Sunday August 17, 2009

Last weekend I was travelling to Vancouver for Ralph Gibson photography workshop.  Since this was going to be a week of shooting I took most of my camera gear which consisted of the following:

·         2 Canon EOS Mark III bodies,

·         1 Canon 85 mm F 1.2 lens

·         1 Canon 28-105 mm zoom lens

·         1 Canon 150 macro lens

·         1 Canon 70-200 mm zoom lens

·         2 Canon Camera flushes

·         Some filters and lens cleaning cloth

All of the above fit in a legal size Think Tank carry-on bag.  The combined weight was 35 lb.

I had another similarly sized carry on bag  with two lap top computers, computer and camera charges, two 250 GB portable storage units and some USB cables.  The combined weight of this bag also was about 30lb.

I was travelling with my wife, so I thought that one carry on for each of us wouldn’t cause us any problems.

We checked in Toronto, dropped our luggage and took our carry-on bags.  Everything went smoothly. 

During 5 hours flight West Jet offered us a stale coffee and lousy cookies that gave me a stomach ache.  When we arrived to Vancouver we went to pick up our luggage and heard West Jet announcement that they were short staffed and they will start delivering our luggage as soon as they could.  All of the passengers were very tired as they still were in eastern time zone.  It was 12:00 a.m.  We waited over an hour until the luggage conveyor started to run.

Friday August 22, 2009

As we were leaving Vancouver we approached West Jet counter to check in.  Our flight was scheduled for 13:55pm.  We wanted to catch an earlier flight.   The agent told us that it would cost us $41.00 per person $82 for me and my wife.   We agreed to pay just to catch the  flight one hour earlier (which I think is a new money-grab policy from West Jet).  The agent weighed our luggage.  The weight  of our luggage  for two of us was the same as we left Toronto 56lb, which didn’t cause any problems then.  She wouldn’t allow the extra 6lb.  She made us take the extra 6lb from our luggage. 

And it didn’t end there…  She decided to weigh our carryon’s…  She told us that we were allowed to take only 20lb per carry on and insisted that I should check in my camera and computer bags.  We refused and she called the manager.  Meantime the time was ticking and we had 20 minutes to pass through the security and catch flight.   The manager wasn’t very helpful either…  We ended up taking our computers and our cameras from the carr-on bags and carrying them in our hands.   Then she told us, with a great authority.  “I am going to let you go this time sir but I will put a note in the computer. “ 

I happen to own group of companies, which employs approximately 200 people.  Our employees travel extensively with West Jet.  After reading my blog, I am sure that my associates will think twice about flying with West Jet.  I understand that West Jet won’t likely feel the dent.  But this bad publicity eventually will catch up with them as it did with Air Canada.

The ticket agent managed to make our return home miserable.   The inconsistency of West Jet made my trip a nightmare.  It seems that West Jet employees are not properly trained and they don’t apply their policies consistently.

When we arrived to Toronto our bags didn’t show up with the flight.  We ended up waiting for our original flight to pick up our luggage.  When we asked our $82.00 back West Jet’s response was “this is against our policy sir”.

If you want to take chances with West Jet go ahead.  However, next time, I would prefer to take my business elsewhere.