The ‘trip of a lifetime’ for two Air Canada passengers came to a screeching halt after the airline bumped them off their flight right as they were boarding, with no apparent explanation.
Overbooking is regrettably the long standing practice of Air Canada.
Missing a holiday of a lifetime is really unfortunate. We’ve nearly experienced more dire circumstances travelling with small children when Air Canada attempted to bump us when we were connecting overseas from a codeshared flights.
Dan Gardner is right to profile his experience. I especially appreciate his underscoring that no matter how many steps he took as a customer - early online checkin 24 hours before the flight, arrival and in person checkin the airport well in advance, he and his son were still mysteriously taken off the flight at the gate at boarding with no explanation. The blithe disrespect that the staff at the checkin and gates have towards the travellers in such situations is one of the things that make flying with Air Canada so incredibly stressful.
Once upon decades ago, Air Canada used to offer vouchers for free additional flights as an incentive for travellers to agree to take a later flight. Now Air Canada feels it has the right to impose significant financial and personal cost on it customers without compensation, recourse or explanation.
I’ve often seen them offer cash to be rebooked from an overbooked flight. Just this March the starting offer was $800 for a flight from Vancouver to Saskatoon. It’s odd that people were just denied boarding in this case without due process.
I’ve seen the cash or vouchers offered more domestically.
Internationally, our experience has been horrid: international call centre staff that refuse to assist when there are issues with online checkin before the flight, transfer desks that are never open in major international hub airports, supercilious staff at the gates bumping people off flights and pressing them to stay in hotels in a city they didn’t plan to visit. (If they are lucky and the hotel voucher can cover the costs. In my experience the Air Canada meal voucher for a severely delayed flight did not cover the minimum cost of a meal in the airport’s canteen.)
I’ve travelled internationally for business and with our family on Air Canada. It’s always incredibly and unnecessarily stressful.
Last December, the backlog for the regulator (dealing with cases/complains against Air Canada and other airlines) was 18+ months. It likely has only been since then.
They treat people like cattle because they can generally do so without significant consequences.
My girlfriend and I travel quite a bit. At least once a year. We will avoid Air Canada at any cost. I can’t believe what that company gets away with.
Air Transat though, one of the best we’ve ever used for the price.
Our experience with air transat was singular and singularly terrible. I’d write more, but then my comment would take up more room than an AT seat.
Yeah, Air Transat is not one I’ll ever ride again. I didn’t think it was possible to outperform Air Canada in sheer awfulness, but Air Transat took up that challenge and passed it with gusto!
Ooh. Air Canada sucking. That’s definitely new behaviour.
/s
Air Canada also starved me on a long flight because they ran out of dinners before reaching the end of the plane. The worst part is, I could see a to stack of food just behind the curtain. Apparently they can’t or couldn’t buy food in the US, so they had to split their supply in half, for the trip back.
I was not impressed.
I avoid air canada at all costs. I hate it when I fly with them.
FWIW JetBlue doesn’t overbook in the US and they do Ok
Up until 2019 I flew more than 150 times a year. Air Canada was my airline of last resort because they treat their customers like an inconvenience. They are in the business of milking the Canadian government for handouts. Pretending to be an airline is just how they do that.
