For Clive and the folks at WestJet

[Mitch Cronin]

You guys have gotta be loving this!

Y'all be sure and let us know if there's anything else we can do for you eh?

I've just been reading through some complaints on another web site, and with the number of people saying "from now on, I'm flying with WestJet", it's hard to imagine it could get much better for you folks.

Hey, do you think Clive might say "Thanks AC"?

[Guest givemeabreak]

Well to all AC agents and the like. Stupid is as stupid does!!

When the coffers went dry (as AC didn't have any more to sell to post a profit), no one believed them. They still think they are lying. Management are idiots. 5 million a day and nothing has changed. Jazz at least has been a little proactive and done some trimming. Has one AC pilot been laid off yet?? Infrastructure and management appalling. Seen the AC organization chart lately? F/A's at $60 dollars an hour. (More than some pilots and maintenance out there) What joke. Forgetting where the real money comes from (passengers, just in case you forgot). I give AC till the new year. Then done. Pathetic. A real embarrasment.

Slowing down work after 400 layoffs...you guys are a f'n joke.

[Guest gunny12]

Yes, 39 pilots at the mainline out of work on the first of August. They will be followed by another 20 at the end of the month........

[Don Hudson]

Mitch;

It may be a mess, but let's not knock the "half-full glass" approach which sees 100,000/day passengers carried last week and 70,000+ daily. That's great for us and as opposed to empty terminals, that's the kind of stress we like to see. I don't think Clive would like that trend too much.

Unfortunately, its feast or famine...wild swings in numbers. No airline can plan for a swing of 60,000 passengers per day and not have difficulties.

That's up from 39,000 in early April...is it any wonder that our agents were overwhelmed, even after 30+ were brought back last week.

The work schedule issue is likely temporary for a number of reasons so this should sort itself out.

[Guest rance]

jazz 141 pilots and probably 300f/as already gone.maybe mainline should pick up the pace.

[Mitch Cronin]

Hi Don,

Re: "is it any wonder that our agents were overwhelmed"

Nope, no wonder at all to you and I and a lot of others, but what is quite a wonder is why this result wasn't forseen by folks in a position to prevent the PR nightmares. Every so often things happen that make it seem as though this is the first season this airline has been in business. Why?

Why were we freezing so many birds last winter? Why were we cooking so many groomers early this summer? Why do airplanes continue to wait for marshallers? Why ... a bunch of things... It's as though no one has learned any lessons from past experience, and nobody is accountable.

I understand the value of looking at a glass as being half full... and I find some encouragement in the numbers, and the deals being struck with lessors and creditors, but none of us can ignore the continuing blunders. When will someone make the changes that actually have a positive effect on processes and production? It's like we're steaming along with a gaping hole in our flank and we have no rudder, or no one is at the wheel.

This latest debacle surely wasn't necessary and shouldn't have happened. Joe Public can see that as clear as the teal tail on that other airplane. What now? Another 180 day promise? How 'bout some serious change? ...starting perhaps with some accountability, from the skipper down.

Cheers,

Mitch

[Guest Nova Zemlya]

Well, it looks like Uncle Milty will have to give up hugging the pants legs of his favourite flyboys and blubbering just how much he wuvs them and lay off a good 1000.

What's the use of having these people sit around and collect a paycheque, anyway? This is absolutely no time to have any redundancies in the system.

This should be about the right number. But given the fall in traffic, the number should be more like 1750.

Time to show a little entrepenuerial spirit, and open a can of whoopass on ACPA.

Just My Opinion, Folks

:[

NZ

[dagger]

What some of you have to realize is that AC has two distinct clienteles. Not business vs leisure, because there is a certain amount of crossover in those groups. It's about tecknologically advanced, and technologically handicapped. People, who, for whatever reason (age, cultural differences, too much luggage, ignorance of the techno possibilities, etc.) Business travellers, frequent leisure travellers, etc, people who have experienced the automated check-in technology, don't stand in these lines except when the Express baggage check-in gets a little hairy. So AC has to work on one stream - the Express baggage check-in, make sure it always goes smoothly.

Lineups, even an hour or more, are common for long haul travel throughout the industry. This one just got a little out of hand. Too bad. It will pass quickly enough. I'm baffled as to why people don't use the automated check-in even more. Every single business traveller I know continues to bypass all of these lines and goes straight to security.

This is maybe more callous than one should be, but if AC is reducing capacity permanently, and bringing in new aircraft types to better match mission to demands, then it is no catastrophe for a few leisure passengers flying transcon on $400 tickets with two pieces of checked luggage and a pet carrier to move on to other airlines. They would probably be displaced anyway by the capacity reductions which, all expect, including WJ people, will contribute to a general raising of fares.

Yesterday, I booked a Tango flight for next week - Toronto/Ottawa return, $252, same-day return, all feel and surcharges and taxes included. If I had booked a few days earlier, I could have had the same flight for about $232. And Jetsgo is a few dollars cheaper still. That's as cheap as I can remember in many, many years. Maybe too cheap. We sure don't need a high speed train with fares like that.

The fact is, I no longer have anything to do with the CAW agents. I book online, every Aeroplan rewards. I do it in seconds, no waiting, no hassle. I get to the airport, I sue the automated check-in machines, and unless I am going overseas, I never check baggage (which also means I avoid the IAM baggage handlers, too). The regular AC clientele, providing their are technophobes, do this all the time.

This is what the future is going to look like five years from now. If you want to book a ticket, you either go online or ask a travel agent who goes online for you. I suppose there could be a small ticket office at each major airport to handle things like changes, forward connections, etc. But the overwhelming majority of people will book and be "ticketed" and make advance seat selections online. There will be one call-centre/help desk.

When they get to the airports, at least the major ones, they will check-in at kiosks because there aren't enough agents to handle them manually, and that's just going to be fact. AC will lose customers to those airlines which offer abundant manual services. So people flying to India with 100 kg over their checked luggage allowance will fly KL or BA. People who understand and navigate the automated world - and as the population ages that will include just about everyone in every culture - will gravitate to the automated system. I can assure you that using AC's automated system is not nearly as complicated as buying an airport shuttle train ticket at a kiosk at CDG or buying a metro ticket in Washington with its complicated zone structures. I can assure you that there will be more than enough passengers to fill AC's planes.

Ultimately, the 5000 CAW agents will become the 2000 CAW agents.

I am boycotting them now wherever possible not because they are bad people - by and large they are polite and helpful - but because I simply find the machines faster.

Ten years from now, most people will think going through manual check-in makes as much sense as someone with exact change going to pay a high way toll manually instead of just going through the automated lanes and throwing the money into the basket.

[Johnny]

Here's one for ya.

I get off a flight with checked baggage, stare at the baggage belt for 45 minutes, after I'm the last one off the flight. Still not one piece of luggage. Go over to the baggage counter, identify myself as an employee and ask; What's up.

Well, a rash of book-offs, Baggage smashers are choked that now they have to work continually with only their regular breaks. No more, in his words, only working 4 flights in a shift. I guess that must limit the amoumt of time in front of the TV, in the lunch room.

It seem that 'an honest days work, for an honest dollar' is a foreign concept at our beloved airline.

[Guest GDR]

Hi Mitch

I have to agree with Don on this one.

You point out all of the problems just fine, but I don't think that the causes or solutions that you suggest are necessarily as accurate.

When we talk about understaffing etc. I think that we have to compare ourselves with other airlines that we have to compete against.

How many agents, baggage handlers, pilots etc do we have to do the same amount of work as WestJet for example. Frankly I don't have the answer to that but it should be looked at before we just start laying the blame for everything at Milton's feet.

At this airline, regardless of our aeronautical ancestory we are being required to undergo a massive change of attitudes and work ethics. It's sink or swim. WestJet, Canjet and Jetsgo keep growing in Canada. We are going to face more and more competition transborder from lowcos such as Jet Blue. It won't be long until we will be pushed internationally by low cost carriers. We had better adapt or we are all going to looking for work.

I think that this is what our management, to the degree the courts will let them, is trying to deal with. It's hard on employees and the travelling public. I don't think that laying the blame for everything at the feet of management is going to bring us any closer to the point where our jobs are secure and where we can stop laying people off and can start bringing those that are laid off back.

Just my own take on things Mitch

Greg Robinson

[dagger]

Mitch, what some of you have to realize is that AC has two distinct clienteles. Not business vs leisure, because there is a certain amount of crossover in those groups. It's about technologically advanced, and technologically handicapped. People, who, for whatever reason (age, cultural differences, too much luggage, ignorance of the techno possibilities, etc.) get into the lines for manual check-in, or still phone call centres to make bookings.

Business travellers, frequent leisure travellers, etc, people who have experienced the automated check-in technology, don't stand in these lines except when the Express baggage check-in gets a little hairy. So AC has to work on one stream - the Express baggage check-in, make sure it always goes smoothly. If I were Milton, I would focus exclusively on enhancing the automated processes with a goal of making them the only option for North American travel, and point to point international travel, within 36 months.

Lineups, even an hour or more, are common for long haul travel throughout the industry. This one just got a little out of hand. Too bad. It will pass quickly enough.

I'm baffled as to why people don't use the automated check-in even more. Every single business traveller I know continues to bypass all of these lines and goes straight to security. Even Gary Fane of the CAW knew enough to check-in by Kiosk when he went to YUL yesterday, do I'm told.

This is going to sound callous, but if AC is reducing capacity permanently, and bringing in new (read smaller capacity) aircraft types to better match mission to domestic demands, then it is no catastrophe for a few leisure passengers flying transcon on $400 tickets with two pieces of checked luggage and a pet carrier to move on to other airlines. They would probably be displaced anyway by the capacity reductions which, all expect, including WJ people, will contribute to a general raising of fares.

Yesterday, I booked a Tango flight for next week - Toronto/Ottawa return, $252, same-day return, all feel and surcharges and taxes included. If I had booked a few days earlier, I could have had the same flight for about $232. And Jetsgo is a few dollars cheaper still. That's as cheap as I can remember in many, many years. Maybe too cheap. We sure don't need a high speed train with fares like that.

The fact is, I no longer have anything to do with the CAW agents. I book online, even Aeroplan reward bookings. I do it in seconds, no waiting, no hassle. I get to the airport, I use the automated check-in machines, and unless I am going overseas, I never check baggage (which also means I avoid the IAM baggage handlers, too). The regular AC clientele, providing they are not technophobes, do this all the time.

This is what the future is going to look like five years from now. If you want to book a ticket, you either go online or ask a travel agent who goes online for you. I suppose there could be a small ticket office at each major airport to handle things like changes, forward connections, etc. But the overwhelming majority of people will book and be "ticketed" and make advance seat selections online. There will be one call-centre/help desk to help with bookings for people with handicaps, or those willing to wait extraordinarily long for an agent. Occasionally, the Toronto Star will write nasty front page articles about the long waits here or there, but the experiences will be increasingly representative of a diminishing percentage of the AC clientele. More and more people will do what I do - bypass the entire CAW structure.

When they get to the airports, at least the major ones, they will check-in at kiosks because there aren't enough agents to handle them manually, and I don't believe AC should make it easy for them to check in manually. I would set up a two line screening system for manual check-in. Those who have good reason to check-in manually, and those for whom it is mere preference. I would skew the division of CAW staff towards the people who have to check in manually. Others would face a long, slow line, and if that's cool for them, they will arrive 3-4 hours ahead of their flight.

That's just going to be fact. A new way of doing business. AC will lose customers to those airlines which offer abundant manual services. So people flying to India on consolidator fares with 100 kg over their checked luggage allowance will migrate to KL or BA. People who understand and navigate the automated world - and as the population ages that will include just about everyone in every culture - will gravitate to the automated system. I can assure you that using AC's automated system is not nearly as complicated as buying an airport shuttle train ticket at a kiosk at CDG or buying a metro ticket in Washington, D.C. with that region's byzantine zone structures. It's a lot simpler than McDonald's new automated ordering system that's being test-marketed for general introduction in a couple of years.

I can assure you that there will be more than enough passengers to fill AC's planes. The amazing thing is that AC's loads always do seem to bounce back. 70,000 a day now, and that's without a chunk of transborder and Asian business which just isn't available to any airline this year.

But I am really focussed on tomorrow. Ultimately, the 5000 CAW agents will become the 2000 CAW agents.

I am boycotting them now wherever possible not because they are bad people - by and large they are polite and helpful - but because I simply find the machines faster. Mostly, agents will become facilitators, performing reactive functions like helping people rebook after a flight cancellation, rather than primary service dispensers as they are now.

A couple of years ago, awestruck by the new technology, I asked an AC executive whether the time hadn't come to shut down all the call centres and make online booking the only way to book. Not yet, was the answer. But as more functionality is added to the Internet booking system, as we've seen this year at both aircanada.ca and flytango.com, there is more and more reason to go cold turkey. I wouldn't be surprised if AC does something like this in the next 2-3 years.

Ten years from now, most people will think going through manual check-in makes as much sense as someone with exact change paying a highway toll manually instead of going through the automated lane.

Everything AC is undergoing right now is a transition from yesterday to that vision of tomorrow. If it were me, I'd ram it through now, take the bad publicity, lose the customers I am going to lose anyways with downsizing, and embrace the wave of the future right now.

[Mitch Cronin]

Thanks Greg, I always appreciate hearing your take.

I certainly don't have all the answers to who's at fault, or what the causes and solutions are, and believe it or not, I don't blame Milton for all of it. I do, however, think theres a rather serious lack of foresight, comprehension, and accountability at the heart of a lot of our operational difficulties.

My object isn't just to point out the problems, it's more a matter of seeking change of the kind that would begin to see improvements in foresight, comprehension, and accountability. Change won't happen if people don't accept that it needs to happen. I've been asking for communication, I've been asking for involvement, and I've been asking for accountability for a while now.

When repeated and (in my view) avoidable problems occur, and I see nothing to indicate that won't continue, how am I to have any faith in the chances for success in the future? How is any employee who sees such things feeling about his/her being targeted as the problem, and being pinched for lifestyle and financial hits in order to help save the company?

I'm sorry if my complaints are getting tired, and maybe I'm thrashing a dead horse, but I'm not just venting... I hope someone might see something in what I'm saying, even if I say it wrong... and then, maybe he'll say it too... and then maybe someone else, and maybe eventually someone who counts will begin to think there might be something amiss and have a look.

How can the mess of this past weekend not have been foretold? What would have been wrong with the notion of gradual change to work rules and staffing, etc., in order to avoid just such a wicked PR blow. It's done. Theres a lot of people who just had their last straw with this airline. I think it happened because of bad decisions, if I don't say so, I'm not contributing to a fix, and hence, as the saying goes, I'm a part of the problem. Someone has to tell the Emperor he's got no clothes.

Same thing with that letter I wrote that seems to have got me into so much trouble... I tell things as I see them. When I stop caring, I'll shut up. Mean time, I'll keep shooting for better than we are. I happen to think that comes when Milton and several of his right and left hand men start listening and witnessing what goes on in the bowels of their airline, first hand.

I've squawked about morale and it's value to the bottom line. I'm ignored by the brass, I think precisely because such an airy fairy thing as morale can't be quantified, yet haven't we just seen a huge example of what it can cost to not have everyone pulling together at the same time? Yep, the changes to work rules and attitudes are needed, at least some of them make sense, but when you're putting these changes to people who are demoralized, angry, and quite human, how can you do it without any thought of that rather obvious human element?

I keep hearing "hang on, things will improve", and I sincerely hope so, but I think this weekend showed just a bit of troubles to come if lessons aren't learned from it, and fast. These 30 or 40 thousand people who work here, and have been told are the problem, can't just be hit harder to make them work better. Psychology may be an illusive science but I think it's a fool who ignores it.

That's at least a part of my take.

Cheers,

Mitch

[dagger]

Actually, people who have just had their contract conditions altered for the worse are not going to be happy campers no matter what you say. If they are rushing up to use their sick days because they are going to "lose" them then the issue isn't morale - it's a failure to accept that their world has changed, irrevocably, and perhaps permanently but certainly for a good portion of their remaining working lives.

Like the poor old stressed baggage handlers that now have to work more flights. They aren't going to be happy because they have suffered a diminution in their quality of life. A Westjet or Canjet employee has been hired into those conditions and either accepts them or moves on. An AC employee thinks only of the loss of entitlement, even if their jobs, under the revised terms and conditions, is no less or more difficult, no less or more remunerative, than the comparable jobs at WJ or CJ or Jetsgo or AT.

That's the difference.

Change is hard to accept. But ultimately, those people will change, grumbling all the way, I suppose.

[dagger]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=1502&e=4&u=/nm/20030812/wl_canada_nm/canada_airlines_aircanada_col&sid=81587690

[Mitch Cronin]

I think you're right with that Dagger. It would probably be a good idea to have a few (or even lots of) folks help to direct people to those automated methods.

Maybe even a simplified method of online booking could carry a guarantee that if people hit a "get lowest fare" button for a given itinerary and level of service requested, they'd really be getting it for the lowest fare AC offered, for that requested level of service, or the difference would be refunded.

Or maybe a customer could hit "get fares" for his itinerary, and be offered a few different price options to choose different levels of service (if any such differences exist), yet be guaranteed he's not going to hear he could have got the same thing cheaper (within AC) going another route?

I haven't a lot of experience, but I've heard from others recently that the E-booking methods leave many questions and confusion... One of my brothers recently tried, then called a travel agent... He ended up coming with AT and leaving with Sky... Another brother, also out west, and a bit more tecnho-competent, flew with his son on Jetsgo for peanuts... $650 return I think, for the two of them, but don't quote me... Yep, too cheap!

(A third brother came, full fare return, from Australia via AC, booked through a travel agent in Brisbane) The point being that the guy who got the best deal was indeed the guy who booked himself.

As for your last paragraph, I'd say it looks as though you're not the only one who thinks like that. I think theres much room for improvement in the handling.

Cheers,

Mitch

[Guest gunny12]

rance,

when it's all said and done there will be 317 pilots sent packing at the mainline (approx 10%)..... Furlough rate at the training rate...I don't know how many mainline F/A's, but I'm willing to bet more than 300. I can't confirm..

[Croc Dundee]

Zip continues to offer $40 fares YYC - YXX which is well below breakeven....not even Westjet could make money at those types of fares. Obviously this route is not profitable for AC yet it continues its strategy of going after market share and not giving a rat's #$%# about profitability. If I had a stake in the direction of AC, I would be demanding the halt to all this craziness. How much more money can they lose on these routes before they pull out??? Just plain stupid.

[Mitch Cronin]

Way-ta-go Robby!

Now that's the ticket! Bully for him! A few more of the boys with the white shirts pitching in where it counts and soon things just might get a lot better. That'll be good for him and the staff nearby. Not to mention the passengers who see it.

Wow, good on him.

[Guest gunny12]

"Time to show a little entrepenuerial spirit, and open a can of whoopass on ACPA.

Just My Opinion, Folks "

Hey NZ,

Perhaps a read of the whole thread will enlighten you to have an educated opinion. The loads are there for no lay offs.

Just My Opinion......gunny12

[Mitch Cronin]

sigh... So since they're not going to be happy anyway, we'll just prove to them that their happiness is thoroughly unimportant. And then expect them to work hard?

Like it or not dagger, this company is run by people, not machines, and the success of this company is highly dependant on the collective will of it's employees to make it work. It appears to me that your attitude would make you a rather terrible employer. ...unless you ran a company made up entirely of machinery, in which case I'd buy your stock.

[Guest BillyBigToe]

I vote you, moron of the forum.

[Say Altitude]

I recall seeing some numbers a year or so ago showing the employee to a/c ratios:

WJ - 43 to 1

AC - 167 to 1

I may be totally (n) but they seem to ring a bell.

[dagger]

For kicks, why not try out the booking systems at aircanada.ca and Tango. Just plug in some routes and dates and see... The new fare structure gives the bottom to top options pretty well, at least domestically. It makes it pretty clear what i the cheapest fare available. The point is, as these online portals become more sophisticated - and AC is not alone in this area - then we will see less and less reliance on agent booking. You do have to shop around if you want the absolutely lowest fares. But the time it takes to look at two or three carriers on a given route is no more than it takes to call a travel agent and discuss the options. As a matter of fact, if you use a site like Expedia and Travelocity, you may find combinations that even a travel agent can't come up with - that was my experience two years ago on a North Atlantic booking.

The future is plain to anyone who cares to look. Eighty percent of the work done by telephone res or airport passenger agents can be usurped by technology in a way which doesn't inconvenience the customer one iota. I booked an entire holiday trip to France this year online, from the Aeroplan reward bookings, the car rental and each and every hotel on a fly-drive vacation through the Loire Valley and Burgundy. Not one reservation was lost or corrupted. I previewed all of the attractions, French driving and rental-insurance rules, maps, etc. I never went on a trip better prepared, and broadband Internet becomes more deeply entrenched, expanding onto more wireless devices to boot, there will be fewer and fewer people relying on the airline for bookings or basic information. I even check flight arrival and departure information online.

Since I haven't had to cancel a booking, I can't remember the last time I even spoke to an airline call centre. It may have been four or five years ago. And I haven't spoken to my travel agent in at least 18 months.

[Guest Gino Under]

Mitch

West Jet has yet to learn the lessons of disasters past. Let them contain their adolescent smugness. For flying on WJ is like a high school pep rally. With the reality of the Canadian airline market, eventually all players will be LCCs. What then?

Simply, who's "flavour of the month".

It is sooooo silly to hear passengers condemn AC and storm off to WJ as if suddenly or miraculously they are loyal and dedicated passengers.

Please?

WJ may make hay whilst the sun shines. Good on them. But of what will they harvest when all players are LCCs???

It will be very, very difficult to tell one player's "pep rally" from anothers.

Gino Under

(

[Fester]

The bottom line regarding Mitch's post is that the company has forgotten one very basic element to running an airline (or any other business) don't piss off the customers. AC could probably save a bundle by firing the 'managers' who screwed it up for all those waiting in line.