Brad’s Blog

Lesson reinforced today – never never never fly through Toronto. And never take no for an answer from an Air Canada agent.

I was in Ottawa today, and when I arrived at the airport for my return flight to Regina, all the flights were delayed such that I would miss my connection to Regina in Toronto.

However, I saw that there was an earlier flight to Toronto leaving in 20 minutes, so I approached the Air Canada desk agent about putting me on that flight so the airline wouldn’t have to put me up in Toronto.

He said nope – flight was full, stand-by list was as long as his arm, forget it. And it gets worse all evening. “That’s what you get for living in Regina.” So I went and checked the board and found that there was one more flight between the one he wouldn’t let me on and my scheduled flight. It would leave from the same gate, so I went back and got in line again. The guy I had been talking to left the desk and a few minutes later another guy stepped up to take over.

He got the lady in front of me a boarding pass. And then I asked him what he could do for me. Two seconds later I had a boarding pass for the flight leaving right away, and 5 minutes later we boarded.
On board it turned out that all but one passenger had connecting flights to Los Angeles, New York, Sudbury, Edmonton, Calgary, Regina (that’s me), Paris, London Heathrow, Frankfurt, Munich, and more. I’m sure some of them never made it.

It’s a shame when your should give yourself an extra 24 hours for each connection.