Air Canada Lounge/Non AC pilots banned!
 

Hello, I would like to see if anyone else traveling on Air Canada in Uniform has been banned from entering their lounge? To me this seems like discrimination! If you don't work for them. Have a paid ticket and your ticket has the INVITATION printed on it how is this legal?

Its their lounge so they can set whatever rules they like. The one world lounge at CDG was the same - just take your epaulettes off etc

Same thing in MUC at the Lufthansa lounge.
They also asked me to take off the epaulettes while airlining for duty. Looks like they just dont want other people think we get it for free.

Thank you sharing your views and experiences! I had a bad experience and lost my cool at the lounge in Montreal when I was told I can only come in if I go the washroom and change. I was wrong to loose my cool and I think about it a lot! So many years flying and commuting all over the world and this has never happened before. I always fly Air Canada and go out of my way to recommend and send family with them. I have spent a lot of money just to support this career when other options cost much less. Then to get treated like a POS triggered me. The Crassness of the employees these days also doesn't help!

I wasn’t allowed in the old US Air lounge in CLT in uniform - seems like common practice. Easy enough to pop the epaulets and put away any visible crew ID before you head in.

Crassness is a feature of society these days I'm afraid.

You are right! I was so wrong to loose it! Now I am no better or even worse! But as a long time fan of AC I truly can't stand that company anymore!

There are indeed a few companies that won't allow you in their lounges as long as you wear your full uniform. Get the stripes off your shoulders and hide the stripes of your blazer, all fine then. In Europe/Germany they are quite strict about it at Lufthansa. They obviously had some complaints from self-entitled passengers that there were "Lufthansa crew leeching the lounge", although in fact it were just travelling crew members of other companies with a certain status and/or business/first class ticket. As a German, I find the reasoning rather weak, but it is what it is.

Losing your cool (in uniform or otherwise) was an unfortunate outcome though - regardless of the provocation.

Strange isn't it, pax complaining about sharing a facility with crew or objecting to the captain taking his meal in first class yet the same pax would scratch each others eyes out to get an invite to the captain's table on a ship!

I work for a large Biz Jet company in Europe and fly regularly with LH. I have no issue removing my jacket and epaulettes to use the lounge and remember being refused entry (in a very polite way) until I did so on my first occasion as a Frequent Traveller (LH Silver card). I also understand why I need to remove them onboard any carrier - you could be mistaken for part of the crew in an emergency.

I haven't removed my epaulettes on any airline so far, unless had them removed before boarding already (for other reasons).

Hi Mike, I work as a bizjet pilot too.

EASA regulations (or was it an AMC? can't remember) say that cabin crew travelling as in the pax cabin must remove any items that may have passengers confused as to whether they are operating the flight or not. This makes some safety sense because "arguably" in an emergency you don't want your pax asking/looking for someone who's not cabin crew on their flight.
But they say nothing like that for pilots. Every passenger understands that pilots travel in the back sometimes as well. I've never had any issue with this.

Regarding the LH lounges, I've used the ones in FRA, in uniform, and they've never said anything about it.