Mid-July Moment: Special AIR TRAVEL HELL Insert!

This could have been part of the regular newsletter, but it’s long enough that it can (and frankly should) stand alone.

So you’re probably aware of the ongoing problems at many of the world’s airports right now: flights are being cancelled left and right, delays are rampant, lines are massive, and nobody’s having a good time. You may or may not also know that Montreal and Toronto’s airports are experiencing it particularly badly, and our flight back to Boston after visiting Vancouver earlier this month connected through Montreal.

Or at least, it was supposed to.

Instead, we landed right on time, and then sat on the tarmac for upwards of an hour since there was another flight in our gate. Eventually, we were given another gate, and we pelted through the airport and through US customs (since you do that at departure for the connecting flight from Canada to the US, rather than upon arrival in the US), our comfortable 3-hour connection cushion rapidly evaporating.

It used to be that you had to pick up your checked bags and haul them through customs with you, and then drop them back off again, but no longer - you just have to go through security again and then an agent makes sure your checked bag has passed some kind of process, and then you go to the customs person. Matt’s bag was showing up with a green light for that; mine wasn’t. We didn’t have to wait too too long for it to turn green, but at that point it felt like every second counted, so the 10 or so minutes we did wind up waiting was an eternity.

Once we had passed through customs and booked it to the area where our gates were, we realized that we had not had to run: nothing was on time. No flights were going anywhere. Our own flight (to Boston) did not have a gate even though it was, by now, the time that its boarding was slated to start: its gate was occupied by a flight to Chicago that was supposed to have left 2 hours prior and was still not boarding. We found a spot to sit at a nearby gate and kept our ears peeled for any announcements about our flight, and munched on snacks from the little terminal convenience store (all the places you could buy actual food being closed by this point in the evening, around 8pm [why? who knows!]).

Finally we got assigned a gate, traipsed over there, and waited some more. A plane was there but then left; another plane then pulled up and sat. And sat. Eventually, later still, a gate announcement came: they were taking our checked baggage OFF the plane. And then, as expected, that the flight was cancelled: we had been waiting for the cleaners to come and clean the plane, but none were available, and - they didn’t explain this part, but I suspect it’s what happened - we had waited just too long for the flight crew of that plane to continue that day. They have limits as to how many hours in a row they can be working, and when other things have added up to the point where the flight’s normal running time would put them over the limit, the flight can’t proceed with that same crew. And when it’s 10:30pm or whatever time it was and you’re in one of the great shitshow airports of the planet, you’re not going to get a replacement crew. At least half a dozen other flights around us were also being cancelled.

A gate agent pointed us the way to go to reclaim our bags, and gave us no real other info beyond that. We had a confused little convoy up to a person at customs who stamped a form with something to the effect that our flight was cancelled so we didn’t leave Canada after all, and then we proceeded to Luggage Hell.

Luggage Hell. You might have seen the pictures; piles and piles of unclaimed baggage sitting between every carousel. No staff in sight, just defeated travellers in various states of despair milling around trying to find their things. Also, if you arrive at an airport, your luggage goes onto the carousel for that particular arriving flight, right? But what happens if your luggage was taken off a departing flight that didn’t depart? We all connected from various different flights (or, possibly, started from Montreal, although I can’t imagine someone would opt to fly to Boston from there if they could just drive or take the bus, knowing the state of the airport). So we needed someone to tell us where our bags were going to appear, but there was no one. We lined up in front of a vacant Air Canada counter for awhile, but it became clear that no one was going to come back. There’s a customer service desk outside this area, but since this is a security cleared area, once you leave, you can’t come back, at least not without going through security again, which of course you can’t do if you don’t have a flight scheduled.

Finally, finally, someone from our failed flight spotted one of their bags on a certain carousel, so that’s where we went, and eventually mine came along too. Matt’s did not. We waited for a few more rotations of the carousel; still nothing. Finally, he decides to look in one of the unclaimed baggage piles and, incredibly, finds it there.

Let’s not forget, by the way, that this entire time we’ve had Hap with us, who continues to be 4, and for whom this is an extremely tiring and stressful experience! It’s late at night (fortunately the time change meant it wasn’t too bad), we’re making him hurry all over airports, our patience is short - he was an absolute trouper.

But we were all about to be tested. We went out the doors into the public area and are directed to a certain desk by - miracle of miracles - someone who works there. We head over towards that desk and realize that the huge long line we’re walking past is the line for that desk. Trek back to the end, take up residence there, and after about an hour, split up: Matt took Hap to find some chairs to sleep on and got on the phone with Air Canada (estimated wait time: 2 hours) while I stayed in line in case I got to the front of it first.

He won - I had been in the line for 4 1/2 hours total when he texted me that he had gotten through (after 3 hours on hold) and secured us flights home. At this point it’s pushing on for 4am and I was starting to doze on my feet in the line, which, incidentally, I was not close to the front of yet. So I took a deep breath and left the line and went to find him, which was surprisingly difficult (he was off in a little alcove so I missed him on the first few passes). So Hap got about 3 hours of sleep, and Matt and I got none at all.

After that, things finally went moderately smoothly except that the bag check machines didn’t want to recognize that we had already paid to check these bags, so we had to stand in another, much shorter line, but then we flew to Toronto and from there to Boston with no further incident. I know Toronto is supposed to be also a mega disaster, but fortunately we did not experience that at all.

This also ate up our planned buffer day - we got home Sunday afternoon and had to go to work the next day. Air Canada owes us for the extra day of parking our car, the extra visit by the catsitter, and frankly the 3 hour phone call on international soil.

The official explanation for the problems is “staffing issues,” which you know always means “no one wants to do this miserable job for the low pay we’re offering.” But it’s also a problem all over the world where air travel is rebounding super quickly after being a fraction of its usual size; people were laid off then, and rehiring isn’t going at the speed it should. But again, make the job more attractive, and people will be more interested in it. Get the CEO down on the counters at 3am, finding new flights for customers they’ve wronged. I don’t relish having to fly through Montreal ever again, either.

Well, that’s the end of that story - I hope you enjoyed this Special Insert, and I also hope I don’t ever have a situation again that requires one! Get your shit together, Air Canada!