Seven weeks ago, our original night flight to Rome was cancelled due to (here I quote the Captain) 'the 2 computers in the cockpit were not talking to one another'. We'd been waiting on the tarmac for 3 hours, the last half of which had seen some AC tech guys come aboard to try and remedy the problem---to no avail. Of course, safety comes first, no argument there.
Unfortunately, the process that Air Canada had in place for communicating to all of us passengers just what to do next was inconsistent and poorly-executed.
The flight attendants indicated that there'd be immediate clarification forthcoming from AC reps--there was none.
Then the baggage kiosk guys misled a group of us confused flyers by claiming that we all had to re-fetch our luggage and take it away--again not true.
Finally at midnight, when a bunch of us finally arrived back at the appropriate Check-in counter, we met mass chaos. If AC had any senior management personnel in charge then, they were near-invisible. I politely asked one of the younger AC staff there to raise her voice (use a loudhailer, why not?) so that all of us hundreds of passengers in line, every one of us having paid for tickets, could then hear her instructions, directions and clarifications. I also pointed out to her then that there were quite a number of Italian citizens in line, whose first language was not English and whose exhausted faces were showing bewilderment.
Our flight was re-booked for the following morn at 9 am. Our choices were either a) go home (not in the cards--we live far away) or b) get to a nearby airport hotel for maybe a few scant hours of sleep or 3) what we actually decided to do: 'sleep' as best we could in an airport chair in the far corner.
Around 1 am, I approached a pair of the remaining check-in people to ask what time the Signature Lounge to which our ticket entitled us would re-open in the morn. They both told me that it would open at 6 am. In fact, it did not--- their opening time was hours later. Again, AC staff were not all on the same page.
It was astonishing to us that after so many years of being a major airline and so much negative media coverage regarding recent flight snafus in previous months that AC had neither senior leadership handling the situation nor any clear playbook for AC staff to know just what to do in such a scenario.
Anyway, we lost two amounts of money due to the cancelled/rebooked flight: 1) the two Trenitalia rail tickets that we'd booked to use the morn after our original flight (Rome to Salerno, replacement cost us 130 Euros total--we have all the receipts) and 2) our first night's fee for the rental we'd arranged in Minori on the Amalfi Coast. That latter came to 100 Euros=230 Euros.
We applied to Air Canada for compensation, including every scrap of associated paperwork. But today we were finally notified the 'because the flight had been cancelled due to weather', we would not be eligible for any recompense. This baffled us coz at no point during the original flight did the Captain nor any other AC rep ever use the word 'weather' in the explanation for why our flight had been cancelled. AC has not provided any logbook extracts nor incident reports as some European carriers will do for frustrated flyers.
This unfortunate event that cost my wife and I plenty in terms of missed train rides that we'd already paid for, significant stress, plus a night at our paid-for rental. The luxe hotel that we were to have spent our very first overnight after arriving in Rome was gracious enough to have honored our having already paid, so we won't be including them at all in the 'monies lost' totals.
EUR261 compensation seems limited, with no online link to our own 'National Authority'. So we've contacted our national Transportation Minister. We remain unclear as to how failing computers plus tech crew inability amount to 'weather'.
Will keep you posted on our progress.
I am done. This is not the End.