daphne bramham: flying the unfriendly skies
desperate to fly away? don't, unless you are prepared for delays, cancellations, overbooking, lost luggage. welcome to the new normal.
4 minute read
last weekend, 373 air canada flights were delayed at toronto’s pearson airport alone, according to flightaware.com. that amounted to 42 per cent of its scheduled departures.
mark leffingwell
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afp/getty images
as much as you might want to get away, blow out the remaining covid-lockdown cobwebs and see something beyond your neighbourhood, don’t go flying unless you are prepared for delays, cancellations, lost luggage, and storage bin wars.
if you can’t resist the urge, wait at least until the summer rush is over, if you can. by travelling in june and returning home this past weekend, i thought i had avoided the worst of it. i was wrong.
looking at the data, there has not really been a good time to fly since covid, which left many airlines without the crews and aircraft they need to function.
for months, air canada — canada’s dominant airline — has consistently had one of the worst on-time records in north america, according to cirium aviation analytics.
last weekend, 373 air canada flights were delayed at toronto’s pearson airport alone, according to flightaware.com. that amounted to 42 per cent of its scheduled departures. there were also 81 cancellations, four per cent of all flights. passengers on subsidiaries jazz and rouge fared at least as badly. seventeen of the 32 jazz flights on sunday were cancelled.
surely, this isn’t the new normal? i asked as much in an email to air canada’s media relations department.
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apparently it is.
“air canada is fully staffed for the summer, with more employees than in summer 2019, prior to the pandemic, even though we are operating 90 per cent of 2019 capacity,” said the response from an anonymous person in that department. “we began planning for this summer with our third-party suppliers and partners as early as last fall and we have robust plans in place.”
because of delays and a cancellation in toronto, i was nearly 20 hours late arriving home from a bologna, italy, via munich and toronto. from the time i arrived in toronto, it was clear there were problems. the lineup at air canada’s customer service desk never seemed to grow shorter.
my 8:30-p.m. flight was delayed twice. the initial delay, we were told, was due to an “unforeseen maintenance issue” and the late arrival of a replacement aircraft.
at 11 p.m., we were advised of a gate change. passengers, pilots and flight attendants paraded down the hall. we were stopped by two startled air canada agents who said the gate we were headed to wasn’t open. after some muttering about failures to communicate, the agents told us to go back to the original gate.
the passengers did. the flight attendants did. but the pilots did not. a few minutes later, the flight attendants left. shortly after that, there was an announcement that the flight was cancelled. the crew had worked the maximum number of hours allowed that day.
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we were told to wait for emails regarding our rescheduled flights before joining the customer service line to get vouchers for hotels and food. without waiting, i joined the line of close to 100 people. more flooded in behind.
others had it much worse than me. one guy had been rerouted to toronto after his montreal-vancouver flight was cancelled. there was a pregnant woman with an exhausted child. a mother with a newborn was in tears.
people were online, scrambling to reschedule the proffered flight in the faint hope that they might still be able to make connections to hawaii, asia and elsewhere. others were on hold with air canada’s customer service line. still more were booking rooms at airport hotels before they sold out.
there were no bags on carousel 1 where we had been told to look. hundreds were lined up all around the luggage area. my itag — don’t leave home without them — advised that it was in another terminal.
and it’s not just air canada. on the hotel shuttle returning to the airport on sunday morning, my seat-mate who had also had her air canada flight cancelled told me how a few months ago westjet had advised her that her upcoming flight was cancelled and had rebooked her on a different flight from her nine-year-old son.
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two hours before my scheduled departure, the flight was delayed by more than an hour. my reward for a 10-minute wait at the check-in counter was two $10 food vouchers, a half-hearted assurance that my bag should make it to vancouver, and an understanding that no air canada customer service employee with a choice works nights because of all the cancellations.
at the boarding gate, there was an announcement. the flight was oversold. volunteers were sought to give up their seats in exchange for rebooked flights and $1,000.
people were also urged to check large carry-on bags at no charge. few did. after so many stories in the past couple of years, everyone was afraid that their bags would be lost. but it means some passengers look like sherpas with multiple bags, large and small, all of which they expect to cram into overhead bins.
canada has toughened its laws regarding airlines’ responsibilities to inform, assist and compensate passengers after chaos last summer and at christmas — at least at christmas, there was the excuse of bad weather. the rules are clearly outlined on the canadian transportation agency’s website
for passengers like me who arrive nine or more hours late, the airline is required to pay compensation of $1,000, if it is at fault for the delays, as well as any reasonable expenses for things such as hotels, meals, and toiletries.
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on tuesday, federal transportation minister omar alghabra introduced a bill that would require airlines, airports, baggage handlers, canada customs and other companies involved in aviation to set service standards and keep travellers informed about delays, as well as report regularly on whether they are meeting those standards.
it’s unlikely to improve things unless canadians finally get fed up with the poor service.
yes, the airline industry was ravaged by the pandemic. but if this is the new normal, then caveat emptor. don’t say you haven’t been warned.
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