Why is Air Canada losing so much money and what can done about it?

[Tan]

Actually the poster should have said, “All of Canada is plagued by entitlement”. Sorry I had to correct your spelling

[Saltaire]

Thank you, plagued by entitlement. I assume when spelling is the focus, the discussion is over. I'm not the biggest WJ fan, but there is certainly no entitlement going on over there. They have an innovative, pro-active, customer based culture. ( calling them guests makes me gag ) Best of luck with the overhaul AC...

[Tan]

I didn’t mean to cut off your thoughts I just get tired of the AC bashing. Since you claim WJ has such a great culture why did WJ find it necessary to commit commercial espionage against AC with the full knowledge of their CEO and with the majority approval of the WJetters? They thought it was a great thing to do and denied the whole allegation until the court date was announced. Why do some of their pilots make unruly comments about AC over their PA system as reported by their passengers on the AvCanada forum? I could go on but why bother.

If that’s the type of culture you wish to endorse shame on you..

[Tree]

Well Tan, back in the old days of printed schedules CDN would publish theirs (using a third party print shop) and AC would soon afterwards publish theirs from their in-house print shop.
On all the competitive routes the AC flights would be scheduled exactly :15 before the CDN flights.
What goes around comes around old man!

[Tan]

Gee and exactly how does that compare to corporate espionage settled by $10M? It was done in the open by observing the arrival and departure of flights. Oh and I’ve never heard of CDN pilots ever making derogatory remarks about AC on their PA system. It would appear that you agree with this type of corporate behaviour. At least the old feud had class.

[Saltaire]

I didn't say WJ had a great culture. I don't endorse it, but they do have a strong corporate culture and have management and employees who are pro-active, innovative and intensely motivated. Unfortunately, there is a dark side which resulted in the incident you mentioned and perhaps an unhealthy competitive spirit towards AC. If they are making PA's slanting AC, then I agree, shame on them...very unprofessional.

The fact remains, AC needs to get it's house in order. The days of manipulating work schedules, entitlement, poor customer service, and a general lack of work ethic needs to end. AC needs a renewed work force and with that could, IMO, quickly gain back market share and win over customers again.

[yycflyguy]

Q2 results are not that bad.

Air Canada reported Q2/09 EBITDAR of $135 million with yields and the
H1N1 virus negatively impacting results. While results were weak, they
were not unexpected.

Projecting over $550 million profit in 2010.

[Tan]

I agree with your AC assessment and most hardly agree that some WJ pilots making comments about AC over their PA is very unprofessional. That's a practice I didn't know was going on until passengers reported it on the AvCanada forum. Hopefully those involved were disciplined but if past practices are ay indications of the future that didn’t happen.