Financial Post Article on Air Canada

[a330pilotcanada]

The following link will take you to one of the more impartial articles written about Air Canada since CCAA.

Captain Andy Wilson former President of ACPA is quoted on how he saw this unfolding from the confiscation of close to five billion dollars in equity from the company to its complications today.

Suffice to say this story will retold by historians in the future and history will be the final arbitrator of this narrative.

http://business.financialpost.com/2012/ ... ir-canada/ (wlmailhtml:{A40A0873-FB43-4B35-A641-39511F3AABEB}mid://00000668/!x-usc:http://business.financialpost.com/2012/04/20/as-ace-winds-down-questions-linger-over-lasting-effects-on-air-canada/)

[Jet Jockey A4]

Your link does not work!

[J.O.]

This one should work.

Air Canada parent ACE Aviation to seek approval to unwind itself. What will its legacy be? | Transportation | News | Financial Post (http://business.financialpost.com/2012/04/20/as-ace-winds-down-questions-linger-over-lasting-effects-on-air-canada/)

[a330pilotcanada]

Good Afternoon J.O.

Thanks for doing the digging as I hate it when newspapers do publish something good than change the link!

[GMC1500]

Great article. Pretty long but well worth the read.
What a Fuc#ed up airline industry we have in Canada if AC is supposed to be the cream of the crop.

[fliion]

I don't know anyone in aviation that would consider AC the cream of anything.

Sadly the impression is of a tired institution that will not invest in any innovation because of protected status.... A biz school example of how not to do it.

Any other opinion is ...lipstick on a pig.

f.

[GMC1500]

Aren't we always being reminded whenever we're on an AC flight how they keep winning north american airline of the year?

[Willie Everlearn]

Flew Air Canada A330 a week ago, FRA - YUL. Not a damn thing wrong with the service. Pleasant crew and reasonable service.
Certainly not up to the Middle Eastern standards of an EK, QR or EY but let's be honest, those carriers don't play in the same ballpark.
The landing in YUL was a paint job. Kudos to the boys in the pointy end.

Willie :D

[pigboat]

Flew Air Canada A330 a week ago, FRA - YUL. Not a damn thing wrong with the service. Pleasant crew and reasonable service.

The last time I flew AC was 5 years ago, LHR - YUL, same aircraft and the same experience. I was impressed enough to fill out the little "How we doin'" card and send it in. Never did hear back from them though.

[a330pilotcanada]

Good Evening Pigboat and Willie Everlearn:

Nice to see some pragmatic posts for a change with a real world view point.

I will be the first to admit not all is perfect but there are great people there that give a damn about what they do. The sad part is out of 30,000 employees there are a small minority that makes the rest look bad. On a given busy day in the summer there can be as many as 105,000 people in the system and everyone gets to where they are going with no issues and no positive press.

Someone runs into the not so nice people and it gets to page 1 and everyone gets tarred with the same brush.

Thanks for your postings from an old guy….

[Jet Jockey A4]

Yes everything is not perfect at Air Canada but then the same thing can be said about any airline or any other business/company. AC will need to work out all its problems with its employees if they want to survive. Both sides need to sit down and have a long term strategy for it to succeed.

I cannot compare AC to Westjet because I have never used WJ and don’t really care or need to at this point (the non de-icing incident that happened to a professional friend of mine is the reason).

However this said, on domestic flights (within Canada and the USA), I have generally been pleased with the service I get aboard Air Canada’s aircrafts. They are (AC) certainly better than all the US carriers I have flown on for sure! This doesn’t just mean the flying portion of the flight but the whole experience from checking in to after landing if assistance is required.

As an example we need to go to Dallas for recurrent training. Unfortunately there are no direct flights between Montreal and Dallas on AC (something they need to look at). We need to use American Airlines and although good in general they are not as good as Air Canada IMHO, especially when a round trip ticket in business class can be as high as $6000!

At least with AC you are entitled to the Maple Leaf lounge no matter where you fly when you buy a business class ticket. Well believe it or not at American even if you pay $6000 for a round trip fare from Montreal to Dallas you are not allowed to use their Admiral’s Club! Their excuse “you are not going to Asia”… Really! Now I may take AC even if it means going through the centre of the universe; Toronto! God I despise Pearson!

On international flights to Europe, they (AC) have been very, very good! On flights to Asia they were excellent! BTW I also flew on some of the Asian airlines while in that part of the world (Singapore Airlines to name one) and although the service was also great and the girls let’s face it were very pretty, I don’t think I would fly to and from Asia on them preferring to stick with AC.

My $0.02.