jam side down

Air Canada Red Cards Passenger - All He Did Was Ask for Duty-Free

2008-04-13T09:15:00.007-06:00

The Canadian Transportation Agency's April 7, 2008 Decision No. 160-C-A-2008 deals with a complaint by a man I will call Mr. Passenger against Air Canada.

Mr. Passenger flew from Vancouver to New Zealand by way of Honolulu in February 2007. At Honolulu he changed to Air New Zealand but alas, it was not a smooth change.

While in the air about two hours before reaching Honolulu, there was a disturbance involving Mr. Passenger, Air Canada flight attendants, and an unfulfilled request to buy duty-free cigarettes at the wrong time.

It comes down to one person's word against another's, but there is no doubt of the result:

Mr. Passenger was red-carded.

Apparently if you cause problems on board, Air Canada will give you a "Passenger Warning Card". I hope these don't become collector's items on e-Bay or everyone will be trying to get them.

Anyway, Mr. Passenger was delivered to the authorities in Honolulu, interviewed, and let go without charges. Air New Zealand, acting on advice from Air Canada, wouldn't let him on their plane. He spent two days and $441.00 in Honolulu before Air NZ relented and flew him onward to Auckland.

One presumes the holiday in New Zealand was pleasant and left Mr. Passenger feeling well-rested and jovial, as there appear to have been no incidents on the return to Canada. Air Canada did fly him back from Honolulu, under certain conditions, which he accepted "under duress".

Under duress? Really? Under protest, perhaps. Duress seems a tad strong. Oh well.

The Regulatory Part

Mr. Passenger complained to the Canadian Transportation Agency, asking for his money back. (The $441.00). The Agency found that Air Canada had not followed their own rules, and ordered them to repay Mr. Passenger, and to take their negative comments off his permanent record, lifting any bans they may have put on there.

What Really Happened?

We may never know how it was inside that airplane on the fateful day when Mr. Passenger asked for duty-free two hours outside Honolulu. Air Canada said he mentioned the word "gun" in his demands, that he grabbed flight attendants and did not modify his behaviour and quiet himself until the Air Canada people threated him with restraints.

Mr. Passenger says Air Canada is damaging his good name and that he did not do those bad things.

The Agency said that Air Canada did not provide any evidence to back up their story, just a statement from counsel (who presumably was not on the plane and therefore could not be a first-hand witness). They also found that Air Canada does not have the right to tell other airlines about their customers' alleged bad behaviour.

Actually, they didn't come right out and say Air Canada doesn't have the right. The Agency said that telling other airlines was not in the terms of Air Canada's tariff. Whether Air Canada has freedom of speech, or whether the passenger's privacy comes first was not discussed. The Agency had a sort of disapproving tone in that paragraph, that's all.

The complainant won overall.

It's an open question why the airline didn't produce any flight reports or bring the flight attendant to the hearing to give evidence. Everyone is so busy these days. Would you rather have a flight attendant serving you drinks or sitting in a hearing room?

The most troubling part, for the rest of us fliers, is that if airlines can't tell other airlines about unruly passengers (not Mr. Passenger, but the ones who are really unruly with evidence to prove it) - then the rest of us will have the pleasure of their company for every leg of our long-distance, code-sharing flights.

Jam side down for us.

Worst Job in the World: Zimbabwe In-Person Election Reporter

2008-03-31T10:31:00.003-06:00

"Security officials were to meet to decide who would tell Mr. Mugabe that he had lost".

Read by Charlotte Gray on BBC Radio 4's PM news program, March 31, 2008.

Propane + Gophers is a Bad Combination

2008-03-27T20:14:00.005-06:00

The Calgary Herald said that a massive grass fire near Springbank (west of Calgary) destroyed vehicles and out buildings on the quarter section it burned last weekend. During the fire, radio reports said people were being evacuated from their homes.

The fire starter has confessed. He was trying to eradicate Richardson's ground squirrels (fancy name for prairie dogs, which is the local name for gophers) using a propane torch. This might have been, not a torch, but a commercially available gopher-killing device that mixes propane and oxygen underground, creating a small explosion which reportedly kills the gophers.

Some reports have mistakenly suggested that the device in use was the Gophinator, invented in Saskatchewan. Not true. The Gophinator is a 60 gallon tank of anhydrous ammonia with a long hose and a valve. It asphyxiates the animals by surrounding them with noxious, corrosive gas.

Interestingly, the Gophinator inventors had a hard time getting their simple product to market because it wasn't registered as a pest control device. That was in 1999 - 2000, and I see it's available on the Gophinator website, so it looks like the legal woes might be over.

Both methods sound ghastly from the gopher's point of view, but the propane model seems scary for a dry grassland environment.

The habitat preferred by the Richardson's ground squirrel is... the dry grassland environment.

Swarovski Crystals Threaten to Destroy Wedding Dress

2008-03-25T20:17:00.003-06:00

So, this is a problem I could never imagine having, but I read it on the Internet so I must accept that it's real.

A bride to be found out - before the wedding - that the little claws on the settings of the Swarovski crystals on her special wedding day shoes were catching on the hemline of her silk wedding dress. What to do?

Others sympathized and suggested painting over the sharp bits with nail polish, or going back to the vendor of the shoes for ideas - for surely this could not be the first occurrence.

One lady who did not try her ensemble on far enough in advance confessed to having used Scotch tape to dull the jewelley points.

This was all back in 2005. I hope the bride had a lovely wedding and that shoe problems are nothing but a happy memory now.

Fabio and The Goose

2008-03-23T14:07:00.004-06:00

How did I miss this story?

Back in 1999, supermodel Fabio was innocently riding a roller-coaster when he and a passing goose went beak to beak. The goose lost. Fabio had a lot of blood on his face, some of it his own, and had to get one stitch. Fortunately his good looks didn't suffer.

This story was even on The Daily Show, but that was before I became a Jon Stewart viewer.

What I like about Fabio is his sense of humour.

Photo: Gans in actie, by Wikimedia Commons contributor AutoCCD. Reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike License 2.5. Thank you for sharing.

Eliot Spitzer Was Caught by Well-Meaning Investigators

2008-03-16T14:08:00.003-06:00

N.Y. Governor Eliot Spitzer's rapid fall from grace has more than a little irony to it.

Now, he wouldn't belong here on Jam Side Down except for the chain of events that led to his resignation. I am not going to say that Spitzer was standing by minding his own business, not exactly.

However, his involvement with a prostitute seems to have come to light because his bank account was monitored... for his own good? For the good of the people of New York?

Some news reports I heard said that large cash withdrawals from his bank account drew the attention of someone who thought they had better make sure the Gov. wasn't being blackmailed. It sounds like that someone wanted to protect him. Yet, the result has been politically decapitation. (Yes, others might choose a different anatomical metaphor).

Beware the unintended consequences of our actions, I suppose.

Block of Ice Falls from the Sky Through the Roof of A House

2008-02-09T14:48:00.000-07:00

Calgary, Alberta, Canada - Calgary Police, Fire, and Emergency Medical Services responded to a call in the 800 block of Riverbend Drive SE at approximately 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, February 7, 2008. The homeowner was shaken up but not injured by ice that dropped from the sky, tearing a hole about one foot square in the roof of the house. Debris including ice, shingles, plywood, drywall and insulation landed on the bed, narrowly missing the lady of the house.

Later media reports said that some pieces of ice hit Marian Liknes, a grandmother of four. She had gone into the bedroom to answer the phone when there was a huge explosive sound as what was later discovered to be ice came crashing through the ceiling. Her husband, Wade, was already at work when the ice landed on his side of the bed.

The Liknes home is on a flight path into Calgary International Airport. The Canadian Transportation Safety Board has been asked to investigate whether the ice fell from a passing aircraft. Sometimes faulty seals have led to leaks of toilet water from planes, creating ice cubes of the same size as this one.

Mr. Liknes put the ice into his freezer to preserve the evidence.