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September 11, 2005
There’s dead biscotti on the floor…or why I hate Air Canada yet again
There are three dead biscotti on the floor of the terminal and the washroom reeks of stale urine at YVR or as may be better known, Vancouver International Airport. Ahhh yes, it takes me back to times gone by of late night forays into bus terminals for warmth and relief. Except for the biscotti thing, that’s purely Starbucks. Biscotti wouldn’t last 30 seconds on the floor of an inner city us depot.
Back in BC again….
Someone is really going to have to get on the cleaning crews here. I’m sure there may be other airports around the world that have men’s rooms that smell this bad, but I personally only know of one that’s worse. Miami. And there, the ladies rooms are even worse. Never, EVER fly through Miami without a pass to a first class lounge or latex gloves. The public areas are intolerable.
But that’s the bad news for the day. The good news is that I had my first good experience on Air Canada in a longtime. I was on a flight from Winnipeg and was fortunate enough to be on a new A-320. Brand new. Great seats and perfectly clean. And to make matters even better, I did not have to sit next to some immigrant who smelled worse than the aforementioned washroom. How good is that? Still my ‘spidey sense’ is on high. Something is not quite right.
Look, I don’t mean to hold myself on a pedestal above all and sundry, but really, there should be some sort of “smell-o-meter” where passengers have to pass the phalanx of baggage screeners. If its mechanical sensors react above a certain level, then passengers should be given the option of stepping into a handy shower stall or going back to whatever stinking hovel they call home. There is no reason why a whole lot of other people should suffer for over two hours just because somebody who’s idea of personal hygiene is to smell worse than a hockey player’s equipment bag. Is it because their feelings might be hurt? Too bad so sad get back on the boat and go for a float back to Smellyland where you came from is my felling.
So I’m sitting here in the White Spot in terminal ‘C’, sipping a beer and waiting for my short flight to Victoria and then it hits me. Every one of the flight crew spoke French, Canada’s other second language, amongst themselves and while working. Of course, that explains the new plane. Probably based in Quebec which would explain the crew. But enough of my Anglo based bitterness. It was a nice plane and I remembered to bring my own food on the flight so I’m doing fine.
*** Move to Victoria flight ***
I am sitting on a plane, on the tarmac, waiting while the incompetents that run things here unload the luggage looking for a piece that belongs to someone who didn’t get on the flight. Damn delays. Damn Air Canada. Damn everything, I just want to get home.
There are 50 seats on the aircraft and I have counted 18 young Orientals on board. Obviously student exchange types. There is one seat vacant, it is next to me. A 20’ish Caucasian fellow gets on and comes to sit next to me. Oh well, so much for the Japanese School Girl scenario playing rapidly in my head and…what the hell am I thinking? I’m just happy the fellow heading down the aisle isn’t some grotesquely overweight slob. He sits down.
I gag.
My head is reeling. This isn’t right. I think to myself, “He smells like a yak.” So much for racial profiling. He turns out to be friendly enough and is a talkative guy. Turns out he’s coming back from a trip to the Gobi Desert. Holy Shit! I think. He really DOES smell like a yak. He tells me he wanted to travel someplace he’s never been before. He describes it as very dry with lots of sand. I reply that calling it the Gobi DESERT kind of gave that away. There were camels there and lots of sand. All I could think of telling him is that if he wanted to go someplace with lots of sand that has creatures with two big bumbs on them running around in all that sand then maybe he should have gone to Cancun for spring break. It took him a minute but he finally got it. Sad is the state of our youth. Camels over coeds....what was the boy thinking?
The plane finally gets going and the flight is mercifully short. The weather is clear, I’m back on the west coast and I have the little air jet thingy turned up full blast so I can hardly smell my neighbor, I’m comin’ home.
Victoria….
There is a huge group of people waiting and holding signs with names like, Mi Wang Hung and Bro Kin To. Must be Koreans I think and head off to collect my two pieces of checked luggage.
After a few minutes my backpack comes through and I am getting ready to go. After a few more minutes the carousel stops and my other piece of baggage is not on it. But, I am not alone. Fully half, yes, 50 % of the passengers are told matter of factly that there wasn’t room on the plane, so the baggage will arrive….”sometime later.”
By sheer happenstance I am on the wrong side of the conveyor and it takes 50 minutes to provide them with my name and address so they can deliver my belongings to me. They have yet to do so.
I am not surprised of course. This is Air Canada and shitty, shoddy, rotten service is the standard rather than the exception. Canada is such a great country, it is such a shame that the fine name is disgraced by our ‘national’ airline. Air Take Your Chances or Air Mediocrity should be the name of this organization. Of course the giveaway should have been the magnificent counter with three computer terminals on it for handling complaints and luggage problems. Naturally it was understaffed. By contrast, the simple counter in front of the Westjet logo behind us is never staffed and is actually dusty (yes I checked). Go figure.
Whatever happened to decent air travel? It seems that the airlines are in such a hurry to cut costs to provide ‘affordable’ travel that all they end up providing is service that isn’t worth purchasing without abject necessity. I only fly Air Canada because other options are simply not available and I don’t have time to drive to Winnipeg every couple of months. When you only have a week, six days on the road is a mighty long time to drive.
I know it’s not Air Canada’s fault that parts of one of the world’s most beautiful airports smells like a bus terminal. I know it’s not Air Canada’s fault that some of it’s customers make your eyes water and sting your lungs with their lack of hygiene. And I know that it’s not Air Canada’s fault that Japanese School Girls who weigh, like, 97 pounds travel with bags that weigh 197 pounds. I just wish that for once, just once I could book my flight, get on in Victoria and off in Winnipeg and then return via the same route and not have a problem or complaint about the airline. I’m sure if Stan Rogers were alive today, he’d forget all about the Northwest Passage and his lyrics would go more like this:
“Ah for just one time, to take Air Canada passage,
With the guiding hand of Robert Milton, they’d be looking out for me,
Flying one fine flight o’er a land so wild and savage,
And enjoy a trip from Winnipeg to the sea…….”
And so I resign myself to suffer in the future as I have in the past. To do the “Canadian” thing and coexist in quiet misery with our national airline when other options do not exist.
*** And for those of you not familiar with Stan Roger’s song, “Northwest Passage” I hope you soon will be. It is one of the most Canadian of songs and a true classic. I do him no justice with my re-worked lyrics, but hey, he’s dead so he can’t sue me. ***
~ AP
Posted by Anonymous Pundit at September 11, 2005 10:06 AM