Air Canada Rouge

PLEASE hire competent staff who show up for work!

We had the ‘pleasure’ of flying Air Canada this week to Las Vegas (LAS) from Vancouver (YVR) and return. What a fiasco of delays – all blamed on staffing issues. 

On the way down at YVR we were only delayed an hour due to waiting for flight attendants to show up, which is the *norm* for AC Rouge – fortunately we did not have connecting flights to contend with and plenty time to deal with the unusually efficient Homeland Security/USBP.

It shows you how complacent we have become to consider only an hour within the time constraints as being normal for Air Canada. We could and should demand better, but when they are the only game in our village complaints will only get you on the no-fly list.

The return trip was far worse than a slight delay.

At LAS, the flight was delayed on the onset by an hour (again, somewhat normal for Air Canada), then at the appointed time for boarding, we were advised that the Flight Attendants (FAs) had not shown up for work. 

To put his into perspective, as international travelers we are required to show up two hours in advance of our original flight time (flight time was Noon – we had to be there at 10AM), but the FAs can show up whenever they feel like it – if at all? 

Even if they were to arrive 10 minutes before the scheduled departure, they would have to be at the airport by 11:50AM. Here it was 1:30PM and only one of the four FAs was at the gate.

The reason (excuse?) for the delay was a transportation mix-up.

From downtown Las Vegas to McCarran Airport is a 30min drive in rush hour. It begs the question as to why the FAs were two hours late.

Once in YVR (two hours late) it got worse. Four rescheduling delays due to staffing issues over another hour, then a gate change complete with a change in aircraft resulted in further delays. The original plane held 75 passengers – the alternate plane only had 50 seats, so 25 people needed to volunteer to take a later flight.

Overall, we were delayed over three hours all due to staffing issues at Air Canada.

Thanks Air Canada.