Air Canada takes a stab at Porter's Toronto island airport monopoly

Strong advice to Porter Airline passengers: Do not stop flying with porter airlines no matter what. AC will try to push them out and if they succeed up will go your fares not to mention down will go your services. Be wise don't try to mend what isn't broken. You will only fly cheap for a short while with AC.

Glad to see that AC will be flying out of Billy Bishop. Porter is terrible when it comes to customer service. My flight left Ottawa and couldn't land at the island airport. The pilot attempted to land a couple of times and was unsuccessful. He later told us we would land in YYZ. After circling there, he came back on and said it was too busy and couldn't land there either. We had to go back to Ottawa. So we went back to Ottawa and Porter wouldn't put us in a hotel or on another flight. We had to wait another day at our expense. This is ridiculous. A waste of time and money. AC would have put us on the next flight since it has many more flights than Porter. I will never fly Porter again.

Pete, I gotta say that you get that kind of reaction and service from ALL airlines, I have used both AC and Porter and the service on Porter was way above anything I have EVER experienced from AC. I have flown AC to London, UK in the past and it ended up the plane went mechanical on the flight back, I was stuck In Heathrow overnight, nothing was given by AC except their usual excuses and NO HOTEL, no food vouchers, not even a courteous apology, just pi%$ed off flight staff and check in staff. If i get the choice, its always ANYONE else except AC. I regularly fly Porter and trueblue's comments ring true, AC will try to monopolise everything and then raise the roof on prices.

Hey AC - maybe you should focus on the routes you already have and make the at least comparable to everyone else before trying to expand to other routes and airports.

Air canada hires evil evil people and has evil evil rules. They will never get my money after what they did to me about 6 years ago, NEVER.

For all you AC haters... You cannot compare a tiny airline to a big operation like AC. There will be much more opportunities for error. In the end I prefer AC as they have made significant improvement in their customer service and offer much more flexibility in fares and in routes. Let's not forget the better planes, the frequent flyer program and I think better service.

Once you fly AC you never go with anyone else. Read the court case on how Porter got to the Island. Makes you wonder how an authority could be responsible for a monopoly?

Competition is always good and usually the consumer wins. So long as Ac honors their union affiliation, smooth flying.

All you SMS managers, instead of rushing off the plane, watch out your window how Porter works and you will change airlines rapidly.

yes its about time we get competetion

i love air canada

I agree with Ciaran. I choose any airline over AC when possible. Maybe you can't/shouldn't compare a small airline with a large one but you can compare AC with Continental, USAirways, or American. I have and usually do fly with those airlines and AC could take some lessons on customer service and common manners. In my experience AC's flight attendants have the most 'attitude' by far! It's more like 'must I serve you a coffee' or 'do I REALLY have to get you a blanket?'... 'Oooops I forgot'... rather than 'is there anything I can do to make your flight more enjoyable?' Or how about when you address an attendant in Enlglish and they reply 'en francais', not once but during the entire flight... I had gone as far as contacting AC asking about their language policy and low and behold... they don't have one. Don't have to deal with that on other airlines! As far as competition, wasn't it AC that bought then shut down Canadian Airlines, and what happened to our fares after that?
Greg, in Canada (and the rest of the English speaking world except the USA) we spell it 'honour' not 'honor'

I used to fly AC..but then along came West Jet and I said goodbye to AC.I live close to the US border 15 minutes away and Syracuse is a pleasant little drive were I catch all my flights to Fla and Europe why would anyone with half a brain fly AC outdated old decrepit attendants who are rude to the most and when someone speaks and or asks you a question in English You damn well answer back in English and not some damn French crap.I for one speak five fluent languages and I refuse to speak French to those arrogant attendants but I don't fly AC anymore that solved that problem.Wake up AC smell the damn roses

Fly long enough and you'll see the good and bad to ALL of the companies. WestJet is the only one I haven't personally experienced a downside to, but they're still limited to a lot of destinations.

But I have to stick up for AC a little on this. We went to Hawaii in April, and were flying out on early flight. At 2am the Email came through saying the flight was cancelled due to weather the night before (no plane flew in), so we were to take an earlier flight and connect to Vancouver. Even though I was still up, it was one time I didn't check my Email. So we showed up that morning, and there was confusion over what had happened. Eventually I called the AC call centre, and was basically told, "You can fly to Vancouver and stay at a hotel at your expense, or we'll put you on the same flight tomorrow morning." We didn't like losing a day of our vacation (I don't get many), so I talked to the lady at the desk, and a manager was nearby. Because the same situation (weather) might have happened the next morning, they flew us to Vancouver on a later flight, meals included, put us up at a hotel, and told us we could leave our return flight open-ended.

I was pleasantly surprised, because that was going overboard for service, especially since we'd gotten the cold shoulder from their call center. Just goes to show it's all who you talk to...

I haven't flown Porter personally, but I hear good things about them customer service-wise so far.

Air Canada from the Toronto Island Airport is hardly new. There was Air Ontario a wholly owned subsidiary of Air Canada who was the main carrier from the Island Airport to Ottawa, Montreal, and parts of the U.S. Air Ontario was re-branded to Air Canada Jazz. Nothing new for Air Canada, they are just revisiting new business opportunities. Besides, it opens a world of scheduled carriers if Air Canada departs from the Toronto Island Airport to Montreal or Ottawa. Air Canada actually has ticketing and baggage agreements with other international connecting airlines from both Montreal and Ottawa - Porter does not. In layman's terms, it's easier for the international business traveler who works and/or lives downtown to now connect internationally without perhaps having to go to Pearson. If executive "a" needs to go to Montreal and then London U.K he can without having to buy separate tickets and what is also quite important are the accumulation of Aeroplan points, especially for corporate travel. Service or not, executive travel is about convenience and saving time, and not always who has the nicest flight attendants or check in agent. Oddly I found Porter staff to be just as rude as Air Canada at times. Like any other people based service it depends on who you get, and they both have good and bad employees, service issues, and yes all airlines experience a mechanical issue from time to time.......that's why they have mechanics....to fix mechanical issues....

Porter is an excellent airline - in their niche. I have used them many times between Ottawa and Toronto City Centre (oops - Billy Bishop). I also use AC a great deal and consider them to be a pretty good airline. They are far superior to any airline I've used in the USA, and I've used them all. Any Canadian who bad mouths Air Canada should try flying in the USA. It's a horrible experience everywhere - dirty, packed airplanes, lousy service, missing baggage, late departures and arrivals. Air Canada and Canadian air travel is a relief in comparison.

In the Airline Industry no differnce then any other profession. Whether it be from a hamburger flipper to the heads of the Country. No profession is exempt. We have people that do a good job, one's that don't, one's that go that extra then the one's that just don't give a darn. Seems more so for the later for the service in this Country has gone down hill. Instead of a middle of the ropad we are off a graph the other way. In all when it comes to air travel for expense. Is still one of the best values for the dollar compared to wages do your homework.

Good old Air Canada. We had our own horror story on Air Canada. It took two days to go from Winnipeg to Ft. Meyers, when usually i day is sufficient. I suggested via e-mail to the Air Canada President of the day, that they should invest in hiring about 10 independent "travellers" who would not be identified to any Air Canada personell, but who would travel on any regular scheduled flights at any time. These people would monitor the total service package as provided on that particular flight.A confidential report would be presented to the correct people at Air Canada via a personal physical presentation. (This report must be given personally and followed up with the actual paperwork in support) Air Canada could then be in a better position to monitor their performance in Customer Service and fine-tune where necessary.
My observations as a professional human resources staffing manager is that Air Canada does not upgrade their hiring requirements with little emphasis on Customer Service competencies, or team competencies. They have too many "old school " employees who are poisoning the new recruits through intimidation or "It's not my job" attitudes.
Ironically, my daughter works at Air Canada and has the same thoughts as I do.
The bottom line given to me by the secretary of the president was "we win many awards as one of the top carriers of corporate passengers" Well guess what, it is the folks in the back who are filling the planes and catching all the flack from those air crew staffers that are working back there wishing they could be up front behind the curtains.
I have been there, and done that!

What a bunch of crock.I am so tired of reading about a bunch of spoilt (probably civil servants) or other arrogant Business Class travellers travelling on corporate expense accounts bad-mouthing Air Canada.
There are a lot of dedicated people at Air Canada who get up very early like 3/4 am every morning across this vast country of ours who like their job and do there best to accommadate your needs.Some of you people need to get a life and quit whining.I have nothing but praise for the
majority of Air Canada's employees.Working with the publiic is not always easy.

I totally agree with the statement from Ron posted on November 26th, 2010, working with the public is not always easy....people do their job as good and appropriate to their knowledge .... some people just don't understand what it takes to accommodate everyone at once ... these people should try it sometime! Air Canada is a good corporation and their employees are amazing .... take a good look in the mirror before making judgment towards anyone!