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Air Canada Customers Angry Over Bumping To Rouge


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Air Canada customers angry over bumping to Rouge

Travellers turn to social media to complain about cramped conditions, high prices, switched flights

Wed May 07 2014 - CBC News

Some Air Canada passengers are seeing red after the airline moved them to its new low-cost Rouge carrier, but the airline denies service is suffering.

Many customers who purchased Air Canada flights months in advance say they have found themselves bumped onto Rouge flights and given no choice but to accept the smaller seats, limited in-flight entertainment and lack of complimentary food.

Jim Noon, who booked a regular Air Canada flight from Vancouver to Los Angeles on points in March, says the company subsequently moved him to a Rouge flight without his knowledge or consent.

"It's frustrating, and it makes you feel deceived," Noon told CBC News.

The flight could prove a tight squeeze for Noon, who is six-foot-three: Rouge seats have less legroom than regular Air Canada flights.

For instance, Rouge seats on the Airbus 319-100 have 73.5 cm of pitch, compared with 79-89 cm on the same aircraft on a regular Air Canada flight.

This spacing, and a reduced number of larger premium seats, allows the airline to put in two more rows, for a total of 12 more seats on the Airbus planes.

"I'm a tall guy," Noon says. "My No. 1 concern is that I can fit into that seat for three hours — or eight hours — and not have to crawl off the plane afterwards."

Access to entertainment and food on Rouge flights also differs from regular Air Canada flights.

On Rouge flights, economy travellers must pay for food and can only access in-flight entertainment if they have their own iPad or are prepared to rent one for the flight.

The experience has made Noon swear off the carrier for good.

"I used to be a loyal Air Canada traveller, and now I am certainly going to look elsewhere."

Social media reaction also critical

Noon is not alone, based on social media comments.

The travel review site Skytrax has comment forums for every airline and the Rouge board is filled with posters complaining about getting bumped from Air Canada flights.

And it's not just those who bumped to Rouge flights who are complaining.

The new brand is facing criticism from passengers who have booked with Rouge and argue that not only is it not cheaper than regular Air Canada flights, but the cramped quarters on board make it an unpleasant experience.

"The 319 plane was cramped with uncomfortable seats, absolutely no leg room and no ventilation," J. Morton writes.

"Average height people found their knees jammed into the seat ahead of them and it was impossible to bend over to place or retrieve items from under the seat. Heaven help you if the person in front of you reclined their seat even the small degree they move."

Another poster coined a new term against the airline, saying, "I got Rouged."

On Air Canada Rouge's Facebook page, complaints are noticeably absent, but elsewhere on social media, customers are complaining the company is deleting critical Facebook posts.

CBC News also observed that dozens of critical posts spotted on Friday had been deleted from the Rouge Facebook page by Monday.

"It would be pretty much a marketer's nightmare if somebody talks about being 'Rouged,'"

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And this is why the airline within the airline does not work when you associate with the host carrier..

Air Canada should have came up with a total non associated name, like Singapore did with Scoot. Qantas did with Jetstar.

Not Air Canada Rouge, Air Canada Tango.

Call in the P.R. people and turn this around now before any more damage is done.

Take the words Air Canada off the rouge aircraft, change the tail. Have a separate web site, if its a separate airline/lcc act like it.

Give the passengers some sort of compensation, say a credit file for the difference in service, bonus aeroplan miles, whatever you guys have a better idea than me come on. Don't treat your loyal customers this way. Get on the *clue bus*

Who is calling the shots at Rouge???

Yikes

:cool::cool::cool:

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Don't get hung up on the 'price of the ticket' stuff that these passengers are spewing.

Prices are set by the market.

Air Canada could not get a sufficient bump in ticket price on these routes to justify the less dense seating. It became a choice of withdrawing from these routes or put more seats into every aircraft that flies these routes. Thus rouge or fold.

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And this is why the airline within the airline does not work when you associate with the host carrier..

Air Canada should have came up with a total non associated name, like Singapore did with Scoot. Qantas did with Jetstar.

Not Air Canada Rouge, Air Canada Tango.

Call in the P.R. people and turn this around now before any more damage is done.

Take the words Air Canada off the rouge aircraft, change the tail. Have a separate web site, if its a separate airline/lcc act like it.

Give the passengers some sort of compensation, say a credit file for the difference in service, bonus aeroplan miles, whatever you guys have a better idea than me come on. Don't treat your loyal customers this way. Get on the *clue bus*

Who is calling the shots at Rouge???

Yikes

:cool::cool::cool:

Do you seriously think that calling Rouge something different, that didn't directly associate with Air Canada, would matter? The public knows well enough who owns Rouge.

The problem here is that handing off a mainline route to a secondary operator with different standards is an issue for people who have booked the mainline. It's a question of how you manage that process. Obviously, AC has had issues with the handover of the Western Canada-California routes, but in the long run, like another 3-4 months, anyone booking flights on those routes will know it is Rouge and not mainline. It's a problem with a sunset, and the challenge is to manage the sunset so that it doesn't have a lingering impact. The solution isn't in a name change, it's in more notice - six months - of a handover so that people making advance bookings are properly informed.

Westjet is doing it better on this score. They are moving from jet to Encore on the Toronto-Quebec City route, which make sense on a couple of levels (better flight times, for one). But they have announced it now for launch in March 2015. So no one making a booking for March 2015 onward is likely to think they are getting mainline service - unless they aren't paying attention to what the website is telling them.

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I'm sure someone will leap to defend the folks at the head shed and their data, but YVR-LAX and YVR-SFO struck me as much a business route as leisure for those of us out west.

While YYC/YVR to LAX/SFO are business routes they are not Business Class cabin eligible routes for the majority of Corporate Canada Travel Policy compliance. Most major companies have economy class only for travel under 5-6 hours and or the travel policy has economy class travel for North American O&D.

The only way for a Corporate flyer to be in paid J on these routes is to have their final destination outside of North America. In this instance, AC is handing very profitable flyers to UA or Asian/Australian based airline. Would it not be better for AC to take the flyer all the way through to Asia or Australia?

Fun little story for those who think a Road Warrior clause would get some of the very frequent business flyers to paid J on short haul flight. Many years ago I was Manager at Big Four accounting and consulting firm, attending the annual Partner Manager conference in YVR. My firm pretty much bought out the 7am YYC-YVR flight with about 50 employees taking up the economy section and the Calgary Office Managing Partner (OMP) sitting in business class cabin. The forward economy cabin was choca-block with Consulting group head shed who each had Elite status. The OMP is last to board and takes his seat in J, first up are the cat calls from his fellow partners that he over paid for 1:15 flight and that his coffee and omelette cost too much money. OMP retorts that he utilized an upgrade certificate to get into Business Class. More cat calls from the senior partners that booking latitude fare was just as much J class ticket. Volley back from the OMP was that he booked Tango plus. Response back from another senior partner " only an idiot would burn a red cert on 1:15 flight".

A few days later back in YYC, the same senior partner who pilloried the OMP came to talk to me about using elite upgrade certificates. Next partners meeting the OMP got his travel privileges scaled back and basically got told book economy and use NAU (green certs) for trips to YYZ, SSWU (red certs) for vacation to europe (a gift from the other partners who had paid for the OMP to get Elite status); and book economy on flights around Western Canada. Six months later the OMP retired (forced out) and was replaced by the Senior Partner who I had given the travel advice about responsible use of upgrade certs.

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And this is why the airline within the airline does not work when you associate with the host carrier..

Air Canada should have came up with a total non associated name, like Singapore did with Scoot. Qantas did with Jetstar.

But who says Rouge isn't working? The publicity is terrible, but it doesn't seem to be affecting loads at AC mainline or at Rouge itself. It's a lousy product in my opinion, but it might be the appropriate offering for what travellers are prepared to pay.

Its concept is entirely different from the Scoot or Jetstar models. Scott and Jetstar operate on routes that are also served by SQ and QF. Rouge is simply the AC product on certain routes, and unlike Scoot and Jetstar it offers connectivity to and from the mainline airline and its alliance parters' networks.

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Just as Tango was a smart way to educate people on what has now become our domestic product and is now just another fare level, I wonder if rouge will one day be folded back into mainline (or mainline folded into rouge) with much of our domestic, transborder and vacation seating and service "rougified" once the travelling public gets used to it...We already have that with our 777P/High Density aircraft. Why not the entire fleet? If travellers come to accept rouge seating and service as the norm, why wouldn't we follow suit?

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I thought I read somewhere here that the hi density 777 was going To be used on shorter routes, (relatively anyway).

Went YVR-LHR the other night and it was the hi density version.

Not only that, it came to YVR from HKG, (after a medical diversion into Anchorage although to be fair that is probably beside the point, unless of course you were in the back).

Ended up about 4 hours late into LHR. The a/c sat in in YVR for a long time with the cabin crew

boarding shortly before departure. Looked suspiciously like they had a hard time finding a crew.

A lot of missed connections, no doubt costly but I suppose it happens.

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While YYC/YVR to LAX/SFO are business routes they are not Business Class cabin eligible routes for the majority of Corporate Canada Travel Policy compliance.

I have only flown YVR-LAX a couple times, but I fly YYC-LAX all the time and I find I'm usually sitting next to an Australian ski bum, a kid in mouse ears or someone flying onwards to Asia.

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I have only flown YVR-LAX a couple times, but I fly YYC-LAX all the time and I find I'm usually sitting next to an Australian ski bum, a kid in mouse ears or someone flying onwards to Asia.

Are you in "j" class?

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Sometimes, I'm exactly in the group better4me describes but there are always half a dozen or more gate lice checking on their upgrades who seem to get them. On the Embraer 190 I don't really care either way. I always select the economy bulkhead row at check-in and am perfectly happy with that. I wait to see what Rouge has to offer with a sense of morbid curiosity.

The worst mainline aircraft I have ever flown on were United's 737-500's, I suppose that is the bar Rouge has to overcome.

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Guest longtimer

Sometimes, I'm exactly in the group better4me describes but there are always half a dozen or more gate lice checking on their upgrades who seem to get them. On the Embraer 190 I don't really care either way. I always select the economy bulkhead row at check-in and am perfectly happy with that. I wait to see what Rouge has to offer with a sense of morbid curiosity.

The worst mainline aircraft I have ever flown on were United's 737-500's, I suppose that is the bar Rouge has to overcome.

Gate Lice...... loyal customers with upgrade points or are you talking about cons or deadhead crews? :Grin-Nod:

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Just to weigh in on this topic, recently took two flights on rouge.

My opinion?

The staff are great, but weren't we all when we only had a year's seniority?

As for the seats...

The 767 had the old regular economy seats, and they were acceptably comfortable for a person of my stature. Which I will state is taller and heavier than the majority of the public. The pitch is a lot tighter, but as long as the person in front of you doesn't do a full recline, it's OK.

The leg on the 319, well, it had the new style seats, and for the length of the flight I was on, my backside was crying mercy. The legroom, while not generous, was almost acceptable, but the thinner padding on the seats leaves a lot to be desired.

Just my two cents worth.....

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I made a suggestion of limiting the amount of recline the seat can have, no more than an inch. The illusion of movement will be there, while at the same time, not piss off the guest behind.

You get what you pay for. If you want luxury, buy a first class ticket with all its amenities.

Cheers

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