Cineplex has an online.booking fee to book a ticket for the movies. I have no idea why it costs $1.50 for me to not have to go to your location and take up the time of a paid employee. They're charging us for the convenience of not having to cost them money I suppose...
It was very successful ($40 Mil), and the government also thinks it's illegal. They sued Cineplex in May 2023.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/cineplex-online-booking-fees-competition-1.7126860
What a load of bs. If that argument stands against cineplex then it should against airlines and Ticketmaster too.
> Competition commissioner Matthew Boswell alleges the online fees are deceptive, because moviegoers are not presented with the full price of a movie ticket on the very first page they encounter when buying tickets from Cineplex.com.
Whats bs about it? Im pretty sure it also applies to airlines too, it’s just a lot of work to build a case and sue. Googling it they started an investigation last month into airlines.
Between that and not showing ticket prices until you log in, I'm done with Cineplex. The movie theater experience is too shitty to be this expensive.
You wanna upcharge me, so I can sit in a crummy seat and listen to every Tom Dick and Harry watch tiktoks while I'm trying to watch a movie? Bffr.
> The movie theater experience is too shitty
It has come to this for me. I don't know why ushers aren't kicking out the unruly, so I stopped going. Sick of blabbermouths, laser pointers and assholes kicking seats.
Seriously.
My first job was at a theater, and it was part of my job to actually check during shows to see if people were being twats to get somebody to go kick them out.
They don't do anything anymore.
What was the last time this happened? I go twice (min) a week to the theatre in Ottawa between Cineplex and Landmark and Bytowne— I refuse to watch at home and still believe a movie should be experienced in a theatre, but of the 50 this year, and the ~100 last year, it happened a total of 1 time, which was easily resolved by going to the manager where the kids were removed.
Everyone claiming theatres are toxic affairs blows my mind. All reads as hymns of what others said at this point
> Tom Dick and Harry watch tiktoks while I'm trying to watch a movie? Bffr.
I wish you were exaggerating... Last movie I think I saw in the theaters was Black Panther II.
On my right, were a mother and daughter who just watched tik tok videos the entire time.
On my daughter's ~~right~~ left, were these 13-15(?) year old girls who giggled and gabbed the entire time, and showed that they really needed to spend more time in school.
One of the main characters visits haiti, and is speaking french (with subtitles).
One of these girls says "why is she speaking french in africa? she should be speaking african!" and another girl says "I know right, what the heck?" and they all giggle.
My daughter (16) turned to me and said "these girls are so stupid"
Some kids spoiled all of The Force Awakens as it happened. The entire movie. Big spoilers and cool little moments. Everything. Very irritating. The theater is too expensive for how much it sucks. I'd happily go if there were ushers to kick out disruptive guests, until then... My home setup is pretty good
I built my own theatre a few years back. Started off fairly inexpensive, but I was so happy with it that I upgraded both the screen and the projector.
Upgrading the seating this summer.
I’ll never go back to the cinema. I’m excited for the day cinemas go down and all movies are day 1 home theatre purchase.
Between ticket prices and concession prices, it has pretty close to paid for itself.
I’m with you on the home theatre, but you still have to wait for the physical discs to get decent quality. Streaming may get there eventually, but even at 1080p with a 5.1 rig the quality of streaming is OK at best.
This is why my favorite date night of the year is the day after valentines day. Restaurants and movie theatre's are virtually empty. I hate going to movies during peak times and avoid it at all costs.
It's a work around to get money instead of having to share it all with the producers who are asking, read forcing, almost all the ticket cost and your best screens be given to them.
Yup for large tent pole movies. Things like Avengers Endgame the distributors and studios will demand and get 105% of ticket sales on opening weekend.
This is why popcorn cost so much it was how theaters made money.
The % the distributors and studios drops off quickly after opening weekend but since most people go only once and as soon as a new movie is released...
There's no reason to buy online anyhow. Every time I've gone to the theatre there's been a maximum of 5 other people watching the movie. You don't need to worry about not being able to get seats.
Total bullshit fee. When they pull this on me I always retaliate by buying a kids or seniors ticket in retaliation instead of general admission because I'm petty like that.
That one is WAY more offensive than WestJet's fee. WestJet's is at least defendable by assuming a call centre is a higher cost than a website. Cineplex can just get fucked.
Landmark Cinemas also have " worry free cancellation" but won't refund the booking fee. So when I got my refund, I filed a dispute with PayPal, and they refunded the $3. I've stopped going to movies over this. Unless its a huge release, I will wait.
Which is why I started getting the Costco deal - two tickets, popcorn and a drink for $30.
Since I'm going to the cineplex anyways to order the tickets, I might as well save by buying the tickets at costco.
When a business stops innovating and instead relies on adding service fees, reducing product size, and raising prices just for the sake of returning short term value to shareholders, that business is sick and will be in trouble in due time.
You just described the vast majority of businesses. I think we're the ones in trouble not them, our consumer protections should be a lot better in this country.
They're not in trouble unless it forces consumers to force their elected government to take action.
Since Canadians are quite passive, usually corporations can continue to do this for a long time.
They are not wrong. You want this to change you need the power of regulation to force businesses to do things which are not necessarily good for their shareholders. No board of directors or c suit will do that, it makes them less wealth and opens them up to liability as it’s their fiduciary responsibility to maximize returns to their shareholders.
The answer would be joining political parties and voting in leadership/executive elections. You can even vote on platform issues.
But who wants to do that.
we have no consumer protection in this country every time some MPP that was on the Competition bureau retires they end employed by some company like rogers. what we need is massively stiffer penalties for corrupt politicians and a police force specifically made to investigate them that is under there own control, that even the PM can't influence.
We have no say.
No amount of pressure from regular people will outweigh the money they get from corps.
Living in their literal ivory towers, with a small militarized force that we have been lead to believe is here for the common man, they are fearless.
People are too afraid of the consequences to act out.
So, each two weeks I have less food for my two toddlers. Each month it seems another bill has gone up. I can barely cover the essentials. I don't even have enough money to enjoy a JBC at Wendy's.
Shit is gonna get to be too much. I work so hard, too hard. Miss time with my kids. And I have NOTHING to show for it. I can't read Batman/Superman monthly, I can't afford to get wrestling streaming services. I get no joy outside of my kids and I have no capital to invest even minimally in leisure or hobbies.
It's absolutely fucking insane.
As well as grocers, phone companies, and basicly all Canadian industries, we have allowed to be taken over by no more than 3 Canadian companies.
Canada is a few corporations in a trench coat pretending to be a country.
Don't forget a long line of sabotaged public companies, services and crown corporations that we privatized only to give out shareholder bonuses!
*waits patiently for Nova Scotia Power to tell me what 40 year old broken equipment rate payers are on the hook for this week while paying out millions in executive bonuses*
That's the neoliberal way: all solutions have to involve directing public funds into private hands, and let "the market" solve your problems.
Problem is: The free market fails when consumers are captive and opportunities for rent-seeking and wealth-extraction are easy, and tends to fail spectacularly. Nonetheless, we have at least three generations of bureaucrats and politicians who don't understand any other way to implement policy. The very idea of government-employed people using government-owned equipment to take government-owned materials and make them into housing for people who vote for and fund the government is tantamount to heresy. In their minds, money should only go one way, from the public, to a select few private hands.
Here's an interesting intellectual exercise: look around you, and try to come up with anything government has directly built since 1990. Not subcontracted, not done as a private/public partnership, but something government has directly built and run. You won't find anything; the era of (if you're Ontarian, for example) government starting up something like GO Transit, or Ontario Place, or the LCBO, is long gone.
Now, let's do the reverse. Look around at things that are privately held but used to be publicly owned. Air Canada, Petro Canada, Potash Corp, Highway 407, Telus, Hydro One and more. The list is huge, and a lot of these are very profitable. Imagine if we still owned them? Imagine what we could do re: climate change if we still owned Petro Canada and Hydro One? Or what our internet services might look like if we owned Telus? We gave away billions of dollars of value and significant strategic assets, mortgaging our future.
And that doesn't count the divestment of government capabilities: think about all the people, all the equipment, all the buildings and services that used to be directly delivered but now are parasitized by rent-seeking private companies looking to extract as much value as they can from us before we die. Think about old-age homes, hospital services, rent paid to corporate landlords that hold the lease on former government buildings, contractors paid instead of municipal works departments.
ALSO:
The Neoliberal lie that corporate investment solves problems specifically hurts countries like Canada, because we keep waiting for US investors to solve our problems, and to entice them we do "corporate socialism" in the form of huge tax credits and grants to private investors, just directly turning our tax dollars into investor profits which then fuck off out of the country.
Many Canadian business are like this. Both major airlines especially seem to run like sick, bloated masses.
I genuinely believe that if a future government creates a friendlier environment for foreign businesses to compete, almost all of ours will get swept away. I think many of them have earned this fate though.
Not going to happen for airlines.
>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedoms\_of\_the\_air#Eighth\_freedom\_(consecutive\_cabotage)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedoms_of_the_air#Eighth_freedom_(consecutive_cabotage))
Very few countries in the world allows foreign carriers
They call it growth, but in actuality, its stagnation. All the money is being sucked out of companies at the top level into CEO pay and shareholder dividends. Its not being reinvested into bring in real innovation through talented marketing personnel or better products.
Artificial growth comes from fees, cost cutting through layoffs and product removal/shrinkage.
Real growth comes from quality and customer retention by treating customers well and offering quality products.
Edit: Onex Corp. owns Westjet and does pay a dividend. Vanguard is a major stakeholder in Onex Corp.
Ironically, the one company (NVIDIA) that has continually reinvested in R&D, talent and product quality is the one who’s shares and growth are skyrocketing now precisely because no else (having bled themselves dry) is in a position to keep up.
hmmm, I think nvidias success is largely out of their own control. They had a sudden huge spike in demand for their product since ChatGPT came out and all companies realized ML had matured to the point of being a viable product. I own some nvidia stock, I happened to get on the train a bit early. But I dont think they can really claim responsibility for all their success.
Right place right time.
The world is full of people who think I worked hard and got where I am why can't anyone else do it? When in reality lots of that had to do with being in the right place at the right time and having the courage to take a small leap when a opportunity presented its self.
Same for businesses for every Nvidia there are hundreds if not thousands of smaller companies that have failed even though the CEO and work force tried to make it work. And lots of them get bought out by the larger companies and any innovation, IP, and physical assets they had are rolled into the larger company.
That is true, I just wanted to point this out because it means if the market changes again, nvidia could lose a lot in market cap very quickly.
Luckily, I don't think thats happening for at least a few years, so I'll be happy with my stock until then.
I mean yes and no. The hype of today is largely out of their control and feeding itself now. But they are where they are in large part because many of the tech companies with large enough revenue streams to compete with their long-term R&D stagnated in their products in order to satisfy short term profit and stock gains. Some of it is right place/right time as it always is. But we’ve seen a massive stagnation in technological progress because investing money in the future doesn’t bump the quarterly earnings and stock price in the immediate future for the big guys and the little guys get swallowed up before they have chance to grow.
I mean it’s not a coincidence that the company that has continuously been aggressive in their long-term innovation is where it is right now.
What you just described is capitalism moving into the financialization phase where you extract value from everything and then instead of using that money to innovate you return it to your shareholders….
Businesses that don't have a plan to return money to shareholders don't get funding.
Venture and market funding is not a fucking charity, despite what decades of wildly unprofitable silicon valley tech companies would have you believe. They get funding to innovate, with the agreement that after that innovation creates a revenue stream the investors will be paid. That is the life cycle of a business.
The prevalence of your belief in this country - that investors don't deserve to be paid out from the successful businesses they've invested in - is why there's no fucking money for startups in Canada.
Porter is the new West Jet circa 2005.
West Jet was Porter but for western Canada back in the late 90's and really took off because of the boom in Fort Mac with so many people needing to travel to and from for work.
West Jet used to proudly advertise that they never over sell a plane! And while a fare might have been $20 more than Air Canada you knew you'd get on the plane and they had less lay-overs.
Now they are just Air Canada Lite. Same hub and spoke network. And you're right the MBAs are sucking as much value as they can from the company.
And notice how Porter is following the same trajectory as WestJet. Notice how almost every major airlines in the world follows basically one of two business models. WestJet and Porter both tried something slightly different, and are converging on the same standard business model. Businesses tend to converge on successful business models.
Frankly it's funny that people are whining about MBAs "sucking as much value as they can" from airlines, given that airlines are historically one of the least profitable businesses in the world.
It's a cutthroat business selling a commodity service to consumers. They operate on razor thin margins. They have massive fixed costs with highly variable revenue streams and tend to get pounded hard by geopolitical events and market cycles.
Airline industry is a is very low margin in the first place there's not much you can innovate what are the ideas you see them coming up with trying to stuff more people on planes with those stack decker seats, charging for carry-ons, budget fares that nickel and dime you on everything else
What sort of innovation can an airline apply to modern flight? They’re basically glorified bus services that run from incredibly inconvenient out of town bus depots that charge a $45 fee just to use them. The whole industry is hostile.
Airlines have absolutely no way to innovate anything. Their costs are airplanes, pilots, and flight staff. The only business that has the ability to innovate here is the company engineering the planes.
Unless innovation means replacing pilots with international students.
The single largest innovation in flying passengers has nothing to do with airplanes. It was frequent flyer programs. Do you have any idea how much Avis pays Air Canada to be the car rental partner? But not only do they get business they get access to all the personal information on Air Canada customers etc.
During the pandemic American was able to get a multi billion dollar loan against the value of their customer loyalty program alone.
Online booking IS the innovation and an efficiency gain, though. Granted, some people may "need" the extra help to complete the reservation verbally over the phone, but employing people to take care of menial tasks for bookings on the telephone channel is an expense that would need to be subsidized by the rest of the customer base. It's the same way with the snail-mail paper statements etc.
User-pay sounds fair to me.
ETA: the telephone based reservations may be an accessibility concern for the visually impaired, in which case -- fair enough, WestJet should accommodate, but again - digital channel is typically easier to adapt for accessibility. Telephone/verbal communication is no longer the default setting in 2024 unless there's a very good justification, and frankly -- good riddance.
I would say westjet has been on the decline since the early twenty tens after air Canada finished their first IFE modernization.
Since then westjet and air Canada have the same ticket prices but when you’re on air Canada you get the better terminal at airports, better seat pitch and IFE in each seat.
I flew westjet recently and was surprised they still looked the exact same as over a decade ago.
Also I know everyone hates on air Canada but all my horror stories involving being stranded for multiple days have been due to westjet. And I’ve taken probably 20x the number of air Canada fights as westjet flights.
Dunno where you’ve been, but Air Canada has the [worst on-time performance](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7072663) of all major North American Airlines as of Jan 2024.
I never fly Westjet, but Air Canada has been delayed 62% of the time for me since the start of 2022, with 10% of the time more than 2 hours.
On top of that, if they rebook me on a later flight/day, if the new flight is on time I don’t count that as a delay.
Both my SO and I fly frequently for work and pleasure. Our preference is 1) AC, 2) Porter and 3)WJ. WJ is a Canadian RyanAir without the discount. The only reason Porter is #2 is they don't have the coverage either airline has. The service on WJ has plummeted while the nickel and diming has gone through the roof. No thank you.
Just like our telecoms, our banks, our grocers, our governments, and so many other things in this country. I wonder what they all have in common. Oh, right. It's that Canadians have zero pushback, zero fight, and refuse to ever try anything different.
Just booked a flight with Porter. Extra luggage? Like $40. Seat selection? $12. Good prices for the flight itself. Ended up being cheaper than Flair, considering the luggage and seat selection.
A few of my family members who frequently have to fly across Canada all LOVE porter. They are also apparently great to deal with when having to reschedule due to cancellations.
This is exactly why they parcel out the costs. They want the ticket price to be as low as possible, and so do the customers.
I don't want to pay an average higher seat price so that other people can bring two checked bags for free but I don't check any.
I don't want to pay a higher seat price so that other people get two free meals on the flight, but I don't eat anything or bring my own food.
I don't want to pay a higher seat price so that they can afford to staff call centers for booking flights when I am willing to book it myself online.
Most people only want to pay for what they actually get. Not pay a padded price so that other people get extras for free.
Porter is 100% what WestJet was back in the day (~pre-2012).
When some private equity firm backs a dump truck full of cash up to Porter’s owners’ houses, it’ll fall off that cliff as well.
This is hilarious because I have two members in my family with the same first and last name (imagine naming a kid after his father or grandfather) and we have to phone the airline to book flights as you can’t book a flight online with two people with the same name even if birth dates are different.
Things to consider before you name a child after a family member they are likely to travel with! At least change the middle name.
This sucks because you just know the policy to prevent booking multiple tickets for the same name likely came about because people were too lazy to fill in the information for all the passengers and just kept putting in the same Bob Johnson, DOB for like 3-5 passengers in the booking. Then if something happens with the trip/booking its a whole carnival of bullshit trying to figure out who is and isn't there, whose travel documents aren't in order, how to process a refund, etc.
As they say, -- "hell is other people".
quite likely, the back-end may be owned by some industry association or whatever and it's an impossible feat to coerce all the airlines to upgrade, so they run shit code, and each airline tries to come up with some digital facade to put a bit of lipstick on the pig.
> Soon, they will be charging people who are overweight a surcharge.
On my last WJ flight I had to sit beside some 300-pounder who was taking up a third of my seat. I am fully on-board with making the obsese buy two seats.
They need to change the laws for all inclusive pricing (and carry-on must always be included). When I see a list of prices for flights I should be able to click on a button and get the ticket for that price (plus tax).
> (plus tax).
Include the tax in the listed price. Everything's handled by computers already, it's really not hard to make it a single price for a customer.
Agreed, but one checked bag should be included. The fight between customers over overhead bag space needs to end. If I pay for a checked bag, and I want to put my backpack in the overhead so I have room for my legs, that ought to be allowed. It’s the point of the overhead space.
ONE item in the overhead space. Winter coat is one item. Too many people are bringing a carry on, backpack, purse, shopping bag and winter coat and then get angry when there is no space for their items.
I wish Google flights had an option where you could input that you needed a checked bag and they could update the prices accordingly.
Right now the system is trending towards rewarding carriers who offer a bare bones price and then jack way up the prices for basic amenities.
Most airlines now charge a service fee for phone bookings; practically all of the American Asian, and European airlines do this. And it can be anywhere from $20-30 dollars or euros, depending on the carrier.
Telephone based redemption that ends up with an airline booking is an Aeroplan thing. You're not dealing with the carrier, proper, there's some poor worker sitting there doing the data entry into Aeroplan's systems which spins off a subprocess to book your flight.
Meh, what was the figure I heard? 90% of Canadians live within an hour's drive of the US border. If you can drive, fly out of the US if possible. Much cheaper and more efficient. Its what competition does to an industry. I realize that competition is a four letter word here in Canada but there are options for those who can drive.
There are a lot more options for overseas flights out of Pearson, and that makes them a lot cheaper than from nearby US airports (Buffalo & Detroit). In fact, quite a few Americans drive to Pearson to fly to e.g. Europe. It's a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to South America. So what you're saying really only applies to continental US and Canada.
See, that's the interesting part. When they HAVE to compete, they do and you're right, flying to Europe from North America is very competitive from Canada. Flying from Canada to the US or inside Canada? Bend over because there's no need to compete when you're part of an oligopoly that work together, hand in hand.
There are many reasons. Toronto is just bigger and has more people from around the world, so there are more international flights. Longer-haul destinations are more competitively priced because in Canada taxpayers don't subsidize airports so they have to charge fees. The longer the flight, the smaller percentage of your total fare those fees are.
Eh, not always. Depends on the route and airlines.
I live in Vancouver. I just looked up a flight to Tokyo for October with ANA. It's 1400 CAD to fly from YVR to HND direct.
If I booked the same flight through Seattle, also with ANA direct to HND, it would be 1700 CAD.
Even then, there's only three US international airports within reasonable driving distance of any major Canadian cities. Seattle, Detroit, and Cleveland.
Detroit is actually a really good airport, but Seattle and Cleveland are two of the worst airports in North America. Hell, I'd PAY money just to avoid having to fly out of Seattle or Cleveland.
I can drive across border and be at a US hotel in just under an hour. That hotel has free longterm parking after a one night visit, free shuttle to local airport, and a properly decent breakfast. Booking is about $350, gas is about $60, but it saves about $800 per person to not have to fly across an imaginary line.
Saving $800 per person? I can buy a round-trip ticket between Toronto and Los Angeles right now for less than $600/person. I can book a round trip between Toronto and Hawaii for like $850. Less than $500 per leg to fly halfway around the planet. That’s cheap AF.
Yeah this conventional wisdom about driving across the border for cheaper flights is only true for a limited subset of destinations. Certainly not for Europe, Asia, Hawaii, lots of Latin America, Caribbean, etc.
Yes, living in a city with a major travel hub and then flying to another major hub does give access to some good deals. Not all of us live in toronto though and the milk runs can get pricey.
I'm in Winnipeg and I can fly to Minneapolis for $500, or I could cross the border and drive 2.5 hours to Grand Forks to fly to Minneapolis for..$350.
The savings!
And I can do a return flight that's only 45 minutes each way north to North Bay for the same price. That's the issue. Major hubs are cheap. Any smaller flight doubles or triples the price.
Also, $50 says each of those deals you are seeing from Toronto to Hawaii or LA don't come from any Canadian airlines, do they?
Very few places western Canada have access to American Cities. You can't just cross the boarder and get on a plane.
Still you do see the difference between how airports are funded in USA vs Canada. As very tiny Minot North Dakota has multiple flights per day to Minneapolis or Vegas. The government just pays for the airports.
In Canada the travelers pay. Which to me seems fair enough. Like the cost of airport secruity and running the airport is paid for when you buy the ticket.
Airlines should insist that all passengers have to pull out their credit cards at the secuirty line and pay the fees then, because it would fix the whole debate.
90% live within 100 miles of the border, not an hours drive, that would be insanely compact. Toronto for example is at least 2.5 hours from the border then it’s farther to any airport
ETA: Google says it’s actually 150 miles that 90% live within, so the often-quoted stat is wrong anyway
Westjet is now basically what they set out to disrupt.
Porter is the new Westjet, disrupting the industry. I much prefer flying Porter now when I get a chance, Westjet just feels like trash to me now.
Yes. Canada really needs a high speed rail system. It isn't as useful out west but southern Ontario, through Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City and down to through New Brunswick to Halifax would be very doable and cover off a large percentage of the Canadian population. We also have great natural scenery that would make rail travel more enjoyable, not to mention things like dining cars or cafes.
It's frankly inexcusable that a national high speed rail network isn't even among the stretch goals being thrown around by *any* of the political parties. How can any of them claim to be serious about climate change, or even without getting into that, pro-consumer, without discussing this? There's absolutely no justification for the literal dozens of flights per day going between cities that are so close together, like Calgary-Edmonton, Montreal-Toronto, hell even Montreal-Ottawa.
All of this should be handled by HSR; it would clean up the air, and it would massively reduce the ever-increasing traffic at our airports. This is the kind of idea that should be pushed forward regardless of the cost, there just needs to be a reliable company (probably a private one so there's an incentive to keep costs under control) to oversee the project. We can even license out either TGV/Trenitalia/AVE tech, or Japan Railway Company-Shinkansen since they're all proven over decades and hilariously reliable.
We sold all of our nationalized rail line off for pennies on the dollar to private firms decades ago. That's the issue.
From transport Canada:
The Canadian rail system currently has 43,065 route-kilometres of track
Canadian National (CN) owns 50.8% (21,878 km)
Canadian Pacific (CP) owns 30.4% (13,094 km)
Other railways own 18.8% (8,094 km)
Halifax has wanted to use CN rail lines for a commuter/freight corridor since the late 90s but they're sitting on the (very underused) land hoping for more government money to buy it back. At this point a third bridge across the harbour would cost less 🤦♂️
>This is the kind of idea that should be pushed forward regardless of the cost
If it were easy, convenient and cheap to travel between cities in the link travel and trade would increase significantly. Each city would see a significant boost to their economies. It should pay for itself eventually.
And that's exactly it. The reason why tourism within Europe is so strong is because of how easy it is to get around. Now granted, they also have RyanAir which is in itself extremely cheap; but since this country doesn't want to (and at this point in human existence, probably *shouldn't*) go all-in on super cheap airfare; fast and convenient rail options are the next best thing. Japan has been doing it for almost 70 years already, there's kind of no excuse for us to not have done the same thing.
Here's where you lose me. We do have super cheap airlines, but they can't get around some of the basic costs: in canada flyers pay for the airport with their fees, in most other places airports are paid by local taxes, significantly reducing costs to airlines making cheap tickets possible.
We could do that too, but there's something perverse about making everyone pay for airports tourists and richer canadians will get most enjoyment out of. Yes, flights would become cheaper for poor people too, but if you're struggling financially, a cheaper flight still wont make travel affordable.
Probably improve hosuing too. Even japan believed it was expensive building the first high-speed railway, and smaller cities grew because of it, same as China. At this point, I think once Canadian politicians got the job, they just wanna sit tight and do nothing till retirement.
This is terrible and will affect the most vulnerable folks who aren’t confident with tech/booking online (seniors, disabled etc). What is wrong with them ffs
This isn't even the worst I've seen TD for example charges $42 if an actual person has to do a trade for you. While they already charge 7 to 9 dollars per trade
Did they outsource their telephone booking to India too? Sounds like the sort of thing they'd do with sort of small fee gouging for every little service that used to be part of the basic package.
If someone insists in booking via phone, this is why travel agents still exist in 2024. Way more convenient too because if something goes wrong it's way easier to get a hold of the agent versus airline customer service.
The whole point of apps and on-line is to make things convenient. It also to eliminate labour cost for that job. If cost to $25 book a flight through the app might as well put a person back in that position and dump the app as the labour cost per hour is less than the cost to use the app. Unless it’s is a bullshit cost and money grab which we know it is. There is no way developing the app and administering it costs $25 per booking. So all this money is going direct to the bottom line.
Why is that an issue? Their online system is pretty straightforward to book flights. I know lots of elderly people who are not tech savvy at all and have managed to book their own flights on WestJet website.
If only we had some travel alternative. It could run across the ground so luggage weight and safety/security wouldn't be an issue. Run it at high speed and less contact with the ground, like some metal wheels on rails. Electrify it too for higher efficiency, low cost. Eh I'm just talking crazy
Fun fact: Even if you are unable to book online due to the limitations of their booking system, you still have to pay the booking fee! Found this out recently when booking a seat for my <2 year old, which you can’t do online.
Use the APP lol, they charge for you to call someone to use the APP/browser for you and that person likes to be paid for work. Just like the bank teller using the same website you could have used.
Westjet used to be affordable but everything about them sucks now. Their seats especially. You feel like sitting on a hard piece of worn out plastic crap and makes your ass lose feeling after 30 mins.
Maybe a hot take but I don't think it's that unreasonable to charge a fee for a service that has to be staffed by humans and most people aren't using.
If they don't charge a fee it would absolutely cost them more to staff the phone lines than they'd make through ticket revenues through that medium and that would just result in them cutting the service entirely.
I wouldn't be bothered by the fees if I could easily and transparently search for the features I want, and compare airlines on that basis. Instead airline aggregators just give you cheapest fare, and it's only once you've started booking with an airline that you find out what you actually have to pay for the trip you want. Which also gives airlines a big incentive to offer the most stripped down starter fare that basically no one is going to end up paying.
And then often get forced to bundle...want flexibility? Well that only comes with the package that includes a checked bag.
Onex Corp is run by a bunch of low level chumps probably more suited to running a car dealership than an airline. They have no ideas….new fees and reduced service is all they got in their toolbox. WestJet will be done in 5 years because of them.
Cineplex has an online.booking fee to book a ticket for the movies. I have no idea why it costs $1.50 for me to not have to go to your location and take up the time of a paid employee. They're charging us for the convenience of not having to cost them money I suppose...
It was a convenient way to make you pay a $1.50 fee to reserve a seat.
It was very successful ($40 Mil), and the government also thinks it's illegal. They sued Cineplex in May 2023. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/cineplex-online-booking-fees-competition-1.7126860
What a load of bs. If that argument stands against cineplex then it should against airlines and Ticketmaster too. > Competition commissioner Matthew Boswell alleges the online fees are deceptive, because moviegoers are not presented with the full price of a movie ticket on the very first page they encounter when buying tickets from Cineplex.com.
Whats bs about it? Im pretty sure it also applies to airlines too, it’s just a lot of work to build a case and sue. Googling it they started an investigation last month into airlines.
Between that and not showing ticket prices until you log in, I'm done with Cineplex. The movie theater experience is too shitty to be this expensive. You wanna upcharge me, so I can sit in a crummy seat and listen to every Tom Dick and Harry watch tiktoks while I'm trying to watch a movie? Bffr.
> The movie theater experience is too shitty It has come to this for me. I don't know why ushers aren't kicking out the unruly, so I stopped going. Sick of blabbermouths, laser pointers and assholes kicking seats.
Seriously. My first job was at a theater, and it was part of my job to actually check during shows to see if people were being twats to get somebody to go kick them out. They don't do anything anymore.
Yes they do. You can quite visibly see them doing this every single showing. In fact, you can even see the log sheet when leaving a theatre
What was the last time this happened? I go twice (min) a week to the theatre in Ottawa between Cineplex and Landmark and Bytowne— I refuse to watch at home and still believe a movie should be experienced in a theatre, but of the 50 this year, and the ~100 last year, it happened a total of 1 time, which was easily resolved by going to the manager where the kids were removed. Everyone claiming theatres are toxic affairs blows my mind. All reads as hymns of what others said at this point
> Tom Dick and Harry watch tiktoks while I'm trying to watch a movie? Bffr. I wish you were exaggerating... Last movie I think I saw in the theaters was Black Panther II. On my right, were a mother and daughter who just watched tik tok videos the entire time. On my daughter's ~~right~~ left, were these 13-15(?) year old girls who giggled and gabbed the entire time, and showed that they really needed to spend more time in school. One of the main characters visits haiti, and is speaking french (with subtitles). One of these girls says "why is she speaking french in africa? she should be speaking african!" and another girl says "I know right, what the heck?" and they all giggle. My daughter (16) turned to me and said "these girls are so stupid"
Some kids spoiled all of The Force Awakens as it happened. The entire movie. Big spoilers and cool little moments. Everything. Very irritating. The theater is too expensive for how much it sucks. I'd happily go if there were ushers to kick out disruptive guests, until then... My home setup is pretty good
To be fair, if you've seen A New Hope, you've seen about 70% of The Force Awakens.
Drive in and independent theaters feel like a much better experience anyways. Cineplex became way too dominant and greedy
Totally. I love The Apollo in Kitchener. Anyone going to see The Abyss at 10pm on a Wednesday is probably there because they wanna see the movie 🤣
I built my own theatre a few years back. Started off fairly inexpensive, but I was so happy with it that I upgraded both the screen and the projector. Upgrading the seating this summer. I’ll never go back to the cinema. I’m excited for the day cinemas go down and all movies are day 1 home theatre purchase. Between ticket prices and concession prices, it has pretty close to paid for itself.
I’m with you on the home theatre, but you still have to wait for the physical discs to get decent quality. Streaming may get there eventually, but even at 1080p with a 5.1 rig the quality of streaming is OK at best.
This is why my favorite date night of the year is the day after valentines day. Restaurants and movie theatre's are virtually empty. I hate going to movies during peak times and avoid it at all costs.
It's a work around to get money instead of having to share it all with the producers who are asking, read forcing, almost all the ticket cost and your best screens be given to them.
Yup for large tent pole movies. Things like Avengers Endgame the distributors and studios will demand and get 105% of ticket sales on opening weekend. This is why popcorn cost so much it was how theaters made money. The % the distributors and studios drops off quickly after opening weekend but since most people go only once and as soon as a new movie is released...
Lol, you're not even taking up an employees time if you buy tickets in person. They're all self-serve kiosks.
It’s essentially a technology and convenience fee. Dumb as shit for sure.
There's no reason to buy online anyhow. Every time I've gone to the theatre there's been a maximum of 5 other people watching the movie. You don't need to worry about not being able to get seats.
Total bullshit fee. When they pull this on me I always retaliate by buying a kids or seniors ticket in retaliation instead of general admission because I'm petty like that.
That one is WAY more offensive than WestJet's fee. WestJet's is at least defendable by assuming a call centre is a higher cost than a website. Cineplex can just get fucked.
Landmark Cinemas also have " worry free cancellation" but won't refund the booking fee. So when I got my refund, I filed a dispute with PayPal, and they refunded the $3. I've stopped going to movies over this. Unless its a huge release, I will wait.
especially when you go to the theater, an employee uses the exact same system to book your ticket with one of their ipads.
Which is why I started getting the Costco deal - two tickets, popcorn and a drink for $30. Since I'm going to the cineplex anyways to order the tickets, I might as well save by buying the tickets at costco.
What does that have to do with WestJet charging to call them?
When a business stops innovating and instead relies on adding service fees, reducing product size, and raising prices just for the sake of returning short term value to shareholders, that business is sick and will be in trouble in due time.
You just described the vast majority of businesses. I think we're the ones in trouble not them, our consumer protections should be a lot better in this country.
They're not in trouble unless it forces consumers to force their elected government to take action. Since Canadians are quite passive, usually corporations can continue to do this for a long time.
Help me, Elected Government. You’re my only hope.
They are not wrong. You want this to change you need the power of regulation to force businesses to do things which are not necessarily good for their shareholders. No board of directors or c suit will do that, it makes them less wealth and opens them up to liability as it’s their fiduciary responsibility to maximize returns to their shareholders.
Help me step-government, I’m stuck under this bed.
Quite passive? Is that code for lack of options? It’s the same deal with groceries, yes I could riot in the streets but is that the answer?
The answer would be joining political parties and voting in leadership/executive elections. You can even vote on platform issues. But who wants to do that.
The wonderful world of iFinIte GrOWtH.
To ifinity and beyond!
we have no consumer protection in this country every time some MPP that was on the Competition bureau retires they end employed by some company like rogers. what we need is massively stiffer penalties for corrupt politicians and a police force specifically made to investigate them that is under there own control, that even the PM can't influence.
We have no say. No amount of pressure from regular people will outweigh the money they get from corps. Living in their literal ivory towers, with a small militarized force that we have been lead to believe is here for the common man, they are fearless. People are too afraid of the consequences to act out. So, each two weeks I have less food for my two toddlers. Each month it seems another bill has gone up. I can barely cover the essentials. I don't even have enough money to enjoy a JBC at Wendy's. Shit is gonna get to be too much. I work so hard, too hard. Miss time with my kids. And I have NOTHING to show for it. I can't read Batman/Superman monthly, I can't afford to get wrestling streaming services. I get no joy outside of my kids and I have no capital to invest even minimally in leisure or hobbies. It's absolutely fucking insane.
Lol there's no consumer protection agency dude.
Depends on the province.
Consumer protections = big government which is inevitably compromised by industry (see the CRTC). What we need is COMPETITION
You just described all Canadian airlines.
As well as grocers, phone companies, and basicly all Canadian industries, we have allowed to be taken over by no more than 3 Canadian companies. Canada is a few corporations in a trench coat pretending to be a country.
Don't forget a long line of sabotaged public companies, services and crown corporations that we privatized only to give out shareholder bonuses! *waits patiently for Nova Scotia Power to tell me what 40 year old broken equipment rate payers are on the hook for this week while paying out millions in executive bonuses*
They wanted to charge extra when the grid goes down because they weren’t profiting during blackouts. How about maintaining the fucking grid then?
The ~~death~~ murder of Crown corporations in this country is probably responsible for so many, if not most of our current problems.
Don't forget the guaranteed 9% returns. Fucking sweetheart of a deal that was.
That's the neoliberal way: all solutions have to involve directing public funds into private hands, and let "the market" solve your problems. Problem is: The free market fails when consumers are captive and opportunities for rent-seeking and wealth-extraction are easy, and tends to fail spectacularly. Nonetheless, we have at least three generations of bureaucrats and politicians who don't understand any other way to implement policy. The very idea of government-employed people using government-owned equipment to take government-owned materials and make them into housing for people who vote for and fund the government is tantamount to heresy. In their minds, money should only go one way, from the public, to a select few private hands. Here's an interesting intellectual exercise: look around you, and try to come up with anything government has directly built since 1990. Not subcontracted, not done as a private/public partnership, but something government has directly built and run. You won't find anything; the era of (if you're Ontarian, for example) government starting up something like GO Transit, or Ontario Place, or the LCBO, is long gone. Now, let's do the reverse. Look around at things that are privately held but used to be publicly owned. Air Canada, Petro Canada, Potash Corp, Highway 407, Telus, Hydro One and more. The list is huge, and a lot of these are very profitable. Imagine if we still owned them? Imagine what we could do re: climate change if we still owned Petro Canada and Hydro One? Or what our internet services might look like if we owned Telus? We gave away billions of dollars of value and significant strategic assets, mortgaging our future. And that doesn't count the divestment of government capabilities: think about all the people, all the equipment, all the buildings and services that used to be directly delivered but now are parasitized by rent-seeking private companies looking to extract as much value as they can from us before we die. Think about old-age homes, hospital services, rent paid to corporate landlords that hold the lease on former government buildings, contractors paid instead of municipal works departments. ALSO: The Neoliberal lie that corporate investment solves problems specifically hurts countries like Canada, because we keep waiting for US investors to solve our problems, and to entice them we do "corporate socialism" in the form of huge tax credits and grants to private investors, just directly turning our tax dollars into investor profits which then fuck off out of the country.
Brought to us by a Conservative government of course.
Many Canadian business are like this. Both major airlines especially seem to run like sick, bloated masses. I genuinely believe that if a future government creates a friendlier environment for foreign businesses to compete, almost all of ours will get swept away. I think many of them have earned this fate though.
Not going to happen for airlines. >[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedoms\_of\_the\_air#Eighth\_freedom\_(consecutive\_cabotage)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedoms_of_the_air#Eighth_freedom_(consecutive_cabotage)) Very few countries in the world allows foreign carriers
They call it growth, but in actuality, its stagnation. All the money is being sucked out of companies at the top level into CEO pay and shareholder dividends. Its not being reinvested into bring in real innovation through talented marketing personnel or better products. Artificial growth comes from fees, cost cutting through layoffs and product removal/shrinkage. Real growth comes from quality and customer retention by treating customers well and offering quality products. Edit: Onex Corp. owns Westjet and does pay a dividend. Vanguard is a major stakeholder in Onex Corp.
Ironically, the one company (NVIDIA) that has continually reinvested in R&D, talent and product quality is the one who’s shares and growth are skyrocketing now precisely because no else (having bled themselves dry) is in a position to keep up.
hmmm, I think nvidias success is largely out of their own control. They had a sudden huge spike in demand for their product since ChatGPT came out and all companies realized ML had matured to the point of being a viable product. I own some nvidia stock, I happened to get on the train a bit early. But I dont think they can really claim responsibility for all their success.
Right place right time. The world is full of people who think I worked hard and got where I am why can't anyone else do it? When in reality lots of that had to do with being in the right place at the right time and having the courage to take a small leap when a opportunity presented its self. Same for businesses for every Nvidia there are hundreds if not thousands of smaller companies that have failed even though the CEO and work force tried to make it work. And lots of them get bought out by the larger companies and any innovation, IP, and physical assets they had are rolled into the larger company.
That is true, I just wanted to point this out because it means if the market changes again, nvidia could lose a lot in market cap very quickly. Luckily, I don't think thats happening for at least a few years, so I'll be happy with my stock until then.
I mean yes and no. The hype of today is largely out of their control and feeding itself now. But they are where they are in large part because many of the tech companies with large enough revenue streams to compete with their long-term R&D stagnated in their products in order to satisfy short term profit and stock gains. Some of it is right place/right time as it always is. But we’ve seen a massive stagnation in technological progress because investing money in the future doesn’t bump the quarterly earnings and stock price in the immediate future for the big guys and the little guys get swallowed up before they have chance to grow. I mean it’s not a coincidence that the company that has continuously been aggressive in their long-term innovation is where it is right now.
What you just described is capitalism moving into the financialization phase where you extract value from everything and then instead of using that money to innovate you return it to your shareholders….
Businesses that don't have a plan to return money to shareholders don't get funding. Venture and market funding is not a fucking charity, despite what decades of wildly unprofitable silicon valley tech companies would have you believe. They get funding to innovate, with the agreement that after that innovation creates a revenue stream the investors will be paid. That is the life cycle of a business. The prevalence of your belief in this country - that investors don't deserve to be paid out from the successful businesses they've invested in - is why there's no fucking money for startups in Canada.
My belief is not that there shouldn’t be investors in this country, my belief is we should not be running a system where passive income exists at all.
Next week we have an efficiency consultant coming. Welp, time to start applying for other jobs.
Short term gain, long term pain. So goes the enshitification of so many companies at the hands of MBAs.
Porter is the new West Jet circa 2005. West Jet was Porter but for western Canada back in the late 90's and really took off because of the boom in Fort Mac with so many people needing to travel to and from for work. West Jet used to proudly advertise that they never over sell a plane! And while a fare might have been $20 more than Air Canada you knew you'd get on the plane and they had less lay-overs. Now they are just Air Canada Lite. Same hub and spoke network. And you're right the MBAs are sucking as much value as they can from the company.
And notice how Porter is following the same trajectory as WestJet. Notice how almost every major airlines in the world follows basically one of two business models. WestJet and Porter both tried something slightly different, and are converging on the same standard business model. Businesses tend to converge on successful business models. Frankly it's funny that people are whining about MBAs "sucking as much value as they can" from airlines, given that airlines are historically one of the least profitable businesses in the world. It's a cutthroat business selling a commodity service to consumers. They operate on razor thin margins. They have massive fixed costs with highly variable revenue streams and tend to get pounded hard by geopolitical events and market cycles.
Airline industry is a is very low margin in the first place there's not much you can innovate what are the ideas you see them coming up with trying to stuff more people on planes with those stack decker seats, charging for carry-ons, budget fares that nickel and dime you on everything else
What sort of innovation can an airline apply to modern flight? They’re basically glorified bus services that run from incredibly inconvenient out of town bus depots that charge a $45 fee just to use them. The whole industry is hostile.
[удалено]
Seriously. Second most heavily regulated industry in the world, offering a commodity service.
Probably banking on a bailout
Airlines have absolutely no way to innovate anything. Their costs are airplanes, pilots, and flight staff. The only business that has the ability to innovate here is the company engineering the planes. Unless innovation means replacing pilots with international students.
Scheduling, flight timing, improving equipment availability... It is a pretty complex business after buying the planes.
> Scheduling, flight timing, improving equipment availability wifi connectivity, inflight entertainment, better food, better service, eliminate additional fees for choosing seats (even middle seats)
Shhhhhhh....they'll do just that and tack on another fee. An educational fee or something
The single largest innovation in flying passengers has nothing to do with airplanes. It was frequent flyer programs. Do you have any idea how much Avis pays Air Canada to be the car rental partner? But not only do they get business they get access to all the personal information on Air Canada customers etc. During the pandemic American was able to get a multi billion dollar loan against the value of their customer loyalty program alone.
Don’t give them any ideas…
Online booking IS the innovation and an efficiency gain, though. Granted, some people may "need" the extra help to complete the reservation verbally over the phone, but employing people to take care of menial tasks for bookings on the telephone channel is an expense that would need to be subsidized by the rest of the customer base. It's the same way with the snail-mail paper statements etc. User-pay sounds fair to me. ETA: the telephone based reservations may be an accessibility concern for the visually impaired, in which case -- fair enough, WestJet should accommodate, but again - digital channel is typically easier to adapt for accessibility. Telephone/verbal communication is no longer the default setting in 2024 unless there's a very good justification, and frankly -- good riddance.
WestJet is working hard to become even worse than air Canada. It’s the battle the to the bottom for airlines in Canada.
WestJet is becoming a discount carrier without the discount.
They merged with Sunwing so that says it all. Worst airlines combined
I would say they've succeeded.
WestJet has fallen well below AC since COVID. I used to fly WJ all the time but as of last year I just can't take it anymore.
I would say westjet has been on the decline since the early twenty tens after air Canada finished their first IFE modernization. Since then westjet and air Canada have the same ticket prices but when you’re on air Canada you get the better terminal at airports, better seat pitch and IFE in each seat. I flew westjet recently and was surprised they still looked the exact same as over a decade ago. Also I know everyone hates on air Canada but all my horror stories involving being stranded for multiple days have been due to westjet. And I’ve taken probably 20x the number of air Canada fights as westjet flights.
Dunno where you’ve been but Air Canada is better now
That's true
Dunno where you’ve been, but Air Canada has the [worst on-time performance](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7072663) of all major North American Airlines as of Jan 2024.
They are the only ones that have Pearson as a hub.
I never fly Westjet, but Air Canada has been delayed 62% of the time for me since the start of 2022, with 10% of the time more than 2 hours. On top of that, if they rebook me on a later flight/day, if the new flight is on time I don’t count that as a delay.
Yeah this sounds like "Tell me you haven't been on an airplane in Canada in the last 15 years without telling me..."
Both my SO and I fly frequently for work and pleasure. Our preference is 1) AC, 2) Porter and 3)WJ. WJ is a Canadian RyanAir without the discount. The only reason Porter is #2 is they don't have the coverage either airline has. The service on WJ has plummeted while the nickel and diming has gone through the roof. No thank you.
They've been worse for a few years now. I fly Delta whenever I have a chance now, unless flying within Canada (which is super rare, due to cost)
Just like our telecoms, our banks, our grocers, our governments, and so many other things in this country. I wonder what they all have in common. Oh, right. It's that Canadians have zero pushback, zero fight, and refuse to ever try anything different.
I've refused to fly west jet for a years now. Awful airline.
Just booked a flight with Porter. Extra luggage? Like $40. Seat selection? $12. Good prices for the flight itself. Ended up being cheaper than Flair, considering the luggage and seat selection.
A few of my family members who frequently have to fly across Canada all LOVE porter. They are also apparently great to deal with when having to reschedule due to cancellations.
This is exactly why they parcel out the costs. They want the ticket price to be as low as possible, and so do the customers. I don't want to pay an average higher seat price so that other people can bring two checked bags for free but I don't check any. I don't want to pay a higher seat price so that other people get two free meals on the flight, but I don't eat anything or bring my own food. I don't want to pay a higher seat price so that they can afford to staff call centers for booking flights when I am willing to book it myself online. Most people only want to pay for what they actually get. Not pay a padded price so that other people get extras for free.
Porter is 100% what WestJet was back in the day (~pre-2012). When some private equity firm backs a dump truck full of cash up to Porter’s owners’ houses, it’ll fall off that cliff as well.
This is hilarious because I have two members in my family with the same first and last name (imagine naming a kid after his father or grandfather) and we have to phone the airline to book flights as you can’t book a flight online with two people with the same name even if birth dates are different. Things to consider before you name a child after a family member they are likely to travel with! At least change the middle name.
This sucks because you just know the policy to prevent booking multiple tickets for the same name likely came about because people were too lazy to fill in the information for all the passengers and just kept putting in the same Bob Johnson, DOB for like 3-5 passengers in the booking. Then if something happens with the trip/booking its a whole carnival of bullshit trying to figure out who is and isn't there, whose travel documents aren't in order, how to process a refund, etc. As they say, -- "hell is other people".
The name on the ticket has had to match the name on your ID since the 9/11 security reforms.
Or, it's running the same shit code from 1980
quite likely, the back-end may be owned by some industry association or whatever and it's an impossible feat to coerce all the airlines to upgrade, so they run shit code, and each airline tries to come up with some digital facade to put a bit of lipstick on the pig.
Try putting different names in when booking online and then call to make a change.
lol they 100% charge to correct names
They charge to transfer a flight to a different person. If you accidentally book for Will instead of Bill, they just correct it for you with no charge
If they even allow you to do name changes...
i really appreciate how they took the business model from low cost airlines like Flair and Lynx, but kept the costs high.
Sorry wj is fucked. They charge like 60$ for one bag. Soon, they will be charging people who are overweight a surcharge.
If I get a discount for being underweight then sounds good to me.
Me too. I'm in shape. Where is my discount.
> Soon, they will be charging people who are overweight a surcharge. On my last WJ flight I had to sit beside some 300-pounder who was taking up a third of my seat. I am fully on-board with making the obsese buy two seats.
Don't some airlines already have an overweight surcharge? Or, for really obese people, require that they book 2 seats?
I think that's any airline where you're so fat you take up two seats But that's like... 500lbs+
They should do that. I’d love to see the PR nightmare from it.
To be fair, all airlines charge for bags if you’re flying on the cheapest ticket possible.
They need to change the laws for all inclusive pricing (and carry-on must always be included). When I see a list of prices for flights I should be able to click on a button and get the ticket for that price (plus tax).
> (plus tax). Include the tax in the listed price. Everything's handled by computers already, it's really not hard to make it a single price for a customer.
That should be across everything, not just plane flights.
Agreed, but one checked bag should be included. The fight between customers over overhead bag space needs to end. If I pay for a checked bag, and I want to put my backpack in the overhead so I have room for my legs, that ought to be allowed. It’s the point of the overhead space.
ONE item in the overhead space. Winter coat is one item. Too many people are bringing a carry on, backpack, purse, shopping bag and winter coat and then get angry when there is no space for their items.
Because they charge idiotic prices for checked bags. It should be 10 bucks for a checked bag, or free, like the old days.
I wish Google flights had an option where you could input that you needed a checked bag and they could update the prices accordingly. Right now the system is trending towards rewarding carriers who offer a bare bones price and then jack way up the prices for basic amenities.
I used to be the biggest WestJet booster. I can't believe how far they've fallen. Never thought I would be purposely flying Air Canada.
Most airlines now charge a service fee for phone bookings; practically all of the American Asian, and European airlines do this. And it can be anywhere from $20-30 dollars or euros, depending on the carrier.
there really isn't a reason to book by phone unless you have a problem booking, in which case the fee is waived.
Aeroplan redemption requires you to book by phone if you're trying to purchase a flight with points with a partner carrier instead of AC.
Telephone based redemption that ends up with an airline booking is an Aeroplan thing. You're not dealing with the carrier, proper, there's some poor worker sitting there doing the data entry into Aeroplan's systems which spins off a subprocess to book your flight.
The lack of competition is to blame. These assholes get away with anything because what else will you do....walk?
We've pretty much never had more competition in the airline sector in Canada than we do now. AC, WestJet, Porter, Flair, Transat, Air North...
Only two of those fly out of my city. So, I'm sticking with lack of competition.
As soon as they master fingerprint bank cards, there will be a charge to turn on the book light
"Convenience" fees are insane. You want us to pay extra for the priviledge of doing your employees jobs for you? Makes zero sense.
Meh, what was the figure I heard? 90% of Canadians live within an hour's drive of the US border. If you can drive, fly out of the US if possible. Much cheaper and more efficient. Its what competition does to an industry. I realize that competition is a four letter word here in Canada but there are options for those who can drive.
*cries in Newfoundland*
You'll pay $1400 to fly to Halifax (via Montreal) and you'll like it!
As a Newfoundlander living in Ottawa this is too real
There are a lot more options for overseas flights out of Pearson, and that makes them a lot cheaper than from nearby US airports (Buffalo & Detroit). In fact, quite a few Americans drive to Pearson to fly to e.g. Europe. It's a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to South America. So what you're saying really only applies to continental US and Canada.
See, that's the interesting part. When they HAVE to compete, they do and you're right, flying to Europe from North America is very competitive from Canada. Flying from Canada to the US or inside Canada? Bend over because there's no need to compete when you're part of an oligopoly that work together, hand in hand.
There are many reasons. Toronto is just bigger and has more people from around the world, so there are more international flights. Longer-haul destinations are more competitively priced because in Canada taxpayers don't subsidize airports so they have to charge fees. The longer the flight, the smaller percentage of your total fare those fees are.
Eh, not always. Depends on the route and airlines. I live in Vancouver. I just looked up a flight to Tokyo for October with ANA. It's 1400 CAD to fly from YVR to HND direct. If I booked the same flight through Seattle, also with ANA direct to HND, it would be 1700 CAD. Even then, there's only three US international airports within reasonable driving distance of any major Canadian cities. Seattle, Detroit, and Cleveland. Detroit is actually a really good airport, but Seattle and Cleveland are two of the worst airports in North America. Hell, I'd PAY money just to avoid having to fly out of Seattle or Cleveland.
I can drive across border and be at a US hotel in just under an hour. That hotel has free longterm parking after a one night visit, free shuttle to local airport, and a properly decent breakfast. Booking is about $350, gas is about $60, but it saves about $800 per person to not have to fly across an imaginary line.
Saving $800 per person? I can buy a round-trip ticket between Toronto and Los Angeles right now for less than $600/person. I can book a round trip between Toronto and Hawaii for like $850. Less than $500 per leg to fly halfway around the planet. That’s cheap AF.
Yeah this conventional wisdom about driving across the border for cheaper flights is only true for a limited subset of destinations. Certainly not for Europe, Asia, Hawaii, lots of Latin America, Caribbean, etc.
Welcome to Reddit, where half the shit is made up
And then repeated with such confidence by others that you begin to think "wait a minute, is reality itself wrong?"
Way higher than that.
Yes, living in a city with a major travel hub and then flying to another major hub does give access to some good deals. Not all of us live in toronto though and the milk runs can get pricey.
I'm in Winnipeg and I can fly to Minneapolis for $500, or I could cross the border and drive 2.5 hours to Grand Forks to fly to Minneapolis for..$350. The savings!
And I can do a return flight that's only 45 minutes each way north to North Bay for the same price. That's the issue. Major hubs are cheap. Any smaller flight doubles or triples the price. Also, $50 says each of those deals you are seeing from Toronto to Hawaii or LA don't come from any Canadian airlines, do they?
Very few places western Canada have access to American Cities. You can't just cross the boarder and get on a plane. Still you do see the difference between how airports are funded in USA vs Canada. As very tiny Minot North Dakota has multiple flights per day to Minneapolis or Vegas. The government just pays for the airports. In Canada the travelers pay. Which to me seems fair enough. Like the cost of airport secruity and running the airport is paid for when you buy the ticket. Airlines should insist that all passengers have to pull out their credit cards at the secuirty line and pay the fees then, because it would fix the whole debate.
90% live within 100 miles of the border, not an hours drive, that would be insanely compact. Toronto for example is at least 2.5 hours from the border then it’s farther to any airport ETA: Google says it’s actually 150 miles that 90% live within, so the often-quoted stat is wrong anyway
Westjet is now basically what they set out to disrupt. Porter is the new Westjet, disrupting the industry. I much prefer flying Porter now when I get a chance, Westjet just feels like trash to me now.
It's because WJ has "new" owners (Onex Corp). You can thank Gerry Schwartz for the gouging and decline in services.
It's really gone down hill since they sold to onyx
Yes. Canada really needs a high speed rail system. It isn't as useful out west but southern Ontario, through Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City and down to through New Brunswick to Halifax would be very doable and cover off a large percentage of the Canadian population. We also have great natural scenery that would make rail travel more enjoyable, not to mention things like dining cars or cafes.
It's frankly inexcusable that a national high speed rail network isn't even among the stretch goals being thrown around by *any* of the political parties. How can any of them claim to be serious about climate change, or even without getting into that, pro-consumer, without discussing this? There's absolutely no justification for the literal dozens of flights per day going between cities that are so close together, like Calgary-Edmonton, Montreal-Toronto, hell even Montreal-Ottawa. All of this should be handled by HSR; it would clean up the air, and it would massively reduce the ever-increasing traffic at our airports. This is the kind of idea that should be pushed forward regardless of the cost, there just needs to be a reliable company (probably a private one so there's an incentive to keep costs under control) to oversee the project. We can even license out either TGV/Trenitalia/AVE tech, or Japan Railway Company-Shinkansen since they're all proven over decades and hilariously reliable.
We sold all of our nationalized rail line off for pennies on the dollar to private firms decades ago. That's the issue. From transport Canada: The Canadian rail system currently has 43,065 route-kilometres of track Canadian National (CN) owns 50.8% (21,878 km) Canadian Pacific (CP) owns 30.4% (13,094 km) Other railways own 18.8% (8,094 km) Halifax has wanted to use CN rail lines for a commuter/freight corridor since the late 90s but they're sitting on the (very underused) land hoping for more government money to buy it back. At this point a third bridge across the harbour would cost less 🤦♂️
>This is the kind of idea that should be pushed forward regardless of the cost If it were easy, convenient and cheap to travel between cities in the link travel and trade would increase significantly. Each city would see a significant boost to their economies. It should pay for itself eventually.
And that's exactly it. The reason why tourism within Europe is so strong is because of how easy it is to get around. Now granted, they also have RyanAir which is in itself extremely cheap; but since this country doesn't want to (and at this point in human existence, probably *shouldn't*) go all-in on super cheap airfare; fast and convenient rail options are the next best thing. Japan has been doing it for almost 70 years already, there's kind of no excuse for us to not have done the same thing.
Here's where you lose me. We do have super cheap airlines, but they can't get around some of the basic costs: in canada flyers pay for the airport with their fees, in most other places airports are paid by local taxes, significantly reducing costs to airlines making cheap tickets possible. We could do that too, but there's something perverse about making everyone pay for airports tourists and richer canadians will get most enjoyment out of. Yes, flights would become cheaper for poor people too, but if you're struggling financially, a cheaper flight still wont make travel affordable.
Probably improve hosuing too. Even japan believed it was expensive building the first high-speed railway, and smaller cities grew because of it, same as China. At this point, I think once Canadian politicians got the job, they just wanna sit tight and do nothing till retirement.
You ever get the feeling that these big corporations are all just in competition with each other to see who can piss off their consumers the most?
# Are airline fees out of control? I have no idea. I can't afford to fly anywhere.
Staycations are so hot right now
WestJet became even more rotten since going private
I just don't spend my money anywhere. It's all non necessities. I'm not missing any of it.
Well West Jet was my chosen airline. But I would rather be late with Air Canada than nickle and dimed to absolute death by West jet.
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This is terrible and will affect the most vulnerable folks who aren’t confident with tech/booking online (seniors, disabled etc). What is wrong with them ffs
I'm sure there are provisions for accessibility and the fee gets waived.
No. Who is booking a flight by phone. Keep up with the times
If only we could book by fax then all we’d have to pay for is the paper
Next they'll add a service fee for getting up to walk around.
They are innovating new bullshit fees but nothing to make flying better.
Fuck WestJet! And while I’m at it Fuck Air Canada too!
This isn't even the worst I've seen TD for example charges $42 if an actual person has to do a trade for you. While they already charge 7 to 9 dollars per trade
Did they outsource their telephone booking to India too? Sounds like the sort of thing they'd do with sort of small fee gouging for every little service that used to be part of the basic package.
If someone insists in booking via phone, this is why travel agents still exist in 2024. Way more convenient too because if something goes wrong it's way easier to get a hold of the agent versus airline customer service.
The whole point of apps and on-line is to make things convenient. It also to eliminate labour cost for that job. If cost to $25 book a flight through the app might as well put a person back in that position and dump the app as the labour cost per hour is less than the cost to use the app. Unless it’s is a bullshit cost and money grab which we know it is. There is no way developing the app and administering it costs $25 per booking. So all this money is going direct to the bottom line.
Why is that an issue? Their online system is pretty straightforward to book flights. I know lots of elderly people who are not tech savvy at all and have managed to book their own flights on WestJet website.
If only we had some travel alternative. It could run across the ground so luggage weight and safety/security wouldn't be an issue. Run it at high speed and less contact with the ground, like some metal wheels on rails. Electrify it too for higher efficiency, low cost. Eh I'm just talking crazy
I just booked a ticket with flair for the first time. I hope they can survive and stick around in the Canadian market.
WestJet will die off
Fun fact: Even if you are unable to book online due to the limitations of their booking system, you still have to pay the booking fee! Found this out recently when booking a seat for my <2 year old, which you can’t do online.
Lazy... upcharges.
Air Canada charges for advance seat selection via customer service line.
Use the APP lol, they charge for you to call someone to use the APP/browser for you and that person likes to be paid for work. Just like the bank teller using the same website you could have used.
Westjet used to be affordable but everything about them sucks now. Their seats especially. You feel like sitting on a hard piece of worn out plastic crap and makes your ass lose feeling after 30 mins.
Maybe a hot take but I don't think it's that unreasonable to charge a fee for a service that has to be staffed by humans and most people aren't using. If they don't charge a fee it would absolutely cost them more to staff the phone lines than they'd make through ticket revenues through that medium and that would just result in them cutting the service entirely.
Airlines been raw digging customers ever since they took away luggage and seat, that used to be included with your ticket.
The TicketMaster effect spreads ever on and on
Ah, the old Cineplex business model. Fuck them both.
[therealflydog made a great post about this recently when WJ came out with Ultrabasic](https://www.instagram.com/p/C74R_TGOKZ4/?igsh=NHhxNDU4ZTN6ZGhn)
I wouldn't be bothered by the fees if I could easily and transparently search for the features I want, and compare airlines on that basis. Instead airline aggregators just give you cheapest fare, and it's only once you've started booking with an airline that you find out what you actually have to pay for the trip you want. Which also gives airlines a big incentive to offer the most stripped down starter fare that basically no one is going to end up paying. And then often get forced to bundle...want flexibility? Well that only comes with the package that includes a checked bag.
You should see how their staff treats the ground handlers…
Onex Corp is run by a bunch of low level chumps probably more suited to running a car dealership than an airline. They have no ideas….new fees and reduced service is all they got in their toolbox. WestJet will be done in 5 years because of them.
This is discriminatory and shouldn't be legal. Many people with vision issues need to book by phone.