unbelievable
Jul. 5th, 2012 03:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioI'm supposed to be 2+ hours into a flight right now. But apparently I'm not allowed to have nice things, and Air Canada needed to go for a clean sweep. Ten (!) hour delay this time! The mind boggles.
BTW, even though they had my email address and (local) phone number, there was no contact. I knew I couldn't print a boarding pass at the hotel and Internet there was kind of expensive anyway, so I didn't see it before I left. (Though I don't know if it was even posted; someone behind me in line said he had checked a couple hours earlier.)
They wanted to put me on a combination that would get me home around noon tomorrow. I asked if they could do any better and explained the urgency. After more than three hours of standing in lines I have a flight through Newark that gets me there around 8AM. And, learning from history, I confirmed that if that connection fails, there's another flight an hour later. They claimed to be unable to put me on the El Al flight leaving at 4PM for bureaucratic reasons, grumble.
This may surprise some given the comments in another thread, but most of the agents I've dealt with here have been polite. (One seemed to have no respect for the queue, though; she kept pushing me aside because I was going to be here all day anyway, but I didn't want to be in her Internet-deprived office all day! Sheesh.)
I came to the airport hoping to get an upgrade as partial compensation for the difficulties they caused on my trip here. Instead I'm begging for a flight home a mere 10-12 hours late and, of course, I'll get whatever seat nobody else wanted (middle, I assume) and I have to assume I won't be able to eat the meal and plan accordingly. I will be contacting Air Canada's customer service when I get home, and frankly, I want a full refund. This is freaking ridiculous.
I'm done with Air Canada after this. I might also be done with Israel; we'll see when I calm down more. It is too frustrating to try to get there and back from Pittsburgh. At the very least I am done with solo major travel.
BTW, even though they had my email address and (local) phone number, there was no contact. I knew I couldn't print a boarding pass at the hotel and Internet there was kind of expensive anyway, so I didn't see it before I left. (Though I don't know if it was even posted; someone behind me in line said he had checked a couple hours earlier.)
They wanted to put me on a combination that would get me home around noon tomorrow. I asked if they could do any better and explained the urgency. After more than three hours of standing in lines I have a flight through Newark that gets me there around 8AM. And, learning from history, I confirmed that if that connection fails, there's another flight an hour later. They claimed to be unable to put me on the El Al flight leaving at 4PM for bureaucratic reasons, grumble.
This may surprise some given the comments in another thread, but most of the agents I've dealt with here have been polite. (One seemed to have no respect for the queue, though; she kept pushing me aside because I was going to be here all day anyway, but I didn't want to be in her Internet-deprived office all day! Sheesh.)
I came to the airport hoping to get an upgrade as partial compensation for the difficulties they caused on my trip here. Instead I'm begging for a flight home a mere 10-12 hours late and, of course, I'll get whatever seat nobody else wanted (middle, I assume) and I have to assume I won't be able to eat the meal and plan accordingly. I will be contacting Air Canada's customer service when I get home, and frankly, I want a full refund. This is freaking ridiculous.
I'm done with Air Canada after this. I might also be done with Israel; we'll see when I calm down more. It is too frustrating to try to get there and back from Pittsburgh. At the very least I am done with solo major travel.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-05 07:11 pm (UTC)What compensation you should get depends on the cause of the delay. If they can plausibly claim weather (e.g. the incoming flight having been held up by storms), they don't actually owe you anything. But mechanical delays or crews who time out are considered to be their fault.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-06 07:50 pm (UTC)For the long delay in leaving Israel, word on the street was mechanical difficulties, but I never personally heard an Air Canada rep state a reason.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-06 10:38 pm (UTC)I had a delay leaving Cincinnati last week, though it was clear both there and in Washington, as the pilot needed to get a new routing to avoid thunderstorms.
At any rate, I suspect that if you write to them they will offer you some discounts on future flights. It sucks, but their contract of carriage (which you agree to by buying a ticket) pretty much just says they have to provide transportation between points A and B and doesn't say anything about timeliness.