Tuesday, March 14, 2006
I love you seven dollars
If you were to place a bet on which of my many planes from Toronto to Eureka and back would be delayed, I bet you wouldn't have bet on my Calgary – Toronto flight. You, my friend, would have lost a lot of money. I suppose I should have known, seeing as how all other flights went well, that I wouldn't actually get back to Toronto on time. The airplane gods must wreck havoc on any trip involving the Arctic. But it makes for one more adventure.
I checked the weather in Toronto yesterday before leaving for the airport, and saw that there were thunderstorms predicted. I dutifully checked my flight, and found that it was still leaving on time. So off to the airport I went and checked myself in and eventually got on the plane. Right about the time we should have been pushing off, the stewardess came on the air to tell those stragglers to sit down so we could get on our way. About five minutes later, the pilot came on to tell us that Toronto was fogged in, and that our flight would most likely be delayed, but to stay seated. About ten minutes later the flight was canceled. They told us to go in, pick up our luggage, and talk to the booking desk to rebook our flights. Right about now I'm dreaming of the Maple Leaf Lounge and first class tickets for a flight later that night. I forgot I was flying Air Canada. When I got off the plane I headed down to the baggage area. I was expecting some sort of customer service representative to be there to tell us about the next flights that we might get on. Of course, there was no one. The other people on my flight were all milled about the first baggage carousel, because there was no indication of where the luggage may come out. Eventually, it did show up there, but there was still no person calming the angry travelers. I found my way up to the ticket counter and instead of a person to talk to, there was a surly woman handing out pieces of paper with 1-800 numbers on them to rebook the flight. Then she pointed me to a pay phone that was out of order. Now that's award winning service.
My first step, according to Air Canada, or rather, their piece of paper, was to call their hotel reservation system for help in selecting and securing a nearby hotel offering discounts to Air Canada customers. As it was only four in the afternoon, and there were still three or four scheduled flights to Toronto that day, I skipped that step and called their booking system. (Though not from the comfort of my hotel room, as instructed. I am a rebel.) The nice woman at the other end of the phone told me that it looked like all flights to Toronto that day would be canceled, and would I like a 7 or 9 am flight the next day. Since she wouldn't let me book a flight that night, I chose hidden option c, the 11 am flight, and called Keith to come get me again. There was not even a hint of first class offering. Or even a taxi voucher to get me to my specially discounted hotel.
While I was waiting for him to get back to the airport, I took a look at the arrivals/departure board. The later Toronto flights were still showing up on the board, but I expected it was a bit too early to cancel them. The WestJet flight leaving at 4 kept getting delayed. When I left the airport at 4:30, it had been pushed back to 6. It turns out the later flights did leave that night, and Air Canada totally lied to me. At the time I was happy that they had outright canceled the flight, because at least I wasn't stuck waiting around the airport for hours. In the end I suppose it was better to get a bonus night in Calgary then wait around not knowing if I would make it out that night. I am of two minds about this. If I hadn't had a place to stay, and had to use their special "discounted" hotel rate, I would have been SUPER angry.
It turned out to be an awesome bonus night in Calgary. We went out for sushi, which I have been missing terribly. (Calgary is closer to an ocean than Toronto. The sushi was good. But expensive.) We also went climbing. And I failed the belay test. Note to Ontario climbers – our method of using a gri-gri is unsafe. The West is going to educate us. They're coming. Wait for it. I didn't get many climbs in, but it was great to get back up the walls, and I look forward to more climbing later in the week. Then we went out for beer and cribbage and my team totally kicked Keith's team's ass. Even though I had never played before.
The *best* part, by far, of my Air Canada canceled flight experience came today on my flight. It turns out that when they cancel your flight, even if you have a Tango class ticket, you get *upgraded* to Latitude class. What does this mean? Same crappy seat, but when they come around with the food cart, you get a SEVEN DOLLAR VOUCHER for food. If you haven't flown Air Canada in awhile, that ends up being a sandwich and a bag of baby carrots. Oh yeah, that's the Air Canada lovin'.
The second best part of my Air Canada experience is that they lost one of my bags. Luckily not the one with most of my clothes and toiletries, but the bag with my alarm clock (Eureka doesn't always have them in the rooms), my arctic gear (better to lose on the way home), and my lab book (WHY did I check this? WHAT was I thinking?). The guy at the baggage counter (who was helpful, albeit a bit weird since he typed all my info into the computer without ever breaking eye contact) told me it was odd to get one bag and not the other. So I'm convinced that it's been stolen/lost to the ether. Oh, and in five days I can file a claim. Once I'm in Germany. I hate that I can't even never fly them again for spite, as I'm flying with them Saturday. Gah.
I'm back in Toronto now for the week, during which time this blog will experience a brief hiatus, and then it'll be back up in “Germany/Scandinavia travel mode” come Sunday. (Though more sporadic, as I won't have constant internet/computer access.)
UPDATE: My bag was returned to me Wednesday night, lab book included. I'm still irked.
