Corporate Lunacy

Today the tall foreheads who run WestJet, a low-frills, low-brow airline in Canada (they like to think they're similar to JetBlue or Southwest in the U.S.) have cancelled flights between Winnipeg and Regina and Saskatoon in the neighbouring province of Saskatchewan.

Instead, Winnipeggers will be forced to fly over Saskatchewan to Calgary, 850 miles west of Winnipeg. There they will transfer to a flight back east 500 miles to Regina.

Regina is 350 miles west of Winnipeg. It will be quicker (nine months out of the year, anyway) to just throw your bags in a car and drive the four-lane Trans-Canada Highway than it will be to go to the airport (60 minutes ahead), fly to Calgary, change planes, fly to Regina and wait for your bags to come off the plane.

Many Canadians seem to like WestJet. I'm not sure if it's the flight attendants who went to the Mary Tyler Moore School of Being Perky. Me, I prefer high school graduates as flight attendants, as opposed to those who are still going for their Grade 12 or their esthetician papers.

WestJet fans like to talk about how it's fun to fly WestJet. The flight attendants and pilots are all smiling and joking. Me, I place more importance on getting where I'm going. I do not want to hear lame jokes I last heard back in junior high or take part in a singalong with people I will never see again. Just get me from A to B and keep me comfortable.

I haven't flown WestJet for a few years, but somehow I doubt if things have changed much. The last time I flew with them was just after tearing my cartilage in my knee. I was walking with crutches and in pain but I had to fly to northern BC (450 miles past Edmonton) to attend my niece's wedding.

At that point WestJet was not allowing passengers to pre-book seats (now the airline, realizing it's a way to make extra cash, allows it), so my wife and I made sure we got to the airport very early in order to get me a seat in a roomy row.

No such luck. No offer to help. "Next time you'll just have to make sure you're here even earlier to get the seat you want," said the (smiling) ticket agent. I had to change planes in Calgary and I said surely I'm early enough to get a seat with extra legroom now? Can't book your seats for the flight from Calgary north she said, smiling still.

Then I get to the plane and no one offers any help with my carryon. My wife had to walk up and down the aisle to find a place where my crutches could be stored above.

We get to my sister's, have a great time, and then my sis and brother-in-law have an idea. They were planning on going to Edmonton anyway, so they'll drive us there and we can catch the same flight home we were taking from there. All we'd be doing was skipping the Grande Prairie - Edmonton leg of the trip.

We agreed, so I thought I would have the decency to phone the airline a few days early and let them know. We did not want a partial refund. I was calling to let them know that we would not be using our seats for the first leg of our return trip, so if they wanted to re-sell them to someone else, go nuts.

The (smiling, no doubt) WestJet agent on the other end of the line said they considered this re-writing the ticket and said we would each have to pay a fee of what I believe was $50 at the time. I went back and forth with this disinterested man for about 15 minutes before I asked for his supervisor. Another 10 minutes or so later, after I threatened to never use their services again, the supervisor agreed that no fee should be charged.

Air Canada has certainly had its share of public relations debacles over the years, but they are not the only ones in the Canadian airline industry to do so. Air Prozac has made it's share as well. They just seem to cover them up better.