Employee Standby Travel Line

[whiteguy]

This might have something to do with wait times...........

Employees.......... 24,500
Retirees............. 29,000 (last count)

That has nothing to do with it. Employees and retirees list online!

[Squid]

some improvements are coming like auto call back and maybe a living pnr or profile
another issue is getting and keeping staff at the yyz call center

[Norwegianwood]

This might have something to do with wait times...........

Employees.......... 24,500
Retirees............. 29,000 (last count)

That has nothing to do with it. Employees and retirees list online!

Guns blazing whiteguy............................

Not so, I have had to go to the travel line because of anomalies with the online listing and I am certain there are many more who have also, that's why they have it, not just for the "freebee jumpseaters".

[DH772]

DH772, I fail to see what that has to do with a reciprocal jumpseat program

It was sarcasm. If you don't like the system to get a FREE flight, then book a regular fare ticket online.

[whiteguy]

This might have something to do with wait times...........

Employees.......... 24,500
Retirees............. 29,000 (last count)

That has nothing to do with it. Employees and retirees list online!

Guns blazing whiteguy............................

Not so, I have had to go to the travel line because of anomalies with the online listing and I am certain there are many more who have also, that's why they have it, not just for the "freebee jumpseaters".

Wow, guns blazing hey. You must be right then, that must be the reason.

[pelmet]

DH772, I fail to see what that has to do with a reciprocal jumpseat program

It was sarcasm. If you don't like the system to get a FREE flight, then book a regular fare ticket online.

As an AC employee, I guess it never occurred to you that paying passengers are going through the same experience.

Obviously not.

[DH772]

Where in my post did I ever mention full paying passengers? I didn't. Passengers get priority on the line over standby travel line. Full fare passenger shouldn't wait hours on phone.

My post was about the whiny pilots who complain on a forum because it's too hard to book a free airline ticket!!!!! Like I said, next time buy a full fare ticket and avoid the headache.

[Norwegianwood]

Hey Whiteguy!

[/quote]Wow, guns blazing hey. You must be right then, that must be the reason. [/quote][/quote]

Funny how things get lost when you are not face to face, I thought you were "guns blazing" not me..........

[ahramin]

DH772, I get the feeling you don't understand what a reciprocal jumpseat program is. It is negotiated by the pilots of a given company as part of their compensation package and then reciprocals negotiated with other pilot groups. It isn't something AC does for pilots out of the goodness of their hearts, it's something they have told their pilots they are going to do as part of their compensation, and then failed to do. As I have said before, doesn't matter for me as my airline offers AC far less than we get in return so I'm not in a position to complain, AC pilots don't care. But when AC pilots start finding that the likes of Westjet and United drop them off their lists because it's nearly impossible to book a simple ticket, they aren't going to be happy about it.

As someone else above said though, they don't treat their full fare customers much better. Yesterday I was done 4 hours early so I tried to book a jumpseat. Couldn't get through. I called the regular number to see how things were looking overall and the wait time was over an hour. Called Westjet and the wait was 4 minutes, which is pretty long for them.

[Elessar_44]

"Thank you for calling Air Canada Employee Travel line. Current hold time is greater than 3 hours"

And that's after about half an hour of random redials resulting in busy signals.

[sstaurus]

Porter is such a joy to book on. Same with WJ. Too bad it can't be that easy with AC... I always avoid AC when I can for this reason, which is a shame. I'm sure eventually they'll get an online booking deal going on...

[pelmet]

Nov 04/2014

Hold times seem to be less these days.

Had an interesting one tonight. Had to make sure I was on a flight to NYC so I paid for a Flex ticket. About 300 dollars. Then discovered that I had to go on an earlier flight. The site says a 200 dollar penalty plus the difference in ticket price(of course no lowering allowed).

So I called up and the agent stated the same. OK I said, what is the price for the earlier flight? 1300 dollars says the agent. Really, I said. I am on your website right now and it says 333 dollars. After being put on hold for a while, she agreed and I got my new flight for a 233 dollar extra fee. Plus there will be a 60 fee for my two suitcases.

So I will stick to the normal Zed fares. No baggage fees on those as well. Plus I still get occasional upgrades on the EMB for weight and balance reasons.

[FL020]

1o minutes after 0900 est....Hold time 3 hrs 15 mins. Guess I wont be on the 10 am yvr.
Any progress on this system??

[altiplano]

Pretty tough day to call on... Have you seen the weather in YYZ and the pressure it must be putting on the system?

[pelmet]

I made a couple of listings a few weeks ago and they answered right away. I guess they listened to my complaining. As a Zed fare flyer, I appreciate the quick answer.

[CBcloud9]

This call-in system is the biggest farce I have ever experienced when trying to travel, and that is saying something. Busy signal all day?!
What is stopping AC from making standby passengers list online and then providing their ID at the check-in gates?

Question: Do AC tier 2 carriers like SKY, GGN, and Jazz have to call in to the center as well? Is the STBY web bookings only available for mainline employees?

[skkfdk]

Jazz employees have access to the web bookings. Unaware of other Express employees.

[I_Heart_Seaplanes]

I was pleasantly surprised when I used AC last week to get to YYZ. In all I had to call 4 times to change flights and never waited on hold for more than 20mins. I assumed that adoption of MyIDTravel had eased the pressure on the call centre.

[JoeyBarton]

Weird, AC is not on my IDTravel....

[ahramin]

Weird, AC is not on my IDTravel....

That's strange. Why is it then that every time you call into the employee standby line it keeps telling you AC has joined myIDTravel?