Graeme’s Gallery 2014: Canada
Oh great, another year in review…
November 8, 2014
September 23, 2014
And that ends this years Graeme Galleries. Links to the whole series:
Air Canada
Oh great, another year in review…
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Air Canada to consider firing workers in baggage toss video
Air Canada is apologizing after a video purporting to show a baggage handler dropping luggage from roughly six metres off the ground hit social media.
The video, taken by a passenger on board a plane, shows a baggage handler dropping bags from a boarding gate to a luggage bin.
The video posted April 18 on YouTube is titled “How Air Canada Handles Your Baggage,” but it doesn’t say where or when the incident occurred.
The airline responded to CBC News Saturday, saying the incident in the video is under investigation and would not go unpunished.
“We apologize for the totally unacceptable mishandling of our passengers’ baggage captured on video,” said Angela Mah, a spokesperson with Air Canada.
“We are in the process of identifying the employees involved whose employment will be terminated pending the outcome of our investigation. Their actions clearly contravened our standard baggage handling procedures which require gate-checked bags to be hand carried to the ramp.”
The video is generating a wide range of comments both on the video site and Twitter, with some people lambasting Air Canada and saying they won’t fly on the airline again.
Others were more charitable saying the airline should not be judged by the actions of one baggage handler.
In Twitter posts on Saturday, Air Canada says it has launched an investigation and is “very disappointed & sorry about the actions in the video.”
“The actions don’t reflect our procedure. We apologize for this,” the airline said in another tweet. (Source: CBC News)
Inspired by the torture wheels featured in the Inquisition scene from Mel Brook’s film “The History of the World, Part I”:
SOCIAL MEDIA
This was the cartoon of the day at Yahoo Canada News, and was reprinted in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix & The Regina Leader Post
Thursday, April 3, 2014
By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday, April 3, 2014
Itzhak Perlman was stuck in the Twilight Zone.
That’s the term the celebrated Israeli-American violinist uses to describe the area between his arrival gate and passport control at Toronto Pearson International Airport, where an Air Canada employee left the disabled musician stranded on Monday.
Perlman was in town for a charity concert. Having contracted polio as a child, he requires a scooter or crutches to get around, and is on Air Canada’s list of passengers needing assistance to get to the airport exit.
But on Monday, the employee assigned to assist him would only go so far.
The pair made it down one elevator and the employee helped load Perlman’s carry-on baggage onto a second elevator, but refused to accompany him.
“He said something like: ‘I’m leaving you here. I have other flights,’” Perlman, now back in New York, told the Star on Tuesday.
Feeling abandoned, Perlman gritted his teeth going down that second elevator alone, with his crutches, two small bags around his scooter and a bigger bag on his lap, as well as his precious violin.
Before the elevator doors shut, Perlman recalls asking: “What am I going to do?” to which he says the attendant replied along the lines of: “It’s your problem, you’re the one who chose to carry an extra bag …You’re not paying me, are you?”
He said he was left in the Twilight Zone because, while he did have someone waiting for him at the exit, that person was not able to come in through passport control to fetch him. That’s why being accompanied by an airline official was crucial.
Perlman said he finally got some help from a police officer and made it to his final destination. An ironic situation, given the employee’s first words to Perlman when he disembarked from the airplane: “I’m here to help you.”
He had felt at first that the employee would be sympathetic to his situation, as he told Perlman that his own father was in a wheelchair as the result of a car accident.
“And then he just leaves me,” said Perlman.
Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick said the airline found Perlman’s story “very concerning,” and would be investigating, as well as apologizing to Perlman. (Continued: Toronto Star)
Meanwhile the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown approaches this June. “As the 25th anniversary approaches, this could well mark the start of the annual round-up of activists attempting to remember the tragic events of 1989. Rather than ratchet up such persecution the authorities should acknowledge what really happened and deliver justice for the victims,” said Anu Kultalahti, China Researcher at Amnesty International. (Source: Amnesty International)