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Air Canada’s skids

August 25, 2004 By Uncategorized One Comment


Dave Andreychuk hoists the Stanley Cup
from the Hockey Hall of Fame

Here it is…this must surely be the final nail in the coffin for our national airline. Air Canada lost the Stanley Cup and the Cup’s handler blew a gasket:

“He told them specifically it was the Stanley Cup,” Goertzen said. “He is just so distraught.”

Fitness gym owner Brent Lock, who had planned to view the Cup Sunday, said he doesn’t understand how Air Canada could have left it behind.

“It’s not like it’s a brown paper bag; it’s the holy grail,” he said.

Here in Canada there is no sport that captures our national imagination quite like hockey. And the pinnacle achievement in hockey is the Stanley Cup. Any self-respecting Canadian knows what the Cup looks like, and knows how important it is. When your national airline loses the Stanley Cup, they pretty much forfeit the title of “national airline.”

It’s a good thing they found it, because Air Canada’s lost and found system is labyrinthine. Coming back from Toronto we left a bag of assorted gear (travel mug, hats and a small camera) on the plane. When we got home two days later and realized we had in fact left it on the plane(“I thought YOU had the bag…No YOU had the bag…”), I checked the Air Canada website for a phone number and, after 25 minutes (I kid you not) finally found a lost and found number. I dialed it and got a series of messages which interacted with my keypad pushing finger until 10 minutes later I got abandoned in voice mail jail. The line went dead.

Bemused, I called back, hoping to speak to someone about the loss of both the bag AND the Air Canada lost and found department. The same thing happened. After an hour of trying to make one phone call, I gave up.

The next day my partner called and got the same treatment. So she called the reservations line and asked to be forwarded to lost and found. That worked (it should be on their FAQ) and she finally spoke to someone who reported that nothing had been turned in. How could that be, you ask? After every flight the cabins are cleared and anything left on board is sent to the gate. God knows where it ends up after that but the lost and found department seems not be in the loop. Either that or our little bag was stolen. For all intents and purposes that’s what happened. The moral of the story is NEVER lose anything on Air Canada.

I have written before about how out of date Air Canada’s ticketing and credit policies are, especially when their main competition, WestJet, lets you transfer tickets in any amount to anyone else with just a phone call. It’s clear from my own recent travel that the spirit is all gone from that airline. I met lots of surly staff and lots of little things are broken on the planes (audio systems, video screens, tray tables) and there appears to be no cash to fix them.

I guess when you’re trading at pennies a share, that’s life. If airlines are about people and customer service is litmus test of that commitment, then it sure doesn’t feel like Air Canada has the willingness to get up off the mat.