Travellers switched to Air Canada Rouge are seeing red
Two months ago, Tae Oum booked a regular Air Canada flight from Vancouver to Los Angeles.
He paid about $ 90 more than the cheapest fare available, hoping to use Aeroplan points to upgrade to an even higher seating category.
But when he arrived at the airport for the May 1 flight, he discovered the service had been switched to the airline’s lowcost Air Canada Rouge carrier, which offers about two to three inches less leg room — or pitch — than regular Air Canada economy seating.
“I was not happy,” said Oum, an aviation industry expert and professor at the University of B. C. Sauder School of Business. “The flight was fine but the gentleman beside me had real problems with the leg room and even for me — a short guy ( at five feet, seven inches) — it was pretty tight.”
The Canadian Transportation Agency is investigating nine complaints from people who booked mainline Air Canada flights but then got switched to Rouge, which was launched last summer and introduced to the Vancouver market this year.
Online consumer airline review site Skytrax contains several posts from passengers upset by having to fly the low- cost carrier and some even complain about having been “Rouged.”
In- flight entertainment on Rouge flights can only be accessed by passengers who bring their own laptops or Apple devices, or rent one for the flight. Customers can rent an iPad for $ 10 while complimentary iPads are available for passengers who pay for the premium service.
Oum said Air Canada might have sent him an email notifying him of the switch to Rouge before his scheduled May 1 departure, but he doesn’t regularly open emails from “commercial entities.”
In a statement, the airline said it tries to contact ticket holders on routes that have been transferred to Air Canada Rouge.
“We make every effort to contact customers who had already purchased tickets for Air Canada mainline flights in order to inform them about their upcoming Air Canada Rouge flight,” the airline said.
Oum understands the need for Air Canada to operate a low- cost carrier to better compete with other similar airlines in the market. But he questions the move to switch flights for customers who had booked tickets for regular Air Canada service.
“I don’t think they should change flights like that after they have sold tickets,” Oum said. “They have different classes of fares and people have certain expectations when they book … I think the airline should at least refund any fare differences and apologize for any confusion. I would at least like a credit toward a future flight.”
Air Canada said passengers who have been switched to Rouge and don’t want to use the airline can contact Air Canada reservations for a full refund.
“Any customers with feedback about their Air Canada Rouge flights are always welcome to contact Air Canada Customer Relations, who considers each case on an individual basis,” the airline’s statement said.
The airline said that since the launch of Rouge in July 2013, it has received “very few such concerns — less than one per cent of all Air Canada Rouge customers flown.”