FlyerTalk Forums - AC do notes

Very good event and thanks to Parnel for oraganizing it and also Back Seat for the restaurant and transport. Definitely a big ^ to Ben Smith and his team (Lucie, Alison and our ow Empress) and others from AC/AP for making time in their busy schedule. Definitely worth working till 9-11 pm M-Th to protect my friday off to go to the DO although was a bit tired at the session and at dinner.

For me, the simulator is definitely the highlight of the visit but it is good to meet so many people from AC in the panel and in SOC and the training facility that is passionate about what they do. Congrats to Empress to becoming the newest member of Ben's team to add to the momentum for change at AC. Ben kept saying that if he can clone Empress ... :D ;)

Thanks Simon for a very good capture of what was said in the Q/A. I will add a couple of private follow ups, questions and answers.

1. Comment to Ben, AC is pricing Tango far too low or the price differencial between domestics Tango and Fun far too high. Being a consultant, we follow client policy and many of my colleagues and friends in consulting does the same thing. I have a client, a forutune 100 company that has a policy if using the cheapest flight domestically or within North America although if over I think 8 or 10 hours, they can get paid J for international. Guess what, several people from the client flew out for a business trip to Vancouver last week and they choose $99 each way Tango fare for a total of $330 RT. A colleague flies to YHZ every week and now is doing $300-400 fares RT and is either getting FUN or Tango so not getting any status at all whereas a couple of years ago, her weekly commute to YOW got her Elite easily. For those, if they don't get some mininal status with AC, they don't have to choose AC for their paid J/C international travel. On one other project in the US, I had clients who told me to use their preferred travel agency and preferred airline (AA) but I can use another providing the fare is within $100 RT which at the time I could on AC on most occassions. So if the price premium for Fun is too high in some instances, people would be forces to choose Tango even if they don't want to due to policy. This is not joe/jane leisure traveller but employees and external consultants of large companies or gov't. I was fortunate last year that the client in NZ offered me paid C on *A (NZ/AC) for the main outbound/inbound and I choose to get 2 Y rather than 1 C for my flyback(s). C was nice but not worth the 2X premium in NZ's old style seats in C and AC Domestic C.

2. To Lucie and Alison about the pass and increasing the range of the pass. I had look at City pass and also Sun pass since I have to make several trips to the US. Right now known trips are LAS (conference), Anaheim /LAX (conference), MSY (vacation), DFW (conference fall) and I found the pass interesting but have not bitten yet since Vegas is on a separate pass than others and I am not sure to use 16 (6+10) credits in 12 months in the specific combinations of the pases but can almost guarantee to use 10 credit or more of city pass if they are on one. Considering that pricing for Sun pass credit is similar to City Pass and LAS gets a lot of conventions, they should add LAS to the City pass.

3. To Ben, the worst connections in the AC network would be in YYZ with AC Jazz from US to Europe since Jazz from US often into term E, get to term 2 on a shuttle to get through immigration zoo, get shuttle to term 1 and then get another shuttle for infield.. I know several LH Senators missed their connections from CLE-FRA via YYZ last year due to delays or cancelled Jazz flights CLE-YYZ. YYZ transboarder with a domestic connection is a zoo so as I mentioned in the YUL do and Simon did at current YYZ Do, YYZ transboarder connection is an issue. I avoid it at all costs except for red eyes coming in from the West coast. If there is no alternative via YUL, I will connect in ORD or something else. A Elite fast track would at INS would help in this instance or more transboarder in YUL. Ben mentioned more YUL transboarder to come on line later this year at YUL do and the feedback is fast track is difficult given the position of GTAA, etc.

4. To one of the SOC directors (sorry did not catch his name since I got off the bus late talking to Lucie and Alison) - asked about the fact that many more flights get cancelled towards end of the month, probably due to lack of crews to work those hours plus problems on other routes so they (or JAZZ) make decision which flights to cut. I know when I was doing YOW-YYZ-CLE commutes regularly, the 2 friday afternoon flights are often delayed and some was due to weather but more often it was due to tight scheduling and delay of incoming flight crew. And most times in the last 2 weekends of the months 1 of the 2 flight can be cancelled and the 2 flights consolidated to get a full plane. The SOC director did say that sometimes they have issues getting enough crew to cover all flights on the schedule and also there are some unpredicted issues which may not necessarily be on your route but others in the network that require the hard choices to cancell flights. I made a comment that I can deal with cancellation or thinning out of the schedule if I know ahead of time so I can change flights or stay at work longer or meet someone for dinner whereas they often do not notified passenger and we don't find out until arriving at airport at which point without rental car and without plans, very difficult to do other than twiddle your thumb at the airport and fume. There were several regular commuters on my route and we often joke with each other and taking bets if the Jazz flight was going to take off on time but none of us would put money on on time performance.

5) Comment to Sandra after Q/A that the incident with Prestige changing requirements did not go down well and that if Aeroplan plan to do the same with Elite next year, they really should notify members ahead of time so we can make the choice if we stick with lite or go the extra bit to get full qualification. Hope she heard me since this is boarding on an ethical issue with me!

Geneally, I have found it really helped to meet Ben and the AC team at YUL and YYZ Dos since I had noticed some difference and improvements towards end of last year even before the DOs. I think AC is trying to change and they have some really good people who really believe in what they are doing and they are making a difference which is shinning a bit of light at the end of the tunnel, even in todays difficult environment. I was frankly impressed by Ben when he PMed fairly quickly and E-mailed me later on Friday and subsequently on weekend when someone on FT pointed him to an issue I had last Dec.

This change is refreshing since at the end of of 2003 and beginning of 2004, I had so many bad experiences over a 4-5 week period over Dec and Jan., that I seriously considered not flying AC any more. Jazz Cancellations without notification so my 6 hours commutes become 11+ hours and 22+ RT on one weekend home, delayed baggages 2x, mechanical (but not) resulting in cancellation and me as Elite and connecting and regular commuter not protected on the next YOW-YYZ flight whereas many leisure passengers without status got a seat, missed connection due to delays and faults on their side and desk agent saying there is nothing they can do except for me to wait for the afternoon 13:35 flight this at 8:30 am.

Over the last 6 months, I noticed a better attitude with gate agents vs. some apathetic or I don't care while they were on CCRA, a little more communication when flights are delayed - although could use even more communication since I ran up and down from MLL to gate in mid-Jan 3x when my flight was delayed due to ice but last time MLL did not know for sure but I went down just in case and was close to the last 10 to board/arrive. Now if AC can solve the ground crew delays, that would keep jimmac, acysb87 and Simon's blood pressure down ;)

Parnal, NordsFan, acysb87, Q Shoe Guy and a few others were still going strong when I left around 10 with a lift from Hogtowner to get back into town.

Cheers, Snoopyo

p.s. Hogtowner, thanks for the lifts on Friday, appreciate it. I was definitely too tired to be safe driving in YYZ and time was short Friday am to pick up rental car so the lift/subway combined with car service to Cara worked well for the DO. Decided against staying at the airport after the DO on Thursday night since I had been stuck at DVP and Eglington at CP for the week so went for IC Bloor to try them out.