22 May 2008
Air Canada gets it wrong
Posted by Alistair Croll under: Communicating; Creating great products; Standing out .
I have a love-hate relationship with Air Canada.
I fly their planes a lot, since I’m usually starting from Montreal or Halifax. I love the fact that frequent travelers get access to their lounge without an extra fee, even when it’s a partner’s lounge.
But frustrated by ridiculously broken enrollment and online booking processes (things like having to convince their call centers that yes, in fact, the screen in front of me does say “server error.”) I switched my loyalties to United, who get it right much more often.
On the other hand, Air Canada has great planes, with power and screens. I was starting to warm to them again; they’ve overhauled their entire website. It still has problems, such as the complete failure of their mobile booking process (apparently intended to send a barcode to my phone.) But it’s getting better.
And then they go and break my heart again.
They have fantastic in-flight video on their smaller planes. I was talking with a flight attendant on one of the larger planes in their fleet, which has recently been outfitted with the screens. Apparently, it overloads often (which isn’t surprising, since it’s video-on-demand for a hundred people, all at once, and wasn’t designed for large planes.)
“But don’t worry,” he said, “soon, we’ll charge for them, and then it won’t be so busy.”
Ah, Air Canada, you already charge me twice what I pay in the US for flights with no justification for it. You won’t let me press the back button on your website. Your change rules are inflexible. You try to convince me I get a “discount” for not checking bags, when it’s clearly a bag tax.
And now you’re taking away the one thing I liked? You mean I was a guinea pig for you all this time?
When a company says, “currently compliments of” you can be sure it means, “soon to be for a fee.” I think consumers are getting fed up of paying fees for things all the time, so rather than having happy travellers bragging about the screens — which they were starting to do — we’ll just break out our iPods and notebooks. And Air Canada will have sacrificed a great opportunity to be special for a while.
(Maybe I’m wrong. Chris Anderson certainly thinks airlines will give their core product and make money off such fees. I find it irritating and underhanded, but there it is.
I guess that’s what happens when you still think like a government-run monopoly.
(Quick update: I also found out what that little USB port next to the screen is for, after a flight attendant complained to me that she’d burned a $400 iPod on one by trying to charge it. They’re for a game controller which will be rented for a fee. So I guess that’s how billing will happen.)
One Comment so far...
kareem Says:
9 July 2008 at 7:00 pm.
two comments:
1. reading a bio about michael o’leary (who took ryan air from floundering airline to success) - http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2525180.Michael_O_Leary_A_Life_in_Full_Flight - and it’s fascinating to see what a young, hungry airline focused on its bottom line and value proposition did to the nationally-run aer lingus. same story w/ BA and virgin, chronicled in branson’s losing my virginity. seems canada could use a young and hungry airline to give AC a run for its money. flew westjet for the first time (to the stampede last wknd) and while a good experience, the short flight from vancouver was still $400+.
2. re: “currently compliments of” - had this experience yesterday at royal bank. they told me i had complimentary overdraft protection, then in the next breath said that there was a fee. wtf?! don’t they know the “costs of evil are starting to outweigh the benefits” in business (http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/haque/2008/05/last_week_i_discussed_why.html)