Letting Your Partner Down

I'm a fan of Canadian airlines. AC has a great new Embraer service to Dallas and other than the risk of a little domestic spying, any flight on Westjet is fun.

That's not what this post is about. This is about flying out of Minneapolis on AC. Some advice: DON'T DO IT. You see, Minneapolis is Northwest's home. And apparently even if you work for United, Canada's code share partner and the people manning the check-in - your goal is to keep people flying Northwest.

Doing that is simple: 1) no automated check-in 2) separate line for AC passengers 3) process 2 or 3 passengers in half an hour 4) after half and hour and once line is well into hallway - leave - as in...leave... don't have anybody manning the AC check-in 5) 20 minutes later, show up looking stunned and say something dumb like "is anybody in this line on the 6:00pm flight to Toronto?" 6) look even more stunned when the line erupts in anger and abuse 7) stick really angry passengers in final row by the washroom. True story.

The moral here is clear: fly Northwest out of Minneapolis.

However, I don't believe the problem is Air Canada's. It's United's. Watching their staff, one thing was clear - they DID NOT CARE. Truly DID NOT CARE. I guess that whole Chapter 11 thing has been a little rough!

TAGS: United Airlines, customer service, disgruntled employees