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This post has nothing to do with digitization (other than I was travelling to get to a relevant workshop), but I want to document my stay at Pearson International Airport during the Air France accident on August 2, and in particular to describe the way that Air Canada treated passengers delayed by the accident. My posting is not intended to diminish the hardships the passengers on the Air France flight suffered, it is intended to report on how Canada's major airline treated its customers.

My flight from Vancouver to Toronto was rerouted to Thunder Bay because of bad weather. About an hour into the four-hour stay at the Thunder Bay airport, several people who had made cellphone calls to friends in Toronto spread news of the accident. After another half hour or so, the Air Canada crew offered passengers free beer and wine but still wanted $5 for sandwiches. We were allowed to leave the plane (we were at a gate - several planes could not let their passengers out because only authorized personnel were allowed on the ground) so the guy sitting next to me, Ed, and I went into the terminal, bought a sandwich, and watched coverage of the crash on News World on the TV in the terminal bar.

We eventually took off and landed in Toronto around 10:45 PM. All departing flights had been cancelled at this point. I had already missed my connecting flight to Fredricton, New Brunswick, so was wondering what Air Canada was going to do for me and all other people who had connecting flights. After a two-hour wait for an arrival gate (at least we got to see all of Madagascar and an entire episode of Everybody Loves Raymond), we were told that all passengers with domestic connecting flights had to go to the "courtesy phones" at Gate 120 to arrange alternate flights. International passengers were told they could talk to an agent.

On the way to Gate 120 I passed the closed Air Canada Customer Service Desk (it was now well after midnight). When I arrived, some people were already on the phones. The woman ahead of me was on hold for an entire hour (45 miuntes of which I was standing behind her). One of her friends gave her a courtesy phone with a live person on the other end and I inherited her phone and an additonal 15 minute wait. The muzak was periodically broken with claims that in a recent international survey of 20 thousand travellers, Air Canada was found to be the best North American airline.

The agent I finally talked to was helpful; she got me a seat on the 9:40 pm Fredericton flight on August 4 (there are three daily flights to Fredericton from Toronto). When I asked if I could pass the phone to the next person she told me she would talk to one more but that was all since she had been working for 17 hours that day. Also, the fact that I was travelling on airline loyalty points didn't seem to matter, contrary to the experience of another person who was told that Air Canada couldn't help her, and that she would have to contact Aeroplan (the loyalty points company) to arrange alternate flights.

I was lucky enough to be travelling alone and fairly light (I had my large briefcase/backpack containing work documents, laptop, a bag of food, water, and toothbrush and toothpaste). People with small children had to find hotel rooms (the rumor that there were no more rooms in Toronto was circulating by now). My sister in law and her two children flew through Toronto a couple of hours earlier and I learned during a phone call to my wife that they had been sent to a hotel. Later, I overheard a few more people with kids saying that Air Canada had put them up for the night.

I have never spent an entire night and following day in an airport before, and I hope I never have to again. I won't go into details, but boredom, lack of privacy, and the high cost of water and food (and the lack of variety and low quality of the food) made overnighting in Pearson's Terminal 1 fairly unpleasant. I must have flipped through the same set of paperbacks and magazines at the terminal shops a dozen times. I did mange to get some work done but since there is no wifi at the new Terminal 1 ("coming soon") I could only work on what I brought with me. I stayed a total of twenty-one hours in the terminal, about three of which were spent sleeping on the floor.

As the next day (August 3) progressed, travellers' frustration remained high. Now that flights were leaving again, people's focus shifted to getting standby flights. I was able to get on the list for the 9:40 PM flight to Fredricton, twenty-four hours later than my original flight. When I arrived at the Fredricton airport my checked bag was ready for pickup (thankfully - having to go through the kafkaesque and cruelly bizarre experience of claiming lost bags from Air Canada is also something I never want to do again).

We took off from the same runway that the Air France plane used; as we left the ground I looked down and saw the wreckage, eerily lit by floodlights. The entire top of the plane, from the tail to the cockpit, had been burned away. The plane was very close to Highway 401. I remember being suprised at how large the plane was in comparison to the couple of fire trucks that were still there and saying to myself that seeing real aircraft wreckage is a lot different than seeing it on TV.