The Indignity of Air Travel

Once upon a time, travel was a treat and a luxury. Now it's more like an abusive relationship. One we can't quite bring ourselves to give up and so we continue to accept the abuse.

My flight left Costa Rica an hour late. The only official explanation (in the early stages) was that they were waiting for the luggage to be loaded, which seemed like a weak excuse. The rumor I heard later was that they were waiting for one passenger. If that's true, it's ironic, given how it unfolded.

We made up a little time on the flight, but still arrived 30 minutes late. I originally had 90 minutes for my connection, now I was down to 60. I asked a flight attendant about my connection but they reassured me it wouldn't be a problem - this was Montreal, it was much better than Toronto. (I suspect he was from Montreal.)

In hindsight I shouldn't have booked a 90 minute connection. That's probably ok for an outgoing connection, but not for an incoming connection where you have to go through immigration and pick up and recheck your bag for customs, and then go back through security. But both flights were Air Canada, and I booked directly on their web site, and it suggested the connection, so it must be ok, right?

I made it through immigration amazingly quickly. For once, automation actually helped. But all that meant is that I had to wait for my bag. It drives me crazy how much luggage people take for carry on. But I have to admit, if I hadn't had a checked bag, this would have turned out much differently. In this case, I had a paraglider and a bunch of camera equipment so I couldn't have traveled with just carry on.

Finally my bag came and I moved to a new line to get through security. Finally I was home free. About 10 people from my flight were trying to make the same connection. We crossed paths multiple times as we tried to speed up an immovable process.

According to my boarding pass, the flight left at 6pm and the gate would close at 5:45. I got to the gate at 5:40 and it was deserted. There was one lone Air Canada employee who turned out to be an IT guy who knew nothing about flights. He turned out to be the most helpful and polite of all the Air Canada employees I dealt with.

It turned out the gate had closed and the flight had left 10 minutes early. No one could explain why they would do this, especially with 10 connecting passengers due at any minute. I'm guessing they filled it up from standby and once it was full they might as well leave. I realize in this day and age it's too much to ask that they hold the flight for you but at least they could leave on schedule. (Later, the Air Canada "manager" denied that the flight left early. Humorously, at least half of the 10 customers had taken a photo of the status monitor showing it leaving 10 minutes early. It's a sad state of affairs when you have to assume that the company will lie to you.)

I went in search of the customer service counter, where I lined up yet again, with all the people from my flight. The line moved agonizingly slowly because they had no good answers and no one wanted to walk away until they got some kind of satisfaction. You'd think it would make sense to deal with all the people in the same situation at the same time, but that would be too rational.

All along the way, everyone assured us that we were fine, that we'd make our connection no problem. That puzzled me at first, since the connection was obviously tight and they couldn't predict things like baggage or security delays. Then I realized that it was simply a way to keep the cattle placid on their way to slaughter.

Once the connection was missed it was a whole different story. Not one of the multiple Air Canada staff apologized or showed the slightest sympathy or empathy. Heck, they weren't even polite. It was our fault we had missed the flight, and it was our problem, not theirs. Obviously the staff we dealt with didn't have any control of anything. They were pawns just like us, and probably just as abused, only more often. But they're still fellow human beings. I guess they've had that hammered out of them.

There wasn't even any attempt at "fake" sympathy like you might see if they had had customer relations training. That kind of training probably got cut as a cost saving measure so the executives could increase their bonuses.

The only common approach was to pass the buck at all costs. No doubt this is the "training" they implicitly receive. This extended to the lack of authority at all levels, and the system of always having a nameless faceless "superior" to assign responsibility to.

On a solitary positive note, the initial customer service agent got me on a flight for the next morning. I'd hoped there would be other flights the same day, and there probably were, but they were probably all overbooked.

The next hurdle was where to stay for the night. I expected Air Canada to provide a hotel voucher. But the customer service agent didn't handle that. We had to talk to a manager. Where was the manager? At the check-in counter in departures, halfway across the airport. I arrived there first of my cohort. There was no sign of anything resembling a service counter, let alone a manager. I asked various people until I found one who directed me to counter 22. (I wonder if the person who chose that had read Catch 22). You couldn't actually reach counter 22 because it was roped off. I ducked under. But counter 22 had a sign on it that it was closed. I got the attention of a nearby attendant and asked where the manager was. He pointed. The manager was heading away but I (probably rudely at this point) called out loudly, "excuse me, are you the manager?". I suspect they would have liked nothing better than to pretend not to hear, but it was a little too obvious. They reluctantly turned and returned to the unlabeled counter 22.

Maybe the manager would have better people skills? No, like everyone else we dealt with they immediately went on the defensive and put all the blame on us for missing the flight. Regardless, she had no authority to give out hotel vouchers. (Since we were sent to her specifically for that purpose, this seemed like yet another run-around.) Next she pulled the trump card and phoned the "connection manager". She then reported that our first flight wasn't that late, that the connecting flight didn't leave early, and that we'd had an hour to make our connection which was officially sufficient time. People kept interrupting her to try to correct the obvious untruths at which point she used another tactic. "If you keep interrupting me and won't let me finish then there's no point talking to you." I agreed and walked away. I left the rest of the cohort still arguing but all they got was more frustration and lies. It wasn't worth it.

I picked the first nearby hotel with a restaurant, took their airport shuttle, and got a room. I canceled my hotel in Vancouver (no refund due to the last minute cancellation) and I would miss my ferry shuttle to Victoria the next day.

My lesson is to allow more than 90 minutes for an incoming connection. Which is obvious in hindsight, but an expensive lesson in this case.