Air Canada - A company doomed to fail
So, today Sarah decided to buy a plane ticket so that she could go to her conference on colonial french history in halifax. The conference is in June and since she will be here, she bought a round trip ticket from Toronto. She poked around a bit, and being on a bit of a budget, she found the cheapest flight she could. As it turns out, Air Canada tango offered the best price.
So, she starts going through the Air Canada website. Everything is straight forward. The price is repeatedly presented as $309.33. She enters her name and her credit card number. $309.33. Then she gets to the part where she is supposed to select her seat. $309.33. I like the airlines that let you pick your seat when you buy your ticket, but not all of them do. Up until this point, the price is still $309.33. Then, immediately after she chooses her seat she is told that her ticket has been purchased and the cost is $341.43.
As it turns out, Air Canada has instituted a $30 fee (plus tax) for choosing your seat at the time of booking. Normally I wouldn't have a problem with this. An organization should be allowed to charge whatever they want for whatever they are selling. The problem that I have is that this $30 is tacked on after you have already pressed the purchase button. By the time you are informed of the fee, it is too late to reject the ticket.
Well, Sarah calls up customer service at Air Canada and apparently the conversation doesn't go very smoothly. So, I try giving it a shot. First I call some customer service number, where I am told to call some other number. The whole time that I am waiting on hold while I am calling the second number I am thinking about what I'll do if they don't offer a refund. The only other time I have had a dispute like this, the credit card company sided with UHaul, but UHaul had my signature. I have no idea how these organizations arbitrate disputes about things bought on the web.
The guy at Air Canada tells me that all discount airlines have started doing this and that they finally "caved" and started doing it too. Now, I don't know which other discount airlines he has been dealing with, but no one that I have ever dealt with charges for selecting a seat. On top of that, they don't do it in a sneaky after the fact way. In fact, the first price that you see is always the amount that it actually costs. I asked him if this was new and he said that they have been doing it for about 5 months.
The thing that I don't understand is why an airline would charge for this. People with cheap tickets are used to getting bumped around on flights and getting bumped between seats would hardly be noticable. So, if the fee is going towards insurance against getting bumped I don't understand why they would do this only for discount flights (and if this is indeed the fact I would expect to get the seat I chose even if the sky was falling). If they are trying to pass on the cost of the infrastructure for the system then they have a pretty poor business model. If it is a deliberate scam (as it would appear) then Air Canada should get out of the airline business and get into the spam business.
I just hope that the next time Air Canada needs money the government gives it to somebody else (like harmony, skyservice, canjet or westjet).
So, she starts going through the Air Canada website. Everything is straight forward. The price is repeatedly presented as $309.33. She enters her name and her credit card number. $309.33. Then she gets to the part where she is supposed to select her seat. $309.33. I like the airlines that let you pick your seat when you buy your ticket, but not all of them do. Up until this point, the price is still $309.33. Then, immediately after she chooses her seat she is told that her ticket has been purchased and the cost is $341.43.
As it turns out, Air Canada has instituted a $30 fee (plus tax) for choosing your seat at the time of booking. Normally I wouldn't have a problem with this. An organization should be allowed to charge whatever they want for whatever they are selling. The problem that I have is that this $30 is tacked on after you have already pressed the purchase button. By the time you are informed of the fee, it is too late to reject the ticket.
Well, Sarah calls up customer service at Air Canada and apparently the conversation doesn't go very smoothly. So, I try giving it a shot. First I call some customer service number, where I am told to call some other number. The whole time that I am waiting on hold while I am calling the second number I am thinking about what I'll do if they don't offer a refund. The only other time I have had a dispute like this, the credit card company sided with UHaul, but UHaul had my signature. I have no idea how these organizations arbitrate disputes about things bought on the web.
The guy at Air Canada tells me that all discount airlines have started doing this and that they finally "caved" and started doing it too. Now, I don't know which other discount airlines he has been dealing with, but no one that I have ever dealt with charges for selecting a seat. On top of that, they don't do it in a sneaky after the fact way. In fact, the first price that you see is always the amount that it actually costs. I asked him if this was new and he said that they have been doing it for about 5 months.
The thing that I don't understand is why an airline would charge for this. People with cheap tickets are used to getting bumped around on flights and getting bumped between seats would hardly be noticable. So, if the fee is going towards insurance against getting bumped I don't understand why they would do this only for discount flights (and if this is indeed the fact I would expect to get the seat I chose even if the sky was falling). If they are trying to pass on the cost of the infrastructure for the system then they have a pretty poor business model. If it is a deliberate scam (as it would appear) then Air Canada should get out of the airline business and get into the spam business.
I just hope that the next time Air Canada needs money the government gives it to somebody else (like harmony, skyservice, canjet or westjet).
posted by Timothy Fowler at 4/14/2005 11:52:00 PM
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