Originally scheduled on flight AC8921 on 08/04/2009 out of Quebec City to Toronto and then AC759 later that same day Toronto to San Francisco. After flight AC8921 was cancelled I was rebooked on flight AC8923 departing at 6:30 pm with an overnight in TO and a flight out to SF on AC757. I was told the operational problems at TO airport were over so it was no problem (even though there was also a viable conection via Montreal later that day I could have been put on. I felt somewhat uneasy about going via TO but accepted the advice of the agent at face value).
Flight AC8923, we now know, didn't depart at 6:30 as scheduled, but at 9:15pm and after much in-air and on ground delay in TO disembarked passengers at approx. 1:15 am. Still, I was confident, as I had been told by the Quebec City agent, that all I had to do was speak to any AC customer service rep. to get hotel and meal voucher. I though a bad situation still would be manageable with a little food & sleep. That's when I discovered just 2 overwhelmed AC ticket boths open in a darkened and dim AC ticketing area of 3rd floor Pearson Airport. That's 2 out of what appeared to be 20 or more vacant and darkened ticket counters. Several hundred people were in line, all like me, trying to get some help. People were screaming at one woman with a walkie talkie to get some help. Eventually security had to be called to keep order due to the anger and frustration on the part of everyone stuck there with no resources to help them. After about 45 minutes in line I tried the first level of Pearson where another 1-2 agents were available to help a line as long as the one on the 3rd floor. I stayed there in line until 3am by which time the line had moved about 6 feet and I had about 70 or more feet to go to reach the agent. I quickly realized no amount of waiting for service would allow me to get any help getting a hotel room or food.
All of this was preventable, had AC, aware of the problems and backlogs from earlier in the day, taken any signifiant steps to staff its ticket counters so that people who were delayed and required to overnight in TO (like me) had the ability to at least get some food and a hotel room. This was management failure of epic proportions! My email address is
richjacy@yahoo.com.