Air Canada Continued

The reason that Air Canada is going down the tubes like a subway off it's tracks, is because it's employees wear such uncomfortable clothes. Their garments are way too tight and their shoes are built for style rather than comfort. This makes them crabby after about the first hour of their shift.

We arrived at the airport in Santiago at 1700 hours yesterday. This was the time that the buses dropped us off. This time their were 600 people lined up because there were all of the people from the previous days canceled flight and all of the people for the regular 8:00 daily flight to Toronto. Of course the agents had not even started to check people in. Both flights were late getting off the ground. Our agent took our boarding passes from the previous day (the ones to get us to Deer Lake) and replaced them with ONE boarding pass to Toronto. When I questioned her about this she said I had to pick up my other two in Toronto. This was my first mistake. Then she told us we could not have our seats that had been reserved yesterday because there was new seating and she put Sean on one side of the plane and me behind him on the opposite side. Mistake number two was not insisting on yesterdays seating. Pay attention now so that you do not make the same mistakes that we did.

When we finally boarded, the crew were contrary due to the straight jackets and bound feet and the disruption in their schedule, so of course they took it out on the passengers for inconveniencing them. Poor Sean sat next to a woman in the early stages of Alzheimer Disease. I think that someone upstairs was shining down on her because there were 299 other people that she could have had in the adjoining seat. Sean may occasionally be a Douche Tard but he is the kindest Douche Tard I have ever met. He made surethat she did not become dehydrated and that her food was unwrapped and eaten. He listened patiently to her repetitive stories for eleven hours. Her family has no idea how lucky they were to have had such a kind and patient caregiver watching over their Mom. He, on the other hand, did not get a wink of sleep. The SCREECHING baby in front did not help matters.

And then we landed and the games began. Customs was a nitemare and that was the best part. Just outside the customs area the whole flight was lined up like cattle waiting to be re booked and there were no flights available because of the storm that just blew thru. We were shuffled from lineup to lineup until we finally got our turn with a ticket agent. I knew we were in trouble when she asked where we were going and after hearing our reply looked at the agent next to her and askedher if Air Canada flew into Deer Lake. By now we had been standing in lineups for 5 hours without being able to go to the washroom or get a drink. This woman insisted that we were delayed due to weather and not mechanical difficulty and could find no flight records on either of us. We were not in the system. After a half hour of her playing with her computer (I think she was just emailing her friends) she said her shift was over and that she was going home. The agent next to her took us over. By now, everyone else on our flight was processed and gone. And due to the weather problems any seats that we could have had were taken. The new agent started from scratch and also could not grasp that we were in this situation due to mechanical problems and kept telling us that most people were understanding about the weather. When she eventually said that we were holding up the lineup and that there were other travelers to process, I got a little testy. I think she got the point then. She put us on standby for a direct flight tonite but we know that we do not have a hope in hell of getting on. Everything else has been left hanging. No confirmed flight in the wings.... we just go back to the airport and wait.

One would think that if a few guys with box cutters could put a stop to all air traffic for a week, that 25 million Canadians could unite and bring Air Canada down. If I could afford it, I would take out a nation wide television ad, laced with sarcasm, showing how Air Canada is not happy until their customers are stripped of all dignity and at their wits end.