Tuesday, February 20, 2007
I love you seven dollars (the sequel)
It's been an eventful few days. I can though announce that I am once again in Eureka, and once again absolutely in love with the place. Let me tell you how I got here.
Our travel plan this year was a relatively early flight to Edmonton, a three hour layover until our flight to Yellowknife, which was to get us there in time for dinner and a good night's sleep before our charter flight to Eureka at 7 am. I was sharing a taxi with the three downtown members of the campaign team, and when we were about 5 minutes away we got a phone call from one of the other members at the airport. Our flight was cancelled. When we got to the airport we were directed to the ticket counter where we were told that they'd do their best to get us on another flight to Edmonton that day, but since it was Sunday (and the start of reading week) they couldn't book us on a flight until Tuesday. Our travel agent kind of sucked, and didn't link our tickets to Edmonton and to Yellowknife together, even though that's what travel agents are meant to do, so Air Canada had no knowledge of our connecting flight and therefore we were placed a little lower on the priority list for standby. We checked in, and luckily the woman who did this was able to guarantee our bags would make the next Edmonton flight, and we went to wait to hopefully be called on standby. The check in woman also told us that most of the flights were overbooked that day, and the one that would get us to Edmonton in time to get our connection actually had 18 oversold people, and 27 on the standby list. We remained optimistic.
After we were not called for the flight our bags got on, we talked to the ticket agent who reiterated that the Edmonton flights were all oversold, and that we probably wouldn't make it to Edmonton at all that day.
So we got on the phone to Canadian North to do something with our tickets.
And went to stand in line for customer service. Which had 3 people working. And a line about 10 people long. This wonderful Air Canada woman who was coming off shift at this desk saw us waiting in line and told us we'd be better off calling Air Canada, because it could take hours to get to the head of the line. So while others were dealing with our Yellowknife plans, I picked up a white courtesy phone and essentially pledged my life to the man who answered the phone. It turns out that they had actually booked us all on flights connecting to Edmonton to arrive at various times that day. It's just that no one had bothered to tell us. One of our members was booked on a flight the next day, but he was able to change her reservation to get her on a flight to Winnipeg leaving in about 45 minutes. I ran back across the airport to get her on her flight, and told the rest of the team we were all routed through Vancouver on two different flights. Mine left without a hitch, but the other flight ended up being cancelled, and that same nice Air Canada woman saw that part of the team in line AGAIN, HOURS later, and pulled some sort of strings to get them on the next flight to Edmonton. So in total we were delayed 4-10 hours leaving Toronto, but all felt very glad to be in Edmonton Sunday night. With all of our bags, that had arrived roughly eight hours earlier.
We were able to get on the first flight to Yellowknife the next morning, and our charter flight was delayed until we got there. Monday was much less hectic than Sunday.
If I never see Pearson Airport again I will be happy.
But at least I got a 7$ voucher for food on my flight to Vancouver.
More about Eureka next time.
Our travel plan this year was a relatively early flight to Edmonton, a three hour layover until our flight to Yellowknife, which was to get us there in time for dinner and a good night's sleep before our charter flight to Eureka at 7 am. I was sharing a taxi with the three downtown members of the campaign team, and when we were about 5 minutes away we got a phone call from one of the other members at the airport. Our flight was cancelled. When we got to the airport we were directed to the ticket counter where we were told that they'd do their best to get us on another flight to Edmonton that day, but since it was Sunday (and the start of reading week) they couldn't book us on a flight until Tuesday. Our travel agent kind of sucked, and didn't link our tickets to Edmonton and to Yellowknife together, even though that's what travel agents are meant to do, so Air Canada had no knowledge of our connecting flight and therefore we were placed a little lower on the priority list for standby. We checked in, and luckily the woman who did this was able to guarantee our bags would make the next Edmonton flight, and we went to wait to hopefully be called on standby. The check in woman also told us that most of the flights were overbooked that day, and the one that would get us to Edmonton in time to get our connection actually had 18 oversold people, and 27 on the standby list. We remained optimistic.
After we were not called for the flight our bags got on, we talked to the ticket agent who reiterated that the Edmonton flights were all oversold, and that we probably wouldn't make it to Edmonton at all that day.
So we got on the phone to Canadian North to do something with our tickets.
And went to stand in line for customer service. Which had 3 people working. And a line about 10 people long. This wonderful Air Canada woman who was coming off shift at this desk saw us waiting in line and told us we'd be better off calling Air Canada, because it could take hours to get to the head of the line. So while others were dealing with our Yellowknife plans, I picked up a white courtesy phone and essentially pledged my life to the man who answered the phone. It turns out that they had actually booked us all on flights connecting to Edmonton to arrive at various times that day. It's just that no one had bothered to tell us. One of our members was booked on a flight the next day, but he was able to change her reservation to get her on a flight to Winnipeg leaving in about 45 minutes. I ran back across the airport to get her on her flight, and told the rest of the team we were all routed through Vancouver on two different flights. Mine left without a hitch, but the other flight ended up being cancelled, and that same nice Air Canada woman saw that part of the team in line AGAIN, HOURS later, and pulled some sort of strings to get them on the next flight to Edmonton. So in total we were delayed 4-10 hours leaving Toronto, but all felt very glad to be in Edmonton Sunday night. With all of our bags, that had arrived roughly eight hours earlier.
We were able to get on the first flight to Yellowknife the next morning, and our charter flight was delayed until we got there. Monday was much less hectic than Sunday.
If I never see Pearson Airport again I will be happy.
But at least I got a 7$ voucher for food on my flight to Vancouver.
More about Eureka next time.
// posted by Annemarie @ 6:44 PM 
Comments:
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I'm glad you guys successfully made it to Eureka. It's amazing when you realize that individual staff members of airlines often are able to make magic happen...yet another argument for being nice to them. :) I look forward to photos of the tundra!
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