BAD RAP AC not price gouging on Alberta flights

Posted on 05/09/2016 | About Fort McMurray, Alberta

Air Canada and Jazz have operated more than 20 charter flights, evacuating more than 1,400 people From Fort McMurray to Edmonton and Calgary. They say they remain ready to fly additional charters as required.

The airline says in a statement, that it “continues to add additional capacity from Edmonton across Canada to get people home from Northern Alberta and to date including evacuation charters, we have added more than 3,800 seats. We continue to actively manage this and add additional capacity daily as required.” They are also working with Global Medic to deliver medical and other supplies to Alberta, and waiving, pet carriage fees as well as handling fees for weapons/hunting equipment, surf equipment and bikes for passengers who are in the process of evacuating from affected areas. Baggage fees are waived for passengers travelling to or from affected areas. Customers who have checked-in online, via their mobile device or via a kiosk at the airport should submit a request for refund of baggage fees via Customer Relations once their travel is complete.

For customers originally booked to fly to/from Fort McMurray, Fort St. John, Edmonton, Calgary a flexible rebooking policy remains in place to enable passengers to change their flights without charge, space permitting for flights departing or arriving affected areas. Customers are requested to check the status of their flights on aircanada.com. Air Canada took some heat on social media when it was accused of raising fares in response to the devastating situation. The company denied this saying, “Contrary to allegations in social media, fares were not raised in response to this devastating situation. In some cases, customers booking last minute on May 3 and 4 on flights from Fort McMurray and Edmonton have paid premium fares. This was a result of Air Canada’s computerized revenue management system, which automatically manages fares.

“Regrettably, we were unable to intervene in advance to manually adjust fares and in those instances we’re contacting customers who paid a premium to adjust the fare to the normally available, lowest advance fare and refund the difference. Steps have been taken to manually manage fares on aircanada.com to ensure the lowest advance fares remain available for all passengers travelling as a result of the wildfires. The airline has offered its "lowest available fares" to people who have been impacted directly by the Fort McMurray wildfire, spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick told CTV News. Air Canada has also added over 1,000 more seats worth of space on flights going to Alberta to help move people and supplies, and provided chartered planes for oil workers.

It also donated $50,000 to the Red Cross, CTV News noted. But Air Canada isn't the only airline that has chipped in as a wildfire ravages the oil sands hub. Westjet

WestJet has expanded an existing arrangement with Shell and Suncor by offering flights out of oil sands work camps, spokeswoman Lauren Stewart told CTV News. She estimated that the airline would have as many as 70 flights in and out of camps between Thursday and Friday.