irsel

On our flight from Vancouver to Calgary the FA informed us that she has too few meals for the business class passengers on board. She decided to serve the avalable meals to the SE passenger. By this there wasn´t any meal left for Mr. irsel and me. She told us we should ask for a voucher at the gate in Calgary.
Arriving in Calgary I tried to get a voucher at the gate. But this was not possible. Instead of that I only got the address of webside of air canada and the recommandation to sent a report to them. Certainly I did this. Up to now I did not get an answer.
Is there anything I should do now? What can I expect?

(don´t know whether its important: we flew on an award ticket of LH. This was the last part of our journey.)

DillMan

Wow.

Did she provide an explanation? Catering error? Storage error? Poor planning?

The Lev

Sorry to hear about the mix-up. FWIW, compared to what LH serves on short-haul, you porably would not have been all that impressed if food was available.

It is likely not worth your while pressing the issue unless you plan to fly Air Canada in the near future. all you are likely to get are a few Aeroplan points(probably not Miles & More) or a token discount on a future flight on Air Canada only.

At least it was only a 1 hour flight.

irsel

first explanation: we check in too late (but that could not be true as we checked in in Germany more than 24 h before this flight.)
second esplanation: catering error but that did not help us to a meal or a substitution of some miles.
As we were quite tired after the many hours of traveling I did not insist expecially as she informed us after serving all available meals. By this I stopped arguing with the FA as it seemed useless.

irsel

I totally agree with you about the quality of the missed meal. Beside that we were not hungry - after the quite good LH food. And yes, Vancouver - Calgary is quite a short flight. By this: I am not angry, just curious to know what will happen.

And thanks for the information about what we can expect. (some points in the "wrong" program as we only collect miles-and-more or a token discount on a future flight which could be more interesting).

Just one more question: how long does AC usually need for an answer?

The Lev

Usually 1-2 months.

irsel

Okay, so let´s have several cups of tea.

Rejuvenated

Even If I was not hungry, I still would find it unacceptable that they loaded insufficient amount of food for the premium passengers. Gives me the message that such is of irresponsible behaviour. They should calculate the fact that there is the possibility that all C pax would want their meals.

Luckily this type of incident hasn't happened to me before.

Stranger

Make sure you complain. As nicely as you can. Still, this is totally unacceptable, and surely the people at Customer Solutions will recognize that?l

ylwae

This happened to me before, on a Jazz flight. I complained and got a nice letter from the VP of something at Jazz, 5,000 AP miles, and a promise that steps would be taken to ensure that C class passengers would at least have the first choice of BoB (at no charge) if the flight was undercatered.

Guy Betsy

Actually the CSD should be the one responsible for handing out the Irregularity Service Coupons, as I got the last time when my special meal was not catered. AC had it on their manifest , but the meal just wasn't loaded. It wasn't much, but it did amount to $25 in cash from AC ticketing.

Still as a passenger in J class, I would be pretty miffed too. You have to perhaps write a complaint and see what happens. Most likely it will some sort of cash compensation.

why fly

WOW, its interesting some other frequent flyers are saying this doesnt happen often? Hey for a 1 hr flight its not a big deal but it does happen.. big deal? No!
Its also happened to me on longer flights. yyz-SFO this week, the "old" salads were boarded and no cookies were loaded, the week before only 2 J meals were loaded YYZ-YUL so no meals were served.

irsel

I wrote the complaint immmediaately after arriving at the hotel, just to get ride of this affair. This happened 3 weeks ago. We will see what AC custom service will answer. I will inform you about that.
But thank you very much for sharing your experiences with me. It helped a lot. Now I know more and enjoy my tea during waiting for the answer.

why fly

really you will wait 6+ weeks for AC to answer! And then they will ask for more information to delay further, or give you a number or say they lost the information.
Customer Solutions is not AC's better departments.
When they do offer the $25 you wonder why you bothered.

yyzgigi

Under catering theoretically should only be a problem when there are last minute people upgraded or added to the flight at the gate and the gate agent in YVR should have known the catering situation and informed those last minute adds. Although you say the FA gave meals to the SE's first, the FA should not have given to any SEs that were last minute adds to the front cabin. The proper procedures are that she should not have handed meals to any AC staff in the front cabin or anyone who was a late add to the flight (ML*1) until after she had served all those who were confirmed in advance. Assuming she did not have enough for those passengers, then she should have gone by status.

I would still complain as it sounds like it was not handled well. It only takes a minute to submit from the AC website.