Air Canada's Red Tape Nightmare

On Wednesday, 3 pm Ottawa time, our plane was taking off toward Toronto, for our connection to Sydney, Australia. The flight to Sydney connected in Vancouver, before taking off again. Our last consecutive destination was Melbourne, where we would stop for the night after being 30 hours in transit. The next day we were heading to Hobart in Tasmania.

This was quite a long way to go even with all transfers going smoothly. However, my travel companion fainted during the descent to Vancouver and that is when the full weight of Air Canada’s red tape fell on us.

Even though the paramedics on site gave her the ok the fly again, Air Canada imposed a no fly. There was no boarding another plane until she was seen by a physician at the hospital. We were talking about a regular spell, like anyone I know has faced at one point or another. You are tired and excited.  You forget to eat and drink. Mix this with the remnants of a cold and a change of altitude, and you find yourself fainting.

So on we were, despite the paramedic’s opinion, to the hospital. In at midnight and out at 8 am, with the paper clearing her to fly, but no flight available until another 36 hours. Not only did we have to pay for accommodations in Vancouver, but we’d lose the money we put on reserving a room in Melbourne and we’d get no refund for the flight to Hobart, Tasmania, that was scheduled the next day.

While the representative of the StarAlliance emergency accommodation line was quite helpful in finding us a discounted room in the middle of the night, I can’t say the same for the woman on the MEDA line. The woman kindly reminded my travel companion that it was her fault she fainted and that we would have to pay to be on the next plane, to which we argued that the paramedics had cleared us to fly. It didn’t matter though.

She also stated that the certificate we got for flying out from emergency room doctor was not right. With the doctor now off duty, you can imagine our predicament in providing the required form. By this point, we felt tired and irritated, but mostly tangled up to the point of asphyxia by all this red tape. To say the man who pulled us out of the plane had reassured us the process would be easy, that we would be on our way in no time, even if it meant they had to make a deal with a StarAlliance partner or with New Zealand Air.

Now there was no such deal to be made. It was like we were being held hostage in Vancouver by Air Canada. Tired of trying to negotiate and cajole on the phone, we headed straight to the airport to meet face to face with an Air Canada Representative.

She reiterated that there was no available flight until the next day at midnight and that no deal could be made with their partners. After a bit of pressuring, she agreed to put us on a stand-by list. Here we were wandering the airport with a single thought: please, make it so that some poor chaps miss their flights. One’s misfortune is another one’s blessing afterall. By this point there was a good eight hours to wait before we could know if we would be on that night’s flight or not.

At the friendly advice of the woman at the information desk, we took a train downtown to go wander around Vancouver for a while. We ended up getting on a aquabus for a ride up the canal to the market in Yalestown. There were so many goodies there! If we had such a market in Ottawa, I would be there all the time.

 (Vancouver from the aquabus)

Then, it was back to the airport to wait for the verdict for tonight’s flight. Much to our relief we did make it on. In the end, other than the worry and the time lost in red tape land, all we lost was the money for the hotel room in Melbourne, Australia, and for the flight to Hobart, Tasmania, as well as the night’s rest we were hoping to get before the transfer to Tasmania.

Despite the ridiculous and unnecessary amount of red tape imposed by Air Canada, we did make it to Tasmania, which is where I am writing this from after an exceptional night of penguins watching. Safe to say, all is well for now.