My sister called Air Canada last week to confirm these arrangements and Air Canada went into corporate ass-sucking mode. They are using the recent volcano eruption in Iceland, and the now cleared up back log of travel problems, as an excuse for zero tolerance on changing tickets. Air Canada refused to allow for a new e-ticket to be printed for my son and stated that if he is not on the Winnipeg flight they will sell his ticket to someone on standby and he will not be allowed to board in Toronto. Even going higher up the management line they simply wouldn't budge. He has to be with the group in Winnipeg or no go.
They then offered my sister a ticket for my son from Toronto to Winnipeg for $800 - eight hundred fucking dollars!!!! She politely told them she'd look elsewhere and bought a WestJet ticket for $335.09
The company running this tour, Education First Educational Tours, is on the other hand a totally great company. They were also pissed off about the way Air Canada treated one of their clients - upset enough that they picked up the entire cost of the WestJet ticket for my son to get to Winnipeg. Thank you Educational First, you put Air Canada to shame.
So my son is now leaving Toronto Thursday afternoon to fly to Winnipeg, hang around the airport there for a few hours and then fly back from Winnipeg to Toronto, change planes and then onto London. He'll end up spending 13+ hours in the air. Fucking ridiculous.
I'll never use Air Canada again. And I'll tell everyone I know not to use them starting with this blog.
Fuck Air Canada and the plane they flew in on.
Asshats.
