THE EDITOR, Sir:LAST WEEK there appeared in The Gleaner on two consecutive days, bad reports about Air Canada. (Brian Williams, Boo to Air Canada and Marcel Robinson's 'Displeased, Dissatisfied'). In the first case, the flight was delayed because of irreparable landing gears, there was no reason quoted for the delay in the second instance.
In 1999, my younger daughter left Jamaica to study in Canada. Since then, I have entered Canada 20 times on Air Canada (40 individual flights, if one included the return leg). As my daughter is not fond of the winter months, my trips tend to be clustered between November and March.
Often, in the winter months, the flights are delayed 20 or 30 minutes. Perhaps this may be because of weather. Even if the weather appears fine in Toronto, the designated aircraft may be coming in from northern Manitoba, or even as nearby as Quebec and therefore are delayed.
However, in all of these instances when I am travelling, they arrived in Kingston at the appointed hour I nearly always end up waiting on my regular JUTA driver.
Point I make is, every airline will experience unexpected delays they do not purposely set out to leave late. The only time in my experience that Air Canada was leaving three hours late from Jamaica, a representative from there called my home and left a message with the helper. I might add I have no friend or family employed to Air Canada.
I have been in Canada (December 2002), and the whole province ran out of de-icing fluid for the aircraft, not just Air Canada it affected every carrier. Many flights were delayed or cancelled over that three-day period. I was not aware of any Canadians complaining.
In the case of the disabled aircraft, I would rather arrive late than not at all. No airline should be faulted for ensuring the safety of its passengers.
So, Air Jamaica will start later this year. I will still remain with Air Canada. Their frequent flier miles, though not as 'generous,' have no time limit and can be used on at least 10 other airlines all over the world. My only hope is that some competition may cause the fares to drop somewhat.
The fare for the Toronto-San Francisco return is less, though a significantly longer distance (I recently did that trip, so this is from experience), as is the fare Toronto-London return. I can only guess that the reason is there is not a monopoly on these routes.
I am, etc.,
JUDITH ROSE-SPENCER
Kingston 6
