It seems like my favorite topic of discussion is Air Canada. I flew Westjet yesterday, out of a snowstorm in Thunder Bay and landed in Toronto a hilarious THREE HOURS before the suckers on the Jazz flight that was scheduled to leave at the same time.
On my flight, I caught the CNN “Air Canada Crisis” update. Here is what I learned.
1) Air Canada had an operating deficit of 1 billion dollars last year
2) Air Canada owes 3 billion dollars to it’s employees pension plan
3) Air Canada has turfed it’s CEO Montie Brewer and re-appointed Calin Rovinescu to clean up the mess
4) Air Canada has foolishly locked itself into a fixed fuel cost of $99 per barrell or some stupid thing.
So, they are once again on the brink of closure.
I cannot imagine how this is even possible. I mean seriously, your pricing is competitive to Westjet, you have a larger coverage area, more flights, smaller planes, fewer flight attendants and you aren’t even comtributing to the pension plan. How on EARTH did you manage to lose one freaking billion dollars????
I guess it can only be because you have fewer travellers.
Well I have some advice 🙂 here it is:
Air Canada, if you want more business, BE NICE.
That’s right. Be NICE to your travellers. Because let me tell ya, travelling is stressfull enough, the LAST thing you need is crakyass airline personnel. I cannot remember the last time I had an issue with Air Canada and I was treated respectfully.
I get it, air travellers are occasionally difficult to deal with. We’re cranky, sometimes we’re late, sometimes we don’t have the proper paperwork. Do you think snapping and bitching will help? I guess it might, if you dont want to be an airline anymore.
Let’s take your archnemesis, Westjet. They are nice. See? They have friendly, smiling staff. They treat all their customers the same (no elite, you get to board first, here are special fancy bag tags etc) they don’t lose luggage, and when they screw up, they tell you they are sorry. I had bad service ONCE in my life with Westjet. ONCE. So I phoned them. I said “Hey, ummm…ya, I had bad service. I’m kinda not used to that.” You know what they said? They said “What!!! Bad service! We’re sorry! Here is a free flight.”
Take notes, Air Canada 🙂
