Calgary International Airport II

[Tobuz]

Originally Posted by cyeg66

We get it, you (and many others) expected more from this building. Fact of the matter is, if you (3rd person) aren't bright enough to find seating somewhere in the terminal, then how do you explain that you were able to qualify for a credit card, get a driver's license, buy a ticket, buy lift tickets, buy/rent skis, so on and so forth...? Do you need someone on standby to wipe yer arse, too?

The more you highlight stupid travellers, the less apologetic toward them I become.

Wow. So those who are being frustrated by their experience in the new terminal are "stupid" and their views and feedback should be ignored. Awesome. Do you work for the airport authority?

There are an awful lot of them since Oct 31, and neither they (nor other travelers) tend to give this sort of feedback for other aiports like YEG or YVR.

The voice of the customer in any industry is invaluable. (Unless you don't give a rat's "arse" about your customer.)

When it's this consistent and this frequent, it's sending a crystal clear message.

Feel free to ignore it and mock these people for being too stupid to meet your standards. I sure as hell hope that the YYC AA does not. When the signals are this clear and consistent, I think most (you excepted, of course) would concur that they have a problem on their hands.

And are the airlines complaining about the ITB experience (one quite publicly, the other reportedly in private) also just too stupid?

[PPAR]

Tobuz, I am afraid your credibility on the forum is fading. I have no idea why you are on this campaign against the new terminal at YYC. Yes, there are issues, we all get it, but you seem to have an axe to grind on the issue. Consider that your posts may be starting to harm your position.

[YEG]

Originally Posted by Tobuz

The complaints, photos, and snarky comments about lack of seating and amenities in the D and E wings are pretty much a daily occurrence. Very frequent, and very consistent.

But this one really stood out when I saw it . . .

1. She was a visitor here from Melbourne, Australia (having brought her family here for a Christmas ski vacation). So much for YYC's official line of "people will just have to get used to the terminal, then everything will be fine". I doubt she's a frequent YYC passenger.
2. She was so angered by her experience that she complained to Tourism Calgary about it! (She didn't send it to YYC.)
3. Her caption sums up the issue brilliantly and succinctly: "Moment of truth - design meets experience."

For what it's worth, all of her other posts about her week-long vacation here were glowingly positive. Her only complaint: the departure experience at the new ITB.

It's one thing to be frustrated by your home-town airport ... whether out of pride (and wanting it to be better) or because it's the airport that you use most often. But it's amazing to me that even foreign visitors to our city - people here for once-in-a-lifetime vacations - are frustrated enough to send angry feedback about the new terminal. Wow.

Someone from Melbourne really shouldn't be complaining. Their terminal 4 is by far the worst airport terminal I have ever gone through.

[casper]

Originally Posted by YEG

Someone from Melbourne really shouldn't be complaining. Their terminal 4 is by far the worst airport terminal I have ever gone through.

I think Melbourne is ok. I have been through Sidney, Melbourne and Cairns.

I don't mind Melbourne or Sidney but Cairns is just terrible. It is one of those "call to gate" airports where the have doors blocking entry into the gate area. Your forced to stay in the central wait area until your gate is called and then expected to wait in line until they let you in to the gate area.

[outoftheice]

Originally Posted by alexle

Newleaf cancels flights to the US, blames WestJet (although not by name): https://www.facebook.com/newleaftravel/posts/1072308936211391

Looks like things have now come full circle at Westjet. #irony

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/report-...//www.theglobeandmail.com&service=mobile

WestJet says Air Canada hurting its business

KEITH MCARTHUR
APRIL 6, 2001

WestJet Airlines Ltd. says it has curtailed plans to expand service to new destinations in the East because of alleged anti-competitive behaviour by Air Canada.

In an affidavit filed yesterday with the federal Competition Tribunal, WestJet revealed that it has lost $182,585 on its Hamilton-Moncton route since launching it last April.

"If Air Canada's anti-competitive actions are permitted to continue, WestJet may be forced to withdraw from the Hamilton-Moncton route and will need to re-think its expansion strategy," Mark Hill, WestJet's vice-president of strategic planning, wrote in the affidavit.

As a result, WestJet would be "unlikely to grow to become a substantial competitor to Air Canada in Eastern Canada," Mr. Hill wrote...

[RyLucky]

I departed from the swing gates, and like others was a bit disappointed. However, I noticed some possible easy fixes that will probably get ironed out as time goes on.

1) It's a bit confusing after you show your ticket to the flight attendant and suddenly have access to 3 gates, none of which correspond to your original seating gate number (which there is no seating beside). The flight attendants were reminding folks both numbers. Surely, this could be fixed easily.

2) One of the automatic doors to the gate was malfunctioning so everyone was squeezing through one door.

3) The newstand/kiosk was utterly overrun as it was the only place to buy something while waiting in the seating area.

4) Aesthetically/Architecturally, there were a lot of weird triangles, both in horizontal and vertical planes. Not a big deal, but generally created a lot of wasted space, and the blinds couldn't block the light entirely. They DEFINITELY should have made the temporary wall transparent to light because it feels really closed off and incomplete.

[MalcolmTucker]

Maybe they should stop people from moving to the gates by checking boarding passes. I know annoying, but seriously. Long term, order seating if it will fit or order automated gates that you scan your pass at to leave the central area.

could also make up nice glossy wall coverings that say: there are plenty of chairs in central area, and maybe cheeky messages about there being lots of time.

Also since gates have isolated audio systems, could add a more frequent message on non-active gates (more frequent than the unattended luggage message) about the central area having service desks for the airlines and comfortable waiting areas.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by alexle

Newleaf cancels flights to the US, blames WestJet (although not by name): https://www.facebook.com/newleaftravel/posts/1072308936211391

The flights to Mesa were about their best attempt at establishing a presence in AB. The problem is that likely there was only 80-100 pax market. Once WS entered the route an evenly split market meant that NewLeaf could not operate.

Now the bigger question is whether WS will continue to operate to Mesa or whether all pax will move over to the PHX flights.

This could become an interesting strategy for NewLeaf, announce a market and if WS competes wingtip to wingtip; NewLeaf should pull out and force WS to take the loss. If WS does consolidate flights, then Newleaf has an excellent case to take before the Competition Tribunal.

Originally Posted by Bigtime

They pushed their luck right on WestJet's home turf. No surprise this happened, and they are getting grilled by customers over long delays on New Years Eve.

The problem for the Canadian airline market is that while Canadian's want cheap airfares, they dont want to patronize ULCC airlines. Instead Canadians want someone else to patronize ULCC and wait for WS or AC to lower their fares, then Canadian's will wait to fly the airline of their choice at the lower rate.

In contrast Europe, USA, and Asia have a large market of people willing to never fly traditional airlines again. So they fly Allegiant, Ryanair, or Jetstar and don't look at UA, BA, or QF.


ETA: Jim Young, CEO of Newleaf is being interviewed on BNN. The real reason for dropping AZA is that while they got a good initial response to the new services, this only accounted for 30-50% load factor, not enough pax to combine flights or operate profitably. Their initial market analysis concluded that there is a market for AZA for one airline to operate 3-4x per week, but two airlines was too much services. So basically WS and Newleaf split the market in half, but newleaf could not sustain the cash losses.

[excel]

Originally Posted by casper

I think Melbourne is ok. I have been through Sidney, Melbourne and Cairns.

I don't mind Melbourne or Sidney but Cairns is just terrible. It is one of those "call to gate" airports where the have doors blocking entry into the gate area. Your forced to stay in the central wait area until your gate is called and then expected to wait in line until they let you in to the gate area.

Sidney is where your airport is. Sydney is where the airport you're referring to is.

Just in effort to lighten the mood in here.

[MasterG]

Forgive me if this is already posted somewhere, but how long ahead of time does YYC post the boarding gates for CTG planes?

I would imagine that there is an optimal time of 15 - 30 minutes ahead of departure. That way the most people will ever have to stand is 30 minutes or less (assuming plane boards on time, which of course isn't a certainty)

If the gate is announced 45 minutes or more ahead of time, I feel YYC is fighting an uphill battle against passengers who have been trained their whole lives to be early for flights. Many will move at first mention of their gate and be standing there for a very long time without seats. In the modern world of coddled passengers, my guess is 45 minutes of standing around with nothing to do and nowhere to sit would trigger at least some passengers to be unhappy.

Does CTG have an optimal announcement time before a flight at other airports that use it?

[Bokimon]

I will take my first real crack of the gates on Friday, usually I wait until the sign shows final boarding and then head over to my gate as I hate piddling around on long lineups. I usually travel carry on only with items that can fit under the seat if worst comes to worst.
We'll see if this US side of the terminal is worth the mixed reviews I have been hearing through this site, facebook and the yyc spotter pages.

I would still say that LHR has the best CTG system in place at its new Queens Terminal. It was really smooth and really gave an efficient tone to this whole process as I didn't have any issues finding the gate, other than just walking to the very end. If I recall their boarding time posting was much less than 45mins as when I saw it and went to line up it was a steady stream of people.

I hope that the AIF's dont go up even further to fix up any costly kinks, though I'm not holding my breath, AIF's will always go up.

[Suburgatory]

Originally Posted by MasterG

Forgive me if this is already posted somewhere, but how long ahead of time does YYC post the boarding gates for CTG planes?

I would imagine that there is an optimal time of 15 - 30 minutes ahead of departure. That way the most people will ever have to stand is 30 minutes or less (assuming plane boards on time, which of course isn't a certainty)

If the gate is announced 45 minutes or more ahead of time, I feel YYC is fighting an uphill battle against passengers who have been trained their whole lives to be early for flights. Many will move at first mention of their gate and be standing there for a very long time without seats. In the modern world of coddled passengers, my guess is 45 minutes of standing around with nothing to do and nowhere to sit would trigger at least some passengers to be unhappy.

Does CTG have an optimal announcement time before a flight at other airports that use it?

Hours, in most cases multiple hours. When I used the transborder terminal last month our gate was listed 2.5hrs ahead.

[rotten42]

I've found it is different for the bi=f message boards than it is if you have the airline app. The boards. In my experience it has been 30 mins on the boards for call to gate and even though it varies from app to app you get your gate assignment which quicker to your phone.

[MalcolmTucker]

So the airline's systems have obviously co-mingled all the behind the scenes stuff with their consumer facing things. Maybe someone should have asked them to put an artificial delay into their apps/text notifications.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

So the airline's systems have obviously co-mingled all the behind the scenes stuff with their consumer facing things. Maybe someone should have asked them to put an artificial delay into their apps/text notifications.

The consumer facing stuff is just presentation layer held in the DMZ, the real horsepower and storage is located in the mainframe systems. For gate assignment info there are 2-3 systems before the presentation layer for website and app purposes.

[casper]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

So the airline's systems have obviously co-mingled all the behind the scenes stuff with their consumer facing things. Maybe someone should have asked them to put an artificial delay into their apps/text notifications.

I would conclude it is more a case of someone saying, why should we supress the gate number for YYC as a special case when we don't for any other airports.

[Tobuz]

Originally Posted by PPAR

Tobuz, I am afraid your credibility on the forum is fading. I have no idea why you are on this campaign against the new terminal at YYC. Yes, there are issues, we all get it, but you seem to have an axe to grind on the issue. Consider that your posts may be starting to harm your position.

Thanks for the shot.

I've simply been reposting a representative sampling of the social media feedback to YYC here, which - unfortunately - is mostly negative. That's not my voice, that's the voice of people as they are sitting in the new ITB. I'd humbly suggest that (1) the public perception of the user experience is absolutely relevant and important and (2) the fact that I think so, or that I share some of it here, does not indicate that I'm on a "campaign" against YYC or have an axe to grind as you allege. Not at all.

(And there are certainly positive comments from users to YYC, but they tend to mostly be focused on the PALS dog program, not the new building. Seriously.)

In posts where I've talked about my own experiences in the ITB (specifically E), I've stated that I personally like the terminal and the experience. And in my post a couple of pages ago (post # 6006, since you may have missed it) I tried to capture a fair list of all of the positives and the problems of the new terminal. I included a big list of positives.

No campaign. No axe.

[Robag]

Can't comment on the new terminal yet. 6 weeks before I get to use it, however, I know there is a lot of negativity towards the new terminal, but this link will not help the image of the new international terminal.

http://www.airlinequality.com/airport-reviews/calgary-airport/

[MasterG]

Originally Posted by Acey

15 min would definitely be way too low, if theoretically everybody is supposed to be at central. Gate gets posted at 15 min, people get to the gate at 8-10 minutes then begin to queue... and there is no way in hell you're getting 189 people onto a Sunwing plane in 8 minutes.

The times YYC advertised initially aren't that bad, it's just that those times aren't being used.

Ah gotcha, yeah I was thinking far too optimally. It does seem you are right, the times they are using is too long and people go to the gate well ahead of time like any other gate. That can't help their issues.

[hoboman27]

Originally Posted by Robag

Can't comment on the new terminal yet. 6 weeks before I get to use it, however, I know there is a lot of negativity towards the new terminal, but this link will not help the image of the new international terminal.

http://www.airlinequality.com/airport-reviews/calgary-airport/

The thing about those is that people who leave comments are more likely to have had negative experiences. Doesn't mean they are not valid, just heavily skewed.