Go Greyhound. ;)

To amplify the Lifetme status issue DYZS asked about parental leave type status continuation when someone takes a year off for parenting issues, illness, sabbatical or temporary transfer. I thought it was a good point but don't recall the answer to that particular part of the question which I think woulf be a great marketing tool for AC if the found a way to manage it.

[QUOTE=Shareholder]I am not sure how else it could have worked unless each of the AC staffers discussed a theme and then elicited our views. What had you in mind otherwise Parnel? Was this sesssion so uncivil? Did it go on too long?
All I said was it would only be fair at a DO like that to share the floor equally with everyone else and that did not happen.

Moderation...neither on this board nor at an FT DO like yesterday is necessary. A better set up of table organization might have helped but the room possibly did not allow for that

I would indeed have loved this question and a big thank-you to whoever asked it. If only it had received a straight answer...

AC and Panel did a great job... Hopefully AC can go "back to the office" with some of our input and fix some issues. We were there to help AC get back on track.
I was surprised to find out AC was so far along on a new fleet.... 2 months to go. ^

Also I go mixed answers or bad hearing... 1. are they going to do customer testing before buying new seats?
2. Is the long haul or domestic fleet to be referbished first?

Nice to see Empress at AC!

PS they did give us a straight answer they are going to improve seat awards.
They even hoped it would be soon.... but did not give us a date... becasue they didnt have one. you might not like the answer but they did give us the best honest reply they had. ^

Per them -- domestic.

I guess I would have hoped for a few more details. AC has been saying they are going to do something about front cabin reward seat availability for years now. And yet they are still by far the worst of the N. American airlines in this regard. Anyway still glad the question was asked so thanks again.

Well I thought they did the best they could. Some answers were as open and honest as could be and others guarded, perhaps because they didn't know which way things were going, or because (reading between the lines) I knew the answer anyway.

I would give them 1.5 thumbs up ^ and thank them for the afternoon. It really helps me understand them better.

While I liked the enthusiasm and friendly atmosphere, I still got the impression that (reading between the lines and some innocent comments) that frequent flyers, especially those d*mn SEs and instant kk) are seen more as an expense than a revenue item. They are moving to correct that by trying to get more data on our real revenue. That may or may not be good depending on your point of view and your travel patterns. I would caution them going overboard on the revenue side (some say they already have).

People who fly paid J probably don't care much about the benefits of Aeroplan and status. They get lounge access and the "upgrade". They want service and schedules that work for them. People who WANT to fly Tango fares might spend 6 extra hours just to save $25--they don't care about the bennies and will fly whoever will get them there the cheapest.

The people AC can win over are those who MUST fly on discounted fares (including Tango), full fare econo etc due to corporate policy, government regs for contractors, non-profits, self-employed etc. That is a sizeable market I would think and the whole reason FF programs were designed. If you cut benefits too much, there is no incentive to fly AC and AC will lose that market to the next highest bidder in terms of benefits. Right now SE is strong (instant kk, moderate upgradeability, lounge access, concierges) but it has been weakened considerably. Take too much more away (in straight benefits OR in realigning fares to make it impossible to upgrade or earn status etc) and there will be a larger exodus than we have already seen. Let's hope AC has enough data to make intelligent decisions and not just a notion that these SEs are "costing us big bucks". Better to have a bum in the seat than an empty one.

Price it right and keep giving us reasonable packages and we will be back for more events and sticking with Aeroplan. Focus only on marketing points or on the wrong fare classes for awarding points and you might lose another 10 to 20% of the market to apparently greener pastures (and it is not until you go to another program that you know whether it fits or not).

While I can understand where the slams are coming from, I don't think we can fault the participants. This doesn't mean to say I like where I see things going on every matter. I think the future of Aeroplan and its top tier earnability and its benefits are still in transition to a place I might not like but I think Air Canada itself is going to have a better product onboard. It is our role to let them know what we want in top tier benefits and continue advocating for it. We can also help AC out by doing advocacy over things like the GTAA and how it messes things up in Toronto (the airport everyone loves to hate). I would look at this as a partnership that we can both benefit from if we work it right. I don't expect AC to give me everything I ask for. I just want them to listen and consider carefully.

Thanks parnel for organizing this and for AC and Aeroplan for putting on a good show and doing a pretty good job of responding to our questions, even if I don't always hear what I want to or get what I want.

AND congrats to Empress for landing a great job. This surely is a win win (Empress and AC both will benefit!).

UGH thats what I thought... later I was told the 767 were to be done first??

If its domestic planes first, the 767's wont be complete till late 2006.. start date is Feb 2006... unless they call the 767 domestic and international is 333. 340.?
If the 767's are not referbed till late 2006 and start to be replace in 2008 the economics don't make much sense. Oh well in two months all of this will make mores sense after they decide who to buy planes from... Put May 1st on your palm pilot... "new AC fleet news" :D

Thanks Parnel and AC!
 

Just got back home and wanted to thank Parnel, Back Seat (for the chauffer service) and AC (Ben et.al.) for putting this together. ^ Simon, great write-up and thanks for bringing in the operational questions about sitting on the tarmac waiting to be marshaled to the gates and waiting on GA's. ^ NordsFan, Q Shoe Quy and Acsyb87 do you think we were persuasive enough to get Mrs. Parnel to post on here? It was great to sit down and share a drink and traveling stories with all of you! Empress, all the best on your new career at AC.

Upon deplaning in YYC I spent about 30 minutes with the YYC Concierges talking about the meeting and pointing them to this thread.

I got through cleaning and cropping about half of the pictures I took before my battery gave out on the flight home. I believe back seat was going to collect the pics and post them on site. I'll be in touch with him and forward on the pics to him.

Thanks again to all those involved in organizing the event.

I'm a bit cynical but it sounds like everyone who attended thought it was worthwhile, so let's hope they listen. It also sounds like everyone had fun too. Kind of wish I had signed on. Maybe next time. Congrats to Parnel et al for organizing it.

I would disagree there - how many corporate policies or government regs say "You must fly AC and you must do so on their lowest fare"? Most would simply say, "you must fly on the lowest fare" be that SG, AC, AA... And therefore, there is no loyalty at all - why reward the customers who are going to be there anyway?

I don't think that it was really answered, since the discussion picked up on a different tangent. However, given that lifetime status has the potential to discourage some people from being loyal (if you had the choice of going AC or going DL; and since AC can't always take you where you need to go and DL is also an important part of your flying - you'd pick DL, not AC, because you'd also want to build up status there). However, I think the idea that was suggested is workable and is basically exactly what US does.

Any status miles earned beyond top-tier qualification are carried-over to the following year:

If in Year1, I fly 125K;
If in Year2, I fly 120K;
If in Year3, I fly 145K;
And if in Year 4, I manage to fly only 20K and then get side-tracked due to a parenting issue;

I'd still have 25+20+45+20=110K total status miles: Therefore, I'd easily make SE for the following year.

Similarily, US also offers a soft landing as an unpublished benefit. For instance, if I were SE and unable to make SE the following year - and didn't even meet the criteria for E - I'd still get E. In this case, this works for E -> P as well.

So together, those programs allow for an incentive to fly with the airline beyond the top tier qualification and also address the problem of taking a year off. Seems to me that if AE were to adopt something similar, they'd be able to hang on to those clients and not have the expense of a Lifetime program.

So, are you:

a) Suggesting that AP lied to us about sprinklers;
b) Suggesting that sprinklers accidentally go off only in "boiler room" operations;
c) Suggesting that sprinklers at AP's fulfillment vendor are somehow tied into AC's IT infrastructure; OR (and here comes the most likely one...)
c) Just bitter and not making much sense?