Re: Denied Boarding by Air Canada after showing up on time -- then charged $400 to rebook
Another example of the "new" Air Canada and its attitudes. (I note that an AC pilot complained in the Canada forum that there is staff bitterness that they all took big pay cuts, yet management is rewarding itself with multi-million dollar stock payouts.)
From the first post, it appears he actually made it to check-in some 45 minutes before flight. That should be sufficient time to make it through security and to the gate. It's appalling that the airlines can't make allowances for these circumstances. If he is given a boarding pass and told that it is contingent on him making it to the gate, he just might have gotten there.
I'm also tired of the constant overbooking scrambles at the gate, which may have a lot to do with this story. The newspaper said recently that AC had over 80% load factor system wide in December, which is so high that they must be overbooking a high proportion of flights.
By contrast, WestJet, which managed a load factor of over 70% on generally short haul routes, advertises that it never overbooks. If AC loses its near monopoly on international travel from Canada it will be vulnerable to any airline which rediscovers passenger service as a discriminator.
In the last year I retired, so have reduced from a 2-3 time per month airport agony to an occasional one, and am quite glad about that. Air travel has gotten so much worse over the last five years, without a significant drop in fares.