AC- Pets and Pillows

[Kip Powick]

Forget Fido, the fluffy pillow and the fully loaded luggage.

Air Canada raised fees for transporting pets and cut back its baggage allowance Wednesday, part of a series of measures designed to combat soaring fuel prices. On overseas flights, pets are no longer allowed in the cabin, at any price.

And starting Nov. 1 on short-haul flights, Air Canada will charge $2 for a “comfort zone” kit that includes an inflatable plastic pillow and polyester blanket.

Passengers who fork over the toonie can keep the kit, which is actually a plastic pouch that includes a pillow case, a blanket and an instruction card on blowing up the pouch into a pillow, an Air Canada agent said Wednesday. The optional kit is for domestic routes and transborder flights into the United States lasting 90 minutes or less, she said.

The idea is that every little bit helps when it comes to reducing the costs of replacing or cleaning pillowcases and blankets aboard short-haul flights. The new, lighter-weight kits help to lessen the loads on aircraft to conserve fuel.

“We all need to remain extremely sensitive and vigilant as to how we utilize our fuel and conserve energy,” Air Canada president Montie Brewer said in a statement.

He estimated that the Montreal-based airline's so-called “weight reduction team” has identified various savings that could be worth $45-million annually in reduced fuel bills.

Air Canada is seeking to post its first annual profit since 1999.

And to pull it off this year, Air Canada, which emerged from bankruptcy protection a year ago, has been scouring its operations for ways to bolster revenue and slash costs.

Air Canada and WestJet Airlines Ltd. already have raised fuel surcharges twice this past summer. Both carriers have also started fuel-hedging programs in an effort to control their energy bills.

While the two airlines remain in a fierce battle for passengers, WestJet never offered pillows in the first place, so Air Canada didn't feel pressure to engage in a “pillow fight,” choosing to sacrifice cabin comfort, consumer advocates say.

“When you're on a flight, creature comforts are important. Airlines are nickel and diming people to death,” complained Harry Gow, a spokesman for lobby group Transport 2000.

Michael Janigan, executive director of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre in Ottawa, said he isn't impressed by various extra charges and “annoying” service downgrades.

“It's a constant search to see how many ways that passengers' pockets can be picked,” he said.

He noted that on Air Canada's lowest fare category called Tango, passengers have to pay $15 each for one-way, advance seat selection.

For budget-minded families, “it could mean having the children in the back and the parents in the front,” Mr. Janigan said.

“I think there should be a minimal level of service that a passenger is entitled to, with the purchase of a ticket.”

WestJet is considering implementing an optional fee, where a passenger could choose to receive a sandwich, drink, higher-quality headset and movie. Advance seat selection is currently free, but could become a perk.

U.S. carriers also have been paring their expenses wherever possible. This month, American Airlines Inc. cut scheduled service at its Dallas/Fort Worth and Chicago hubs. Earlier this year, American emptied pillows from its first-class and coach cabins on domestic flights, except its Hawaiian route.

Air Canada insists it's now charging fees that better reflect the extra costs of special services, and many consumers are willing to pay higher fares for improved service and greater flexibility.

Air Canada's website Wednesday outlined charges for pets, including $105 for a one-way flight within North America, either in the cabin or in cargo as checked luggage. That new “blended continental fee” is up from $40 in Canada, but down from $110 in the United States. Pets have to go in a secure container and fit under the seat to fly in the cabin on North America flights.

But on overseas flights, even if Fido fits under the seat, Air Canada now bans pets from the cabin, although flying cargo internationally is an option for a $245 fee.

Air Canada also tightened weight limits Wednesday for its free checked baggage allowance. The free luggage allowance for two bags will fall to nearly 23 kilograms each from almost 32 kilograms each. In that instance, travellers with a bag weighing 23 kilograms to 32 kilograms face a $35 fee for North American travel and $60 fee for international travel.

Separately, the upper limit for a single checked bag falls to 32 kilograms from 45 kilograms.

In other changes, the “unaccompanied minor fee” rises to $60 from $40 one-way, affecting children aged 5 to 11 who board a plane without a parent or other adult but under the supervision of Air Canada staff.

Children aged 12 to 17 who travel without a parent or adult now face a $60 fee for Air Canada supervision, compared with free service previously

[amraam]

> WestJet is considering implementing an optional fee, where a passenger could choose to receive a sandwich, drink, higher-quality headset and movie. Advance seat selection is currently free, but could become a perk. <

When did 'advance seat selection' become available on WestJet? Yet another fine bit of writing from our clueless media?

amraam

[CD]

When did 'advance seat selection' become available on WestJet?

If you check in online (which can be done up to 12 hours before departure) you are able to select your seat. Perhaps that is what they meant?

[Fester]

Man I miss Wardair!

[AIP]

If you check in online (which can be done up to 12 hours before departure) you are able to select your seat. Perhaps that is what they meant?

Is that not a "Checkin" feature as opposed to Advance Seat Selection ??

[Don Hudson]

Fester;

Man I miss Wardair!

No passenger or investor would pay for a "Wardair" today. Like other great airline companies who's relics are now in the Smithsonian, they're from another time, another economic philosophy, another economic life.

Since de-regulation, the mantra has been unmistakable: Passengers have learned to demand that airlines must deliver them "on time, in complete safety, 100% of the time, with meals, snappy baggage service and smiles", all for 59 bucks...return if they can get it, or the bad publicity and the lawsuits will be swift to follow. It is of no consequence that they have no notion of what it costs let alone what it actually takes to do all this as it is not their problem...a ticket is a ticket and that's entitlement, period.

This is an industry where billions of capitalized expenses and equipment which sometimes takes decades to develop, design, manufacture and deliver, must be borne but where a price difference of ten dollars can send passengers packing, sometimes with a media audience. It is an industry that requires highly trained, skilled personnel who make long-term commitments to their profession but which is ferociously driven to focus solely on continuously slashing cost where they can, which is wages/benefits but not fuel, suppliers of parts and goods but not airport rents and landing fees, internal technical programs but not voracious government taxes.

It is an industry which must make long-term plans in a market environment where institutional investors can punish a company overnight, turning the ability to plan, to commit resources and to accomodate the pace of technological change and to support critical internal technical programs vital to effective airline work, to ashes in the board room.

It is a time where education of those in charge of the books is more important than ever but it is equally and ironically a time when precisely those people are over-tasked due to the industry's hugely shrunken resources and focussed almost exclusively on costs. Through no fault of anyone, such circumstances can lead to a couple of things: 1) Ignorance of the business they're in because they're finance people not aviation people (a perfectly reasonable thing to be so long as the organization has a rich and healthy vertical and lateral corporate dialogue culture.), or 2) the technical programs which need financial support and which are so necessary for the proper functioning of the business are too complex to explain in a ten-minute powerpoint presentation and therefore can be dismissed without a full appreciation of the effects of such fore-shortened support.

While this is extremely simplistic to the point of bluntness and tending to polar extremes and more properly requiring a long-term in-depth study rather than an op-ed-style commentary like this, the outcomes of de-regulation and the resultant "lo-cost" public expectations so championed twenty years ago combined with bare survival in an on-the-fly free-wheeling (laissez-faire) market where growing the shareprice now appears more important than any other aspect of the business, have not yet come home to roost.

The aviation business always pays back what is invested. That statement is going to lead to a big misunderstanding though, precisely because the only way in which those terms are understood these days is in the language of business (ROI "in dollars" and profit) and, with a few exceptions, business has been terrible. But there are other meanings of the term "investment" which do not directly have to do with dollars, although in the long run it certainly does for investors.

It is an old saw that aviation cannot be done on shoestring budgets which these days tend to come from an MBA'd-but-unknowing bean-counter, (I'm a pilot so I can say "bean-counter", but truthfully, these folks are just trying to do their best just like everyone else). Controlling costs has its place, otherwise we'd all be out of work, but slashing costs as the singularly most important focus has too much "place" today. Far too much. "ROI" should also mean that the principles of aviation themselves are actively understood and taken into account.

People very quickly pick up on messages from above and will psychologically internalize values, which, though they may be contrary to common sense, are adopted nevertheless out of many motivations such as fear, insecurity or groupthink. The hazard in such adopted messages becomes the loss of history in terms of the original reasons for the program or the procedures or the rules. In aviation more than any other business except for perhaps the nuclear and medical industries, such changes can have profound and material affects including upon the investors themselves.

It is an old story, which, it seems, seems to require re-telling every so often. Sorry for the thread-creep. Not much to do with pillows, blankets, baggage weight or pets I'm afraid, (or does it...?). I see US carriers are doing or have done the very same thing.

[Fester]

Don, always like your posts. If you remember. WDA was highly cost-competitive, actually often undercutting the big players. Their sucess was mostly due to motivated employees. Although the bean-counters (not that there's anything wrong with them!) will dictate things like "no pillows", the impact of such decisions reach much farther than can be initially quantified. The "trip" used to be a "trip", today it is an irritation to be endured in order to reach a destination. And that's why everyone's wages are going down the toilet. Even if the airplane has become a bus, I wonder if there isn't room for an upscale operation to cater to those who remember and who care.

[Guest FA_AC]

Even if the airplane has become a bus, I wonder if there isn't room for an upscale operation to cater to those who remember and who care.

Not if the Roots Air story is any indication.

[manwest]

Not if the Roots Air story is any indication.

Didn't somebody buy them, then shut them down????

[Guest FA_AC]

Didn't somebody buy them, then shut them down????

Are you trying to say that they were doing well?

[manwest]

Are you trying to say that they were doing well?

I don't know how well they were doing, I am trying to remember who bought them, then shut them down???

[moeman]

http://www.cbc.ca/story/news/?/news/2001/0...roots_dk_010503

[Guest FA_AC]

I don't know how well they were doing, I am trying to remember who bought them, then shut them down???

Their loads were a disaster. They were doing abysmally. Fester mused about whether there was room in the market for a carrier that provided frills at higher fares than those now charged by AC, Westjet and the other airlines that now operate. I responded that there wasn't if the Roots experience was anything to go by. I'm not sure how who bought what has anything to do with it, but if you still can't remember, then click on the link that Moeman provided above.

[manwest]

Their loads were a disaster. They were doing abysmally. Fester mused about whether there was room in the market for a carrier that provided frills at higher fares than those now charged by AC, Westjet and the other airlines that now operate. I responded that there wasn't if the Roots experience was anything to go by. I'm not sure how who bought what has anything to do with it, but if you still can't remember, then click on the link that Moeman provided above.

Didn't they have a low cost business class product, that was taking business away from Air Canada??

Maybe that was why Air Canada bought into the parent company and they were then closed down.

Maybe some former Roots staff can enlighten us on the loads??

Thanks for the link Moeman.

[Guest FA_AC]

Anybody could start an airline and take some business away from Air Canada and Westjet. Roots wasn't taking much, though, or their loads wouldn't have been as pathetic as they were. Airlines that are making money don't issue press statements that read "Suspending flights was the fiscally responsible thing to do for our customers, shareholders and employees".

[yul07]

They also forgot to mention that AC will be cutting out meals on all its North America flights starting in Nov. This is bad news for people who require a special

meal for health or religious reasons. A quick look at the buy as you go menu shows a selection of high fat, high sugar snack offerings. The sandwiches are also high fat with combinations of meat and dairy products together wrapped in a high crab bun.

I wonder if a person brings on a small lunch container, with their own food and one of those refreezable ice packs, if they would have a problem with too many carry on's. I would not want to buy a sandwich at Timmy's and leave it unrefrigerated for 2-3 hours. So bringing from home may be the best option for a customer on a restricted diet.

[Don Hudson]

This is bad news for people who require a special meal for health or religious reasons.

Yul07;

Nothing new there... This is standard fare on any US carrier. There were NO meals, period on any domestic flight I've taken in the past few years. Folks who want special meals (or anything to eat at all) make them or buy them and take them along. The food for sale that I've seen is as described - high sugar, high fat, over-priced. All you can get on board are drinks and if one gets a second apple juice, one has a "good" crew and is doing very well. They don't charge for them. Yet.

[dagger]

Didn't they have a low cost business class product, that was taking business away from Air Canada??

Maybe that was why Air Canada bought into the parent company and they were then closed down.

Maybe some former Roots staff can enlighten us on the loads??

Thanks for the link Moeman.

Roots biggest problem was a bad launch contributed to bad publicity and a flight away from the carrier. The concept may have been viable, but the execution was pitiful. It was so bad, in fact, that some people associated with marketing and sales felt that Leo Desrochers - remember him? - sabotaged the venture because he had never been in favor. Leo was no dummy, and while he wasn't AC's best COO, he certainly could have launched a three-plane airline.

[Mitch Cronin]

Man I miss Wardair!

I'm with you there! ... man, galley raids have never been the same since... tender fillet's, rich black forest cakes, chicken breasts (something French) with cheese melted inside it... and all served on "fine bone china" (the smarter raiders even carried forks in their pockets... the rest of us just wolfed it down with our bare paws)....sigh....

[Guest FA_AC]

The concept may have been viable, but the execution was pitiful. It was so bad, in fact, that some people associated with marketing and sales felt that Leo Desrochers - remember him? - sabotaged the venture because he had never been in favor. Leo was no dummy, and while he wasn't AC's best COO, he certainly could have launched a three-plane airline.

Dagger, was Leo Desrochers involved with Roots Air? What did he do for them?

I wasn't exactly impressed with Desrochers when he was AC's VP of Marketing. He spent gazillions of $ on a program called "Customer Care from the Ground Up" that--and I'm 100% certain of this--didn't win us a single customer. It was an absolute farce. Many blunders. He drew up a "Customer Bill of Rights" that made all kinds of promises that he didn't bother to equip us to keep. Leo became a laughing stock among the F/As because of one part of the document in particular. It made a declaration that the customer was entitled to a comfortable seat. No sooner had he drafted the thing than the first (previously comfortable enough) L-1011 returned from its refurbishment configured to seat 345 people in a 10-abreast layout. Comfortable it most certainly was not, and it came to be called his "Lockhead pigmobile".

When Milton took over as VP of Marketing, the nonsensical crap all stopped. I guess he focussed more on routes, fleet utilisation and the schedule, etc. It worked a lot better than Leo's brilliant schemes had.

[dagger]

I am more interested by the trend that the individual announcements represent in the aggregate. The trend is to get the customer to conform to the airline's requirements, as opposed to the airline making its services conform to the customers' requirements as has been the accepted way for many decades. It's a very risky path, and no one is pushing the envelope more than AC. Either AC will score a major breakthrough, or have to backtrack. Operation Simplification runs very deep into the culture of AC management now. Next month, the simplified (one-way) fare structure will begin to go international. AC has reduced service levels, raised baggage fees, made it more expensive - and in peak times, impossible - to travel with pets, raised charges for carrying unaccompanied minors, etc. etc. There is a major thrust to simplify not only to get the direct cost out, but to make it easier to train people - simpler, uniform sets of rules for all situations, less computer changes to reams and reams of rules, etc. Simplification makes it easier to design web fares and services and get people to use them. There are lots of back office savings to go with the benefits of raising fees or withdrawing services that are costly to provide.

Now, AC is going to lose some business because of this. Milton and Brewer aren't going to say this publicly, but I bet that is assumed. The question will be whether the lost business is less than the cost savings and extra fee revenues. I don't know, but I will be watching the tea leaves for signs. The other thing that is interesting to me, is whether people with dogs, excess baggage, unaccompanied minors, etc, all end up flying the competition, because that will be a revenue gain for those airlines, but it will add to the complexities/headaches of their operations. Imagine, for example, if the people who want to fly with their pets all show up at one carrier. What does that do to handling costs, airport turnaround times, etc.? Does that carrier want the media grief of having Fido or Polly die while in their possession?

A very interesting business experiment is unfolding, mark my words.

[ccairspace]

There are lots of back office savings to go with the benefits of raising fees or withdrawing services that are costly to provide.

And, it then... for those watching for it... opens up opportunities for others who are willing to provide those costly services.

Good grief! What a great opportunity for some entrepreneurial soul to fill the gap when it comes to food services. Sometimes I wish I could clone myself...

[CanadaEH]

In the first week Roots Air was in service, they were flying with less than 1/4 loads. Slowly the loads started to pick up and in the last 10 days of its operation they actually sold out a few flights and were flying anywhere from 3/5 to full capacity. I believe they also started carrying cargo in the last 2 weeks of operation with an average load of 2000 lbs and up to 9000 lbs on Sat night. I may be wrong on this, but I believe Roots was offering walk-up fares that would put the advanced seat sales of today to shame... The concept was good, the service was great (from what I hear) but as was mentioned - bad marketing. Dagger - what do you mean by bad publicity? Are you talking about the delay of getting an A320 into service initially and the delay of putting the A330 into service (which never happened because they shut down operations the day before)?

[dagger]

And, it then... for those watching for it... opens up opportunities for others who are willing to provide those costly services.

Good grief! What a great opportunity for some entrepreneurial soul to fill the gap when it comes to food services. Sometimes I wish I could clone myself...

Absolutely. But for airlines, it's not just the cost of the food, it's the handling cost as well. It's one thing to make a thousand meals, quite another to do it to meet flight schedules, then get it through security to the flights, etc, with specialized catering trucks, trolleys, trays, cups, etc. If you got a place near the airport and supplied box lunches to passengers, they would be doing their own "logistics", hence the ability to offer that service at a good price and make money.

[ccairspace]

If you got a place near the airport...

Ideally, the meals would be supplied airside, so passengers wouldn't have the hassle of schlepping even more stuff through security. And... with 24 hours notice, one might even be able to request a specialty meal, like vegan, diabetic, kosher etc. Depending on the set up, one might even be able to take a "hot" meal on board.

Wonder what the issues might be with taking food on an international flight...?