Employee Standby Travel Line

[TFTMB heavy]

Why are AC and WJ waisting resources on taking these calls? Couldn't the JS be booked on line and then you have your documents verified at the airport as usual? It would be pretty simple and free up those lines and personnel taking the alls for full fare pax while we input our credit card info in ourself.

[FL020]

I apologize in advance for bringing this up again.....but I've been on hold now for 3:30. (Phone is on speaker, getting things done around the house while listening to Johnny tell me we apologize for the inconvenience, someone will be with you shortly) Before anyone scalds me with smart remarks, I know and understand I could be calling the "others" but the term reciprocity should mean something.

I'm not here to bit$% and complain, but do the employees have to put up with this line? Is there something in the works to change this?

[TrailerParkBoy]

.

I'm not here to bit$% and complain, but do the employees have to put up with this line? Is there something in the works to change this?

The employees can book online and see that the flights are full! Travelling standby with Air Canada is useless!

[DH772]

I know and understand I could be calling the "others" but the term reciprocity should mean something.

I'm not sure I quite understand? What exactly do you mean by "reciprocity"? Unless you're working for an airline here in Canada I'd say any "reciprocity" is highly favored towards your company having an agreement with AC to begin with!

Not only are you flying for absolutely free, you're actually costing the airline extra fuel just having you on the flight. As much as it may suck holding that long, I just don't see how one can sit there and complain under the circumstances

[pelmet]

I had a nice 6.5 hour ordeal.

Call and get the callback option for between about 1.8 and 2.5 hours. When they finally called back, not once but twice the line got cutoff from their end so now it as been about 4 hours(waiting for a call back). Then I tried again and there was a miracle because I got through in 30 seconds. So I ask for a Zed listing and she says she is new and doesn't know how to do it and will have to put me back in the regular wait despite pleas for her to ask someone else to do the job she can't.

No luck so I go back on hold and another miracle happens with another pick up after 30 seconds by a very difficult to understand lady. I have a couple of other questions to ask which she does not appear to understand so I just stick to the basics of a listing which she seems to understand until the call gets cutoff from their end. Another two hours on hold and then I make it through and finally get a listing.

I hope they are losing a lot of business due to this poor service.

[TheStig]

I hope they are losing a lot of business due to this poor service.

Business such as your zed fare?

[Transonic]

Is it still cheaper for an AC pilot to commute/travel on WS than on AC? Or has AC revised their fees for employee pass travel?

[DBC]

Is it still cheaper for an AC pilot to commute/travel on WS than on AC? Or has AC revised their fees for employee pass travel?

Still cheaper to fly WJ from what I know, although we do get 3 zero charge passes a year.

[albatross]

Things are a little lop-sided on this agreement. Look for changes to be happening on the WJ side to make things a little more fair. Eg limited jump seats. Hopefully this standby debacle will get sorted out before this happens. We need to support each other.

[3down&loct]

Come on AC. Get your shit together. Not even being able to get by the busy signal is BS. 50 calls now and cant even get voicemail. Unbelievable, and it's not even a busy flying time.

[DH772]

Come on AC. Get your shit together. Not even being able to get by the busy signal is BS. 50 calls now and cant even get voicemail. Unbelievable, and it's not even a busy flying time.

What do you mean? Why are you on phone?
You can book it all online. Takes 10 minutes at the most. VERY easy my friend. Just go to aircanada.ca, select your flight, pay for flight and BINGO. You got yourself a ticket. Good Luck.

[ahramin]

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

[Jack In The Box]

I just called right the second the call center opened and was on hold for 30 minutes. I missed a flight cut off time that I really needed to make and then... The line just cut out on me. So I call back, wait is 45-1:15. Then the line cuts out on me again. Now it's 1.5-2 hours. What gives????!!

[ahramin]

I had a day like that once. Spent 30 minutes on hold, cut off, another 30 minutes on hold, cut off. The strange thing was it seemed like it was happening right when I was finally getting through to someone both times.

[Norwegianwood]

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

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

[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.