If you don't mind can your explain the horrible experience that you had.
Here is the letter sent to them
February 20, 2007
Air Canada
Re: Flight 1200, YYC to MCO
On February 6th our family of five boarded flight 1200 to Orlando. Check in and boarding was efficient and easy. We were informed before departure that there was no water available on this flight. We were also unable to not get coffee or tea. A minor annoyance but annoying none the less. As it turned out this would become a huge annoyance.
It was not until we had reached cruising altitude that we realized we had a problem. We were seated in rows 25 and 26. The fold out trays on three out of five seats were broken. It was almost a five hour flight and we had unusable trays. The implications of this were:
1. In row 25 one out of three trays were broke and in row 26 both of our trays were broke and unable to hold any liquids or meals.
2. Our children were unable to use the trays for entertainment purposes.
No card playing, no DVD watching, no appropriate ability to eat or drink, no coloring etc in row 26. My husband and son had two working trays and shared those between the three of them. Still it was difficult when it came to eating, drinking etc! Our oldest son and youngest son switched seats so the oldest could balance the tray on his lap. The three trays were broken so badly that anything placed on them slid right off into our lap. We brought it to the stewardess attention and the best they could do as offer a blanket and pillow pack to be placed on our laps to support the corner of the broken tray and attempt to hold it up ourselves for the entire duration of the flight. The plane was full and they did the best they could. Even the slightest movement in our seat caused the whole pillow blanket balancing system to fall apart. All three of our kids were absolutely soaked to the skin from their drinks spilling on them. We had to pass drinks back and forth between rows switching off holding them since our row 26 seats had both trays broken and no place to put our drinks while we stood to use the washroom. This was absolutely unacceptable.
Just when we had the pillow blanket system perfectly balanced and working on our laps, the plane hit the tail end stream of another jet. This was literally like hitting an air pothole. You guessed it. All the drinks that we had carefully balancing on our pillow tray system went flying and landed directly in our laps.
I was under the assumption that snacks were still offered on flights. During this flight my children were never offered anything to snack on.
We were offered to purchase a meal. We were shown a card to choose from. Unfortunately most items were not available for purchase and we were left with 4 choices. By the time they got to our row it was down to two choices. We ended up ordering the beef on a bun. Now we do not expect fine dining by any means but we do expect acceptable edible food. What we were served was so inedible it was appalling. The bun on which it was served on had sat so long our kids could not even bite into the bun (it was rock hard). We ended up eating the middle (the meat). Messy to say the least. As we were trying to eat this meal our meal kept sliding off the pillow blanket balancing tray system in our laps. So to go along with all the drinks spilled on us, our shirts and slacks had bbq sauce stains on them from everything sliding onto our clothing.
It was at this time we really needed that unavailable water. The washrooms were full and we had no water to try and clean ourselves off. Finally the steward came around with bottled water and cups and some of us were able to wash ourselves and the kids were able to use the washroom.
We cannot express our incredible disappointment.
In the past we have dealt with lost luggage, delayed flights, airplanes broken down on the tarmac with Air Canada. Things can and do happen. Broken and falling apart trays, soaken wet and stained clothing, the inconvenience to five passengers is absolutely unacceptable. What a terrible way to start off a family vacation. We paid for five seats and got 2 working ones.
What we endured on this flight was completely unacceptable. I would like to know what Air Canada is prepared to do about this really unfortunate and unacceptable experience.
but he is leery about delays at border, snow storms more severe in Buffalo..etc
