Friday, October 24, 2008

Air Canada talks turkey to vegetarian


As I mentioned in a previous post, my flight from Hong Kong was punctuated by the unfortunate delivery of a turkey sandwich to replace the vegetarian meal that I'd ordered.

And, as you probably know, eating is about all you have to look forward to on these long haul flights.

You could easily watch 8 movies during this 16 hour flight -- and God knows you need the diversion to detract your attention away from the embolism that is forming thanks to your 2 inches of personal seat space.

During the second meal service, the flight crew accidentally delivered my lilliputian-sized veggie sandwich to another person.

Oops.

Accidents happen.

But here's the thing -- I wasn't even that fussed about it. I wasn't actually that hungry, and I knew there were easily two more meals to follow it.

I was sadder that I now had 8 more minutes of flying time to fill.

But it was the way they handled the mistake that made me bristle.

If only the offending flight attendant had owned up to it. If only she'd said, "Hey, this is what we did...and here's what we're doing to fix it," I would have been fine.

But attitude is everything...and the offending deliverer wasn't remotely sorry. Not even close.

She treated me like it was my fault. And she was rude.

It took another member of the flight crew to find me a small waldorf salad and a packet of cookies. Not exactly balanced nutrition, but the best they could do.

I'm normally not much of a formal complainer, but I took the initiative to write to Air Canada about it when I returned.

I told them that my Dad worked for Air Canada for 37 years and that I was actually flying on a reward ticket -- so clearly I bore no grudge toward the airline.

I told them what happened. And I told it without malice.

And you know what happened?

I got a really nice letter of apology from Air Canada, and 1,500 Aeroplan Points!

Wow!

So there. Saying my peace really worked.

4 comments:

©km said...

Geesh. You can add that to your list of ways to "earn" Aeroplan points. Maybe I should haver written to them about the sandwich they gave me while we were stuck in Frankfurt for 3 hours that make me throw up every 20 minutes on the next 7 hour flight to Delhi. I need 15,000 points to get a ticket to Bangkok.

Anonymous said...

Nice story. I am flying a lot and I always considered Air Canada being one of the best air companies in the world! It's a pity you met such a rude staff member, on the other hand nobody is perfect and I can't imagine the pressure of flying 16 hours in a plane with 400 hundred "always something demanding" passengers :) Of course, it's not an excuse. They are paid for it!
Take care and many happy miles in the air!
Julie

Hez said...

If I were a bettin' man, I'd say "toronto realtor" is another name for "Air Canada employee"

Ryan McNeil said...

Hey - saw this on TV last night and thought you'd get a laugh from it. Sadly I must have misplaced your email address, so I hope you don't mind that I'm leaving it in your comments.

Take a look and prepare to laugh...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMmOw31oiI4