Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday April 3, 2003
No Tears Shed for Air Canada
Graeme’s Gallery 2003
No tears were shed by travel agents when Air Canada flew into bankruptcy protection yesterday.
Despite a vast monopoly, Air Canada could not overcome its own bad management and bad customer relations, they said.
“It’s their own doing,” said travel agent Marius Enthoven of Travel Headquarters in Vancouver. “I don’t think they’ve listened to the traveller.”
Enthoven blamed the airline’s complex pricing of tickets, gouging of the business traveller and overpriced one-way fares.
“You phone Air Canada and you get nothing but bureaucracy,” he said of its customer service. “They are unpleasant. They love to quote rules at you and they are not willing to do anything for you.
“They have forgotten that the customer who travels in that seat, and who makes a phone call, may be a nuisance, may ask stupid questions, but they pay their salaries.” (CP)