight is undersold.

As for AW's insinuation, yes, for sure we were enterained and amused with the show put on. But we did have a very frank and intense session at my table over lunch, and for two hours with almost a dozen senior AC managers and key operating staffers. I guess they could take a day from the office, fly 250-miles, and waste their time putting on this show.

I have always felt the important thing in life is to get to understand the other person to recognize who s/he really is and why they think as they do. The same goes for any business. In a half day we got to see behind the scenes of two aspects of AC's operations that the public and its customers seldom do get to see. And it was a great show, but also pretty revealing. I am sure that's how those who were at Dorval last month felt, and I know how those of us who visited Aeroplan and the Maintenance centre three summer's ago also felt.

Our message to AC and Aeroplan was very clear: keep the lines of communication open and level with us when things go wrong. Don't send us pap in your newsletters, give us an insight into how you do things, and when they go wrong, we'll help you cope with it. [Same goes on ops when an airplane is delayed and little information is provided to travellers, or when an airplane sits on the ramps for what seems hours before being able to dock at the gate.] For some reason, the airline industry is reluctant to communicate, through these FT events I would hope are breaking this down.

Like why didn't MacAttack post the accident that destroyed almost all the SE kits and many thousands of Elite kits? **** happens, and we've all faced such catastophe's in our businesses. Just come clean with your customers/members.

Anyhow, I am sure others will add their perspective of what they experienced, and still others out there will remain sceptics and cynics.

Sorry you lost your Passport BB. Hope you find it by this evening. And thanks BackSeat for the dinner arrangements. It was a nice touch to have our bills look like airline tickets, listing about a half dozen taxes and fees... And Hogtowner, for the tarmac to tarmac chaufferage. For sure we'll do another rooftop at The Pilot when the good weather returns.

[BTW, I did not post EMPRESS's name in my original post because I felt it would be more appropriate for him to post a message to us all. I still hope he will, because though this may be "au revoir" for a while, it is certainly should not "good-bye". In spite of any apparent anymosities which some may believe existed between us, it had always been my hope that he would have his dream fulfilled and work for a great airline. This he has now achieved and I wish him all the best in this first major (FT excepted) step in what hopefully will be a long career in the airline industry.]

On the issue of the delayed kits. Last year it was "bad" glue and this year it is the sprinkler causing the delay. :rolleyes:

Thanks to Parnel and Ben Smith, I wish I could have been there in person, but reading the reports is satisfying enough.

The fact that AC is willing to host these sessions speak's volumes. How many other carriers do such a thing?

Andrew Webber, I don't understand all your whining and complaining about AC. You purport to be a Proud Basic, this tells me that you rarely fly AC, let you continue to bash them. AC is making great strides, they are trying very hard, they are somewhat handcuffed by unions leaders (not necessarily union members) red tape, market conditions. I have had so many good experiences on AC, yes, I have had some poor experiences, but the good far outweighs the bad.

Stranger, I understand your point about delivering a product on time, but.... It is common for companies to outsource work to third parties. A sprinkler system could fail, a building flood, burn, some other calamity to anyone or any company. This times it happened to the company that makes those precious little plastic cards and upgrade certs. No one has been harmed. AC/AP could/should have told its customers in an email, that they had a flood, the kits will be late, 2004 certs and cards still stand etc. I am sure that all customers would have been understanding. Good communication can solve a lot of problems.
Hey, we all have business's to run, we know that things go wrong. My rule is always 'fess up, address the customer and the problem, lay the plan to fix the problem, do it and move on. People understand as long as they are kept in the loop.

Sure, things can go wrong. But when things seem to always go wrong, questions must be raised.

My first question would be: was the subcontractor a reliable choice? Who picked the outfit? How competent are these guys? (Remember when that JAL plane crashed, didn't their presindet commit suicide, or at least resign? AP keeps goofing; sure there is always an excuse. But no one ever seems to take the blame, and the incompetents continue carrying the day it seems.)

Second question: yes, s*h*i*t happens. Was there any room in the schedule for unanaticipated problems? And here it really seems the whole issue of this year's program has either been run in a very amateurish manner, leaving no room for problems in the end. Or as I suspect, the decision to keep us in the dark as long as possible was intentional, which required taking a chance with potential unexpected problems.

My bottom line remains: excuses are good for your boss. Not for customers. At least until they come with what comes across as sincere apologies and a real effort to make up. "Sincere" is the very last word that comes to mind about AP. Extending the validity of coupons but without an official announcement and no apologies is at best a half-hearted mesure. Does not help people who ran out or somehow got no certificates. Does not help people who don't know. Does not help people without a valid card getting into lounges.

Sounds like it was a fun and informative event. To Parnel and Ben Smith, this was a great opportunity to spread the word re: AC's future plans, and to Simon for the Q&A summary. I am glad that the wide body renewal and fleetwide refurbishment is coming soon, as the comfort factor for the seats and interior has languished during the bankruptcy period.

Testing out the food and flight s(t)imulation sounds fun, well maybe the latter.

Finally, the destinations they are considering are very different from the old ones I thought were being thrown out there, like BKK, JNB, BOM. I guess the new fleet will determine that (and maybe the world politcal situation -- as I would assume this is a reason those cities would be considered.)

I want to see some pics!

Therein lies both the disease and the cure.

If they have such a problem, then it would be a simple matter to notify everyone that due to circumstances beyond their control, some kits have been delayed, and therefore 2004 certificate validity has been extended until at least March 15.

Instead they chose to not even advise their own agents, instead hanging them out to dry, and forcing them to make up excuses and responses.

Had they properly addressed the issue in the first place, or perhaps more importantly not waited until the absolute last possible moment to announce the program and ship the kits, it would not have been a problem. But for the second time in two years the kits have been delayed, and only after people started panicing did they come up with what appears and feels like an excuse. If they owned up to it in a direct, timely, and forthright manner, and advised how they are going to deal with it, these issues would simply disappear.

Seating

"B*****ing session about Y+" Maybe to you, Parnel, but a lot of us still do fly in the back and we were having a frank and full exchange with the man responsible for aircraft interiors, raising issues that many FFers believe to be rather important as their companies and clients force them into lowest fare, non-upgradable situations. If AC makes the back cabin more comfortable for its elites, it takes the pressure off clawbacks like raising upgradeable fares and treating elites with some respect in the air. [I have heard the software explanation to why AC cannot block off centre seats for three years now, and take it as a clear corporate attitude that these customers are not worth the investment.]

Seat comfort was a major issue, and there was a mea culpa and admission that the new J seat on the A345s and the ones earlier introduced on the A321s are not what AC will be refurbishing their entire wide and narrow body fleet with if the Board passes the plan on Tuesday. The new J widebody seat is claimed to be as close to the F seats of BA, SQ and CX as practical, but no other hints as to arrangements was given, but the cabin pattern was not going to be similar to BA's C cabin. [Further reinforcing the idea it may be as NZ is going.]

The new Club service on some overseas routes will be offered as a pilot towards possibly offering such domestic J seating at a small premium over discount Hospitality [$200 or so] with slightly modified Y meal service. As Parnel had alluded to in the past, AC is considering an intermediate J/Y seating product on some major business overseas routes. But we likely won't see too much about this until new fleet decisions are made.

What I found interesting is the pitch Boeing is making: to reconfigure AC's full widebody fleet interiors to the new standard of the 777s/787s if AC opts for its aircraft over Airbuses. This has to be attractive to AC considering it needs to address this issue and never rationalize AC/CP cabins on these aircraft.

Kit Delay

The sprinkler thing was not given from the podium, and so not used as an excuse, but was an valid explanation as to why the kits were late. Remember, there are about 6K SEs, and their kits were prepared and ready to go when the sprinklers went. It is not a simple matter as the packaging and customized kits, which already took a week or two to prepare, had to be redone: cards and tags removed and placed on newly printed folders, new certificates and other items printed and stuffed, etc. And many more Elite kits that had to go through the same process. [AE or any other company these days doesn't print up double the number of folders, letters and other materials. They prepare for the normal % overage. In these days of "just in time" processing/delivery, there are indeed drawbacks when disaster strikes.] And yes, if my office burns down, I don't think my client/boss would expect me to meet the same timetable as if nothing happened.

JAZZ

I don't think the JAZZ issue was downplayed. JAZZ is a separate airline and has its own Operations Centre in Halifax. As it was explaned, when JAZZ has aircraft problems AC has provided replacement aircraft and crews, and vice versa, when it could. Even to flying A320s to consolidate cancelled RJ and DASH8 loads. But regional carriers have their own unique issues, and maybe it would be worthwhile having a Do at YHZ and seeing how JAZZ operates first hand.

Truer words have never been spoken.

Ben and other AC folks lurk here as we well know. It would be very good to open up a more direct line of communication with us though -- clearly (at least I think so) we do provide valuable feedback, good and bad.

The airline industry being as closed as it is has always surprised me as well -- in no other industry have I written letters to the president of a company regarding an issue and received NO response.

Hopefully these events are a good start to getting further down that road.

I had suggested to Empress again that AC should appoint a "formal" lurker. We'll see.

Simon

I'm not "believing" anything. I'm simply repeating what I've read elsewhere in FT. See http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showp...3&postcount=82 .

I do not have much to add to the observations to date.

jimmac,my learn-ed friend from Sudbury :D ,hit all the right notes for me on any issues I may also have had with Jazz.(it has to be costing the airline(s) big bucks to have aircraft running engines for extended periods less than 10 metres from the gate)Wait till the environmentalists hook into this one. :eek:
A Jazz do in New Orleans?? ;) :p

AC,as pointed out previously ,does a very good job.IMO,they give me a ride from point A to B in a safe manner.The service and people I deal with are very good,on a consistent basis.

I was there to offer comments and observations to improve the product.

The observation that most stands out to me was the candor with which all AC personnel spoke."Let me be honest with you" was a phrase I noted many times from the AC staff.I may not always agree with the answer but you cannot knock honesty in my book.

Do you think we would be where we are today without a FT board or people like Ben,parnel,Empress,Allison,backseat,George,....... .....?

Its a work in progress and I for one am very appreciative of the opportunity to offer opinions and insight in this transition.

Thanks for listening AC!!! ^

But would you simply not tell your client/boss that anything had happened, and simply hope they didn't notice the late delivery?