Air Canada should take lessons in customer service from WestJet. Since Christmas Eve a consumer advocate group, the Consumer’s Association of Canada, has been receiving about 50 complaints a day about Air Canada. Although bad weather caused flight delays and cancellations, Air Canada managed to make a bad situation worse for beleaguered holiday travelers. According to the group’s president, the complaints were all related to the poor treatment that travelers were subjected to by Air Canada.

In case you believe that these travelers were cry-babies and should expect delays and cancellations when traveling in the winter, how would you like to be trapped in an airplane on the tarmac for 12 hours? That is precisely what happened to passengers aboard Air Canada flight 156 at the Vancouver International Airport. That should be illegal! Air Canada had no decent excuse – weather, fuel, crew issues - for holding those passengers for 12 hours in a plane going nowhere. They have since offered those passengers a $500 voucher. That may be the only reason why any of those passengers would consider flying Air Canada again.

In sharp contrast callers were praising WestJet, whose personnel not only helped out their own passengers but offered assistance to Air Canada’s passengers who were ignored. Bruce Cran, president of the Consumer’s Association of Canada suggests that travelers contact their members of Parliament about their poor treatment at the hands of Air Canada. It’s about time that Air Canada was held accountable instead of being able to operate with impunity. They are a third class airline supported by our tax dollars.

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