Paul L

@NotKennyRogers biggest bait and switch scam since Opec in 1973

RE: Air Canada So now that I’m back from my Norway cruise, there are a few travel-related stories I want to tell. Let’s start with this: IMO, @AirCanada is by far the worst international carrier I have ever flown on. Avoid at all costs. I’ve flown them twice; the first time was a trip years ago to Berlin where we transferred in London. They lost our bags for TWO WHOLE WEEKS. Do you know that Tesco sells virtually no clothing that fits someone who is 6’5”? The bags instead went to Milan and they were waiting on our doorstep in D.C. when we got home. That was the first trip. Now let’s talk about the one I just took (my cruise line, Viking Ocean, booked Air Canada for us, not me—I should have said no). I’m about to talk about Flight AC 866 on June 12, 2026, from Montreal to London. We flew into Montreal from our home U.S. airport on Air Canada's domestic-style business class, which was just basically shoddy, rundown and depressing. As some of you know I just had major knee surgery and I had therefore requested wheelchair assistance for the transfer to the international flight. Nope, nobody there. To get to immigration was about a mile walk. I attribute the current post-op problems I am having to the fact that I had to make that walk. It was brutal, and while my knee had been recovering nicely until then, that walk set it back and I’m still suffering. But we made it through the interminable immigration lines and boarded Flight 866 in Montreal en route to London. Or so we thought. Turns out, they had the wrong plane. By the “wrong plane,” I mean the WRONG PLANE. They had sold tickets for a differently configured aircraft than the one we were boarding. Guess what? It seems they didn’t even figure this out until PEOPLE ACTUALLY STARTED BOARDING. Let me say that again. The fact that they had sold tickets to the wrong type airplane was not identified until people got on board and their seat did not exist. As a retired U.S. Army logistician I find this utterly incomprehensible. How do you make such a mistake? Chaos ensued. First, they stopped boarding with the plane about 25% full. (@MrsDrPublius and I got onboard before they figured it out because we had bought business class tickets.) Then we just sat there on the plane as the minutes and hours ticked by and the pilots, ground staff and flight crew hurriedly rushed up and down the aisles looking worried. (At least we were seated. ~75% of the passengers were still in the terminal.) No one was telling us anything except that the flight was delayed because of some unspecified ticketing issues. Then they tried this crazy thing where they made everybody stay seated and write their name and the number of the seat they were sitting in on a piece of paper and hand it in. I don’t know what they thought that would accomplish, but it was useless. It was the Keystone Kops, poutine style. Then they made us all get off the plane. Then they re-booked every single person’s boarding pass in the system. Laboriously. Painfully. I heard complaints that people were kicked off the flight because there was no seat for them. People who had booked business class were sent to economy because there were too few business class seats. The delay was causing mass missed connecting flights in London when/if we ever did arrive. This was one of those international Airbus jets with ~300 passengers. I honestly thought there might be a riot in the terminal. For a while it looked like we never would fly. Almost 6 hours later, we took off and actually did make it to London, eventually. The next day they sent me a survey to let them know how they did. It was the worst survey I have ever written for any business in my entire life, and I separately demanded some sort of compensation for the incredible inconvenience their incompetence caused. It’s three weeks later, and they have yet to reply. So now I’m writing this post. You could have at least APOLOGIZED, @AirCanada. Rarely do I use this platform to complain about some personal issue with a business, but you earned it. Maybe next time at least acknowledge to your customers that you screwed up? Grrrrr….🤬😡🤬😡🤬😡