Air Canada App Makes Flight Smoother

A fantastic view of the emerging sunrise

Just flew into Toronto on a redeye Air Canada flight. When I checked in 24 hours before the flight, the middle seat on the 737 was empty, but when I arrived at the gate, there were constant announcements that the flight was full and would anyone volunteer to check-in their carry-on?

The flight was cramped, a kid kicked my seat from behind (until the cabin lights were dimmed), and hardly any refreshments. I only got a few hours of light sleep, as the guy in the middle was watching movies, the woman in the window seat was staring out the window.

But I must say I was impressed with the Air Canada app.

When I checked in my luggage, my phone buzzed to say my suitcase was loaded onto the plane by Michael.

After I landed, the app told me which carousel to find my baggage, though it hadn't even started up.

Nevertheless, when it did, my phone buzzed again to say it was coming to Carousel 3 and less than a minute later I could seeing arriving.

Amazing. 

Here is the picture the woman on the window seat took for me (and the guy in the middle). Everyone else missed it!

The Stressful Life of Professional Musicians

Mao performed flawlessly on three hours' sleep

It's a tough life being a professional musician who travels around the world performing. Not only do you have to learn lots of pieces by memory, but also play them flawlessly despite jetlag and not enough sleep.

That was the case of Mao Fujita, 27, who was in Vancouver this past weekend.

He was supposed to fly direct from San Diego and arrive Saturday at 9pm to perform the next day at 3pm at the Vancouver Playhouse.

However, he texted the organiser of the Vancouver Recital Society, to say his flight was delayed until midnight.

Then he phoned a few minutes later to say he would have to cancel the concert because his flight was cancelled!

She told him to tell Air Canada he had a contractual obligation to perform the next day and he had to get on the flight.

He managed to get the last seat on the plane Sunday morning at 6am -- but that meant leaving his wife behind to get the next flight to Vancouver.

Mao arrived at 11.30am and went straight to the venue to practice despite having only three hours' sleep.

A few hours later he performed in front of an almost sold-out show, playing works by Beethoven, Wagner, Mendelssohn, Brahms and Berg.

I sat in the fourth row on the left side to watch Mao's fingers dance on the keys, and during intermission, the couple on my left switched seats with another. 

The new couple told me they had been sitting on the other side where they could see the expression on the pianist's face. They observed that it was as if he was in a trance, or another world as he played.

Needless to say many in the audience jumped up to give him a standing ovation and Mao treated us to an encore by Rachmaninoff, How Fair This Spot, Op. 21, No. 7 that he himself transcribed for the piano.

After the concert, Mao's wife Haruki arrived and the concert sponsors treated them to dinner and he was so excited to eat! He hadn't eaten pretty much all day!

The Chinese dinner included poached geoduck, stir-fried beef with eggplant, choy sum with braised tofu, spare ribs, Chiu Chow braised duck, soup with tofu, mustard greens and more geoduck, and dessert of taro with sago.

With a filled stomach, Mao and his wife went back to the airport to catch their next flight to Seattle where he performed last night, and then took the next flight to New York. He plays Carnegie Hall tomorrow!

Mao performs 70-75 concerts per year on top of his studies, which he will complete this year. 

We sure hope he makes time in his busy schedule to come back to Vancouver again soon!

Canadians Keeping Their Elbows Up

Canadians are showing their true colours this year

Ever since Donald Trump tossed out the possibility of Canada becoming the 51st state, Canadians have fought back with their "Elbows Up" mentality and there's now a lot of data proving that.

Travel is the biggest sign in Canada shunning the United States. When it comes to Canadians traveling across the border by car, there is a whopping 34 percent drop in August compared to the same month last year. That's the eighth consecutive month of declines apart from the Covid-19 pandemic period.

Many are upset by Trump's calls for the 51st state

There is also a lot fewer Canadians traveling by air to the US too. In August, the number of Canadians returning from the US by plane fell 25.4 percent compared to the same month last year too.

Canadians used to love traveling to Las Vegas for entertainment, gambling, and food, but not so much anymore.

Flair Airlines saw the biggest plunge of 62 percent of Canadian passengers, while Air Canada's was 33 percent, and WestJet 31 percent. As a result the airlines have shuffled their planes and are using smaller ones going to Vegas these days.

Instead Canadians are traveling to Europe, the Caribbean, South America, and Japan. This year Air Canada added 28 international routes to satisfy demand.

Meanwhile when it comes to books written by Canadian authors, Indigo reports a 25 percent jump in sales compared to last year, and the CBC has seen a 34 percent increase in people checking out Gem, its streaming platform.

Even Historica, which promotes Canadian history through programs like Heritage Minutes has seen a noticeable uptick in the number of people checking out the Canadian Encyclopedia with more than 14 million views this year.

It's great to see how Canadians are determined to do as much as they can to keep their elbows up!

Air Canada and Union Reach Tentative Agreement

Air Canada flight attendants were victorious in their strike

At around 4.23am Eastern time this morning, the union representing 10,000 flight attendants and Air Canada came to a tentative agreement, where the former get paid for at least 60 minutes when they are working on the ground, and a pay raise.

"Unpaid work is over. We have reclaimed our voice and our power," the union said in a statement.

Union and management have tentative agreement

Getting paid for the work flight attendants do before the plane leaves the gate is a massive breakthrough for the flight attendants, who have been fighting for this for months, and could set the industry standard globally. While there are a few smaller airlines who do pay their flight attendants for ground work, Air Canada is one of the first major international airlines to do so.

Although the union has yet to ratify the deal, the union advised its members to "fully co-operate with resumption of operations."

As a result, some flights resumed at around 4pm EST, though it will take international flights several days to restart. 

It's a massive victory for the flight attendants, who were defying the work-to-order and were even willing to go to jail for their disobedience. They stood their ground and waged a cohesive campaign across the country.

Nasr claimed ground pay was in the deal earlier

Meanwhile management were publicly perceived in a bad light and saw how angry passengers were for causing the disruptions and blamed it on them and not the flight attendants. That probably caused management to want to resolve the strike quickly.

But it didn't have to be this way! If management claimed they were willing to pay for ground pay all along, then why not say so?

"[Ground pay] absolutely should be in there, and we're so happy that we finally reached this industry-leading deal that allows our flight attendants to be compensated for the important work... that they perform on the ground," said Air Canada executive vice-president Mark Nasr.

He claimed ground pay had been part of the airline's proposed deal for workers for months...

Turbulent Times with Air Canada Strike

Flight attendants want to be paid for ground services

The Air Canada strike was barely 12 hours old when the Canadian government shut it down. Flight attendants with the nation's largest airline are fighting to be paid for all the work they do on the ground before the plane pushes off from the gate.

It's an issue they have repeated all over the media, gaining a lot of sympathy from the public, though others are annoyed the strike has severely impacted their travel plans, including my brother and nephew. 

They were supposed to fly on AC Saturday, but earlier this week I warned him about the impending strike and he made a backup plan to fly on American Airlines.

Air Canada turned to government for intervention

However, this morning when they arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, the flight was cancelled. He literally scrambled to get another flight leaving nine hours later to Seattle, and a train ticket to Vancouver. It was the cheaper option than to shell out around US$4,000 for two tickets on an alternative airline.

The plane left late, but managed to cut its flight time thanks to tail wind and it looked promising for him and my nephew to arrive with enough time to get to the train station.

But alas -- the bridge to connect to the plane in order to de-plane was broken! It took over an hour for the plane to be towed to another gate, and so they did not make the last Amtrak train at 9pm.

This afternoon CBC Radio's national call-in show Cross Country Checkup asked people how the Air Canada strike was affecting them. People phoned in from Dublin and Brazil to say they were stranded there, while others were upset their loved ones would not be able to make their wedding in a few days, or that the bride wouldn't make it on time, a father said he was traveling through Texas to get to his son in another part of Canada who was having cancer treatment.

A flight attendant disrupts an AC press conference

Others complained they tried to get through to Air Canada many times on the phone and got no where, and one person said the phone message told people to go to the website, while the website instructed people to call.

Despite the headaches and stress, most of the callers supported the flight attendants.

At the same time academics who study labour or airlines said Air Canada should have bargained in good faith with the flight attendants, that they should not have turned to the government to invoke Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code, forcing the flight attendants back to work and binding arbitration. 

Experts also blamed the government for siding with management so quickly.

"It really is a troubling development," said Barry Eidlin, who studies labour and social movements at McGill University.

"Section 107 basically just allows the labour minister this unilateral power to intervene to order workers back to work against their will. Ant that is extremely concerning."

In retaliation to the government forcing them to go back to work, the flight attendants are refusing to do so and are continuing their strike.

So while Air Canada says it will get flights up and running by Monday evening, that probably won't be happening. It's just creating bad blood between the flight attendants and Air Canada, with the passengers held hostage during one of the busiest travel periods of the year.

Canadians Avoid US Travel, and Airlines Scramble

Air Canada is pivoting to fewer US flights, more to Europe

As many Canadians have recently decided not to travel to the United States, either declaring this in polls or by cancelling trips, resulting in a drop of some 13 percent by air, airlines are scrambling to meet domestic demand and fewer routes across the border.

For example, WestJet is adding more flights to "markets of strength", including Europe, and sun destinations like Mexico and Cuba.

Air Canada says as of mid-March, transborder bookings were down about 10 percent for the next six months. As a result the airline is adjusting some of its US flights by using smaller aircraft and reducing frequencies of flights.

The Canadian airline has added a new route for summer, Montreal to Edinburgh, and increased the number of flights to Paris, Rome and Athens.

Meanwhile, Discover Airlines, owned by Lufthansa, will launch a Calgary-Munich route. 

Porter Airlines is also reducing its summer service to the US and shifting to domestic markets.

Mike Arnot, a spokesman for airline analytics firm Cirium says it's unusual to see such a significant dip in demand for Canada-US travel.

"It's a tough place for the airlines to be," he said.

Cirium analyses data from travel agencies and booking websites, and found summer bookings between major Canadian cities and popular US destinations dropped nearly 20 percent compared to last year.

But bookings for July between popular Canadian destinations increased by about 11 percent compared to 2024.

However, if people are still keen on traveling to the US, they might be able to take advantage of lower air fares, perhaps at the beginning of May, says aviation expert John Gradek.

And strangely, you can thank American President Donald Trump for that.

Picture of the Day: Sunset in the Skies

Watching the sun set over the clouds during our flight

When an airplane ride is about three hours I don't mind sitting in the window seat and admire the view outside.

Our Air Canada flight back to Vancouver was delayed by about half an hour so we didn't land until 4.20pm. 

While we were in the air above the clouds, the clouds, the sun began to set at the horizon we were at and there was a warm glow that gradually faded as we flew further north and became more pink and mauve.

Just magical.

Air Canada Flies to Singapore 2024

Flights to Singapore on Air Canada start in April 2024

A Singaporean friend posted on social media she was excited to discover Air Canada will be offering direct flights to Vancouver from April 2024.

The route will operate four times a week between Vancouver International Airport and Changi International Airport, marking Air Canada's return to Singapore after three decades.

Business class will have comfy seats for the flight

It will take almost 16 hours to get there (like flying Toronto to Hong Kong), and this flight will replace Singapore Airlines, as it will stop flying this route in October. 

That means there will be an almost six-month gap between services.

Nevertheless, surely this will be a popular (and profitable) route.

With Singapore emerging as the winner with its rivalry with Hong Kong post-Covid, the Lion City is fast becoming the Asian destination people want to travel to and do business in. 

Vice versa, Singaporeans don't have to fly to Hong Kong before transferring to another flight to their hometown. Win win.

Hopefully the ticket prices won't be as exorbitant as going to Hong Kong at the moment?

Picture of the Day: Lineup for Security at YVR

Down the hall and to the left to security

Why is Vancouver International Airport so busy?

Yes people are traveling again but to the point where the security line goes on forever?

We arrived at YVR at 6.35am (thank goodness the Uber driver was really early) and then there was a massive line for checking-in luggage. Luckily Air Canada staff were on hand to man the kiosks and she helped us print out the luggage tags and put them on our bags, which took less than five minutes.

Then we lined up to put our luggage on the conveyor belt, and then our oversized baggage at another conveyor belt that was relatively straight forward.

But then it was time to go through the security line and it not only came out the main door of the security room, but down the hallway and into the check-in area near the entrance of the airport.

That was at 6.55am.

So many people have early flights to Honolulu, Denver, Los Angeles, Chicago, Las Vegas... and those were only some of them before or at 9am.

The line did move, but it was a real test of patience just to finally inch our way into the security area. A woman in uniform waved us to follow her, thinking she would get us ahead of some people, but instead we were swabbed and placed back in the line -- far behind the people who were in front of us before.

People can jump the queue if they have Nexus card, or if they book for a time slot in advance online with YVR, but I have tried that and it is always booked up. 

Thank goodness our Uber driver was early so we had more than enough time to get through security and then US passport control in over an hour to have over half an hour to spare at the gate...