Air Canada

Not Verified | My husband and I travel at least 4-5 times per year via Air Canada. Ninety percent of the time we fly business class. This trip to Atlanta and back has been one of the worst we’ve experienced. The flight FYI Toronto to Atlanta was over 3 hours late. Although weather was a factor, the messages to passengers were very misleading. The return flight was 35 minutes delayed, with no explanation. My entertainment system did not work, after informing the attendant, he provided a discount claim card, which lead us to believe this was a known issue. I wouldn’t have been so put off, but overheard other passengers in business class saying they were given complimentary upgrades. Their entertainment systems worked fine, while mine, which was a fully paid Bus Class ticket did not. I can only hope they read this and perhaps understand where they might try to make some customer service advancements.

✅ Trip Verified | Most recently I booked a flight from Windsor to Timmins for January 2020. Air Canada cancelled the Windsor to Toronto portion and re-booked such that I would have a 6 hour layover in Toronto. I am unable to re-schedule on line and was left waiting 35 minutes on hold before I hung up. This was on a priority number for frequent flyers. So, you can't do business online and you can't do business on the phone.

✅ Trip Verified | Fort McMurray to St Johns. The last time my fiance flew she had an encounter with customer service in Calgary airport. She had a question and they were rude and condescending. We have an upcoming trip in January and I have received a new itinerary. The latest one has my out going flight leaving 4 hours early causing me to have to leave work early to catch it and the return they decided to add an 8hr stop over right in the middle. The 8 hour stop over also causes me to get in late at night. I paid for the flights I booked because they work for the time off i booked. I didnt pay to have my itinerary changed for the worse. I dont feel like air canada has any respect for their customers. Their call centers are currently not even taking calls. I have been a loyal customer for many years but the way they treat customers is getting ridiculous.

✅ Trip Verified | Toronto to San Francisco. I stopped flying Air Canada last year after so many bad experiences. But unfortunately WestJet doesn't do direct flights to San Francisco, so I was stuck on Air Canada again this month. And as always the experience was terrible. It is a total joke that they say they are the highest rated North American airline. They are the worst airline that I have flown on. The staff are completely unfriendly and not helpful. The flights are almost always late. I am waiting on my flight back and felt the need to write this review since my inbound flight is late so not really surprized. I would give negative 10 as an overall rating if I could.

✅ Trip Verified | I used Air Canada's reward system Aeroplan to book a flight and could only get a seat on a United flight. It went through the system including assigning a seat. However, it said it was unticketed. I waited 24 hours to see if the ticket was issued - and then spent hours trying to get through to both Air Canada and Aeroplan after United told me that I should contact them to put a priority on issuing the ticket ASAP because they would cancel the reservation if it is not issued soon. Both contact centres talk about changes to the reservation system and it is causing lots of problems - but this has been going on for weeks based on comments on various forums. And they point the blame on each other - despite one being bought out by the other. The lack of effort to add more staff and to extend Aeroplans hours is disgraceful and and both parties should be ashamed by their lack of acceptance that customer are paying the consequences of an ill planned change. After spending hours dialing to just get into the queue to talk to Air Canada or Aeroplan [I had two phones going at the same time]. I finally spoke to a human at Air Canada who refused to acknowledge any connection to Aeroplan tickets and basically said keep trying to connect. Honestly I spent over 5 hours continuously redialing the Aeroplan number which stopped working at midnight. I have less that 36 hours before I am suppose to fly and no ticket. I would donate my points to charity as I plan to avoid using Aeroplan in the future, but it would be such a mean gesture to give something that could never be used.

✅ Trip Verified | Frankfurt to Nashville via Toronto. Our Frankfurt to Toronto leg was perfect. Staff was friendly, plane was comfortable, and flight was great. Once landing in Toronto, the chaos ensued. Our Nashville leg was cancelled due to weather (freezing rain and snow). Totally understandable. However, what wasn't understandable was the sheer incompetence of the Air Canada agents that helped customers. Once we arrived at the connections gate for the US flights, there was 1 Air Canada agent helping over 200 people that needed a flight rebooked. On top of that, they apparently had a new rebooking system, so she couldn't actually rebook anyone without having to wait on the phone with another department to see if anything was available. The first person in line took 2 hours to get resolved. I was fourth in line. Finally my husband and I received a hotel voucher after about 2.5 hours of waiting in the line. They stopped trying to rebook anyone and just immediately gave us a hotel. Then they told us we need to call their reservations hotline to get rebooked. No one would rebook us without calling this number and the hold times for that number were over 2 hours and longer with frequent disconnects. We were told to exit customs and go downstairs to baggage claim to collect our stuff and head to the hotel. We waited 8 hours for our baggage and it never came. We spoke to baggage agents 7 times and had them call our specific bag tag numerous times over with no luck. One agent even showed us a picture of our baggage scanned into the warehouse and knew the exact cage number it was stored in, but no one would retrieve it for us. Baggage agents instead walked around telling people to wait for carousel 10 to have their bags (which was futile) or openly started arguing with customers. "Have you seen the weather? It's out of our control! There are many people here waiting, you need to wait!" I asked one agent if he could radio for a manager and he said he couldn't, that there was no way for him to get a manager, and that he could not help. The customer service was atrocious. We all knew that weather was not something they could not control, but the baggage operations are within their control and it was a complete and utter failure. After being awake for over 24 hours and trying endlessly to retrieve our baggage, we had to give up. The next morning we ended up hiring a limo service to take us to Buffalo in order to rent a car to get to Nashville. We were never able to contact the rebooking department for help and no one in the airport could help us. My husband has filed a baggage claim for them to send it to us, if they ever get around to getting it. After this, my husband and I have decided to avoid Air Canada at all costs.

✅ Trip Verified | London to Los Angeles via Toronto. Online check-in not possible, as ticked issued by United under a code-share flight number, thus stuck in a middle seat for the first leg. London to Toronto uneventful, plane clean, crew indifferent, service average. Transfer in Toronto - a disorganized disaster. Premium security lane for US bound flights was an insult. Nobody in the airport seemed to be at work, or willing to do anything. Flight was originally delayed by 45 due to late arrival of the inbound aircraft and moved to a new gate. At the new gate, another hour delay was announced. 10 minutes prior to new boarding time, a further 2 hour delay and new change of gate was announced. No attempt from staff to provide water or vouchers. 20 minutes after moving to the new gate (at the opposite end of the terminal), a new announcement came through that the aircraft was now ready to board at the original gate. Following a sprint back to the old new gate on the opposite end of the terminal, finally boarded. Left gate 2 hours after the originally scheduled time and lined up for de-icing, which lasted for another hour or so. Cabin crew did not offer anything during that time except for headphones. Finally airborne, three and a half hours after the originally scheduled time, an apology from the purser for the delay and the generous offering of free headphones to compensate for the inconvenience. Meal for purchase and drinks service began almost 2 hours after take-off, due to sporadic turbulence. First went the cart with the meals for purchase. Water was offered to me for the first time 4 hours after I boarded the plane. Air Canada did not offer any compensation for the four hour delay.

✅ Trip Verified | Took flights from Melbourne to Newark airport via Vancouver. All services up to arriving at Newark was good. However, after 2 hours of waiting for baggage, we have learned that my suit did not come with the aircraft I took from Vancouver. This happened to all people flew from Melbourne. No staff informed any of us the issue until one of us approached the Air Canada service desk. Even after founding out that baggage were misplaced and not arriving the airport on the same date, none of the Air Canada staff were supportive, helpful nor agile ('it is not my fault that baggage did not arrive' quote from an Air Canada ground staff). All reactive with reluctance and very slow process. We had about 20 to 25 people facing the same issue after almost 25 hours of travelling from Melbourne including several very small kids. This is not about missing luggage but about extremely poor services provided to their customers on this occasion. I flew on business class and left the airport without my suitcase after 3.5 hours of arrival due to the extremely inattentive and slow process. This is the worst ground staff service I ever received. Yet, they cannot guarantee if the luggage will be delivered to the assigned address nor could confirm the compensation value they would cover to suffice the minimum required supplies customers need until the luggage/s are returned.

✅ Trip Verified | Quebec to Seoul via Toronto. Relatively clean airplane. No delays. Luggage arrived in good condition and on time. My food was horrible, below average service for me. On this flight i had to get the trash from my tray 3 hours after my meal, walk to the back of the plane. Then I asked the hostess do you have a trashbin please, can i have water please and can i have a snack please? 10 minutes later, they came down the aisle to offer water to the passengers.

Not Verified | My flight from Penticton to Vancouver in the morning was canceled so we had to take the one in the evening. The flight we had to take from Vancouver to Montreal was now the red eye flight leaving at 23.00. We were now a day late for our hotel reservation and no excuses from Air Canada. On top of that, now we are trying to call Air Canada from Portugal to cancel our flight from Paris to Montreal but cannot get to the customer services due to what they call their new customer service operating computorized system. Very disappointed.