AC681

The QK-705s are only certified for 75seats, they would have to be re-certified to CRJ900s to put in any more seats. I have no idea how easy/hard/expensive it would be to do so

winnipegrev

The 705's will likely remain 34" until retirement from the fleet. As mentioned above they are only certified for 75 seats, and furthermore the pilots contract states AC Express carriers are limited to 75 seats or less.

If AC wants more seats in the 705's, they will need to go mainline which will never happen.

hcrk

I have noticed an interesting facet of the new fare structure that I wasn't previously aware of and that are a major departure from the previously existing fare structure.
Specifically, the "Plus" rate isn't necessarily linked to the better seats - it only gives you access to these seats if they are available.
For example, if you look at fares from YYZ to FLL in July, you will note, not only that the number of available seats in "Econo" are either unavailable or limited - on certain dates the numbers of seats both in "Econo" and "Flex" are very limited. So.... it appears that on those days, you would have to pay the huge increases for "Plus" if you want a seat on that flight.
Example: June 26 - no seats in Econo available & only 4 seats in Flex. If you then check seat availability you will see that the flight is virtually empty.

Hypnotize

As the seats on a flight sell out, you buy the higher priced fare. That has not changed. The only difference now is that you can jump the cheaper fares to purchase a higher fare with more flexibility. That's new.

Also, the seat availability is no indicative of the seats SOLD as not everyone pre-pays for a seat and you cannot check-in until 24 hrs prior.

freeflyer

A couple of things I don't like about the new booking engine.

First, if you book a round trip ticket, it shows the base fare for the round trip only. It still shows the prices for both the departing and returning dates, yet not the base fare on those days. So, each base fare remains a mystery, unless you start over and try to book two ones ways. Air Canada still clearly shows the base fares for each direction in the balloon above the price.

Also, it doesn't seem to break down the GST and HST clearly. For example, for a one way YYZ-YYC, one is charged mostly HST. For a one way YYC-YYZ, one is charged mostly GST. But for a round trip YYZ-YYC-YYZ, it's mostly HST at around 12% for the whole fare + surcharges. In other words, and unless I'm missing something, it would be cheaper to book two separate one way tickets rather than a round trip out of an HST province!

I thought that wasn't an issue with old booking engine, you would just end up with two ones ways and pay the combined price at check out.

Altaflyer

I am pretty confident that it was the same before. Tax is determined by the Province of departure of the outbound flight so yes, booking 2 one ways would be cheaper just like booking RTs for me from AB to BC is cheaper (until BC goes back to PST and I think it will then be the same again as PST was n/a to plane tickets.

sokolov

Tax depends from which province your itinerary starts. So it depends on your itinerary, if a roundtrip or two oneways are cheaper (taxwise). This is not related to the new booking engine.

The "simplification" of price information, however, is another enhancement thanks to the new booking page.

armeee

First and only time I flew WS was back in 09 when they were advertising the CAREANTEE gimic. The flights were seemless and enjoyed the experience.

I booked WS for a family trip this April... YOW>MCO. I made the res back in mid February. I signed up as a WS member as well. At the time of booking I did not choose my seats ($15 pp/one way). I read on the website that I had the option of doing this at anytime...

Fast forward to a couple days ago when I decided to take a look at the seat selection for our flights. Although I was able to log in I could not use the "manage my bookings" tool as my flights didn't show up. I could bring up my itinerary but that was a read only scenario. Very frustrating!

I called WS (waited 20 minutes) and spoke with a nice young lady who basically said that they changed the website and any bookings that were made before March 1st would not show up...
I asked about SS and she said that she could do it over the phone. I said where is the seat plan for my plane on the website. There is none.
She gave me a good option for seats near the front of the plane. I also asked that they give me a break on some of the seat fees for my trouble. I got my seat selection for free ($30 savings).
WS could also not provide me with any confirmation of my SS or payment. I was referred to a website virtuallythere.com really!

The agent was very friendly but the new website is a trainwreck... Bush league at best and they seem to be going backwards.
My two cents.

Ace Cdn

Not being able to access previous bookings is the lazy man's way out. I am sure they could have gotten them switched over it's just they didn't want to go through the trouble of doing it. Also I find agents don't know alot about Sabre. If she sent you a new email the seat selection would have been on it.

The Lev

A classic example of why WS is a Low Cost Carrier.

aerobod

You can access previous bookings without a problem, they are still available via Sabre Virtually There (as was the case before the new booking system). All new bookings use a shadow PNR in the Datalex system that overlays Sabre, they are a different structure with different capabilities, additional information that is not available in the old bookings would be needed to convert to the Datalex booking used after 1 March, hence they are only compatible with the the old system.