In this week's episode, we're joined by the great Canadian travel writer and editor-in-chief of the Globe and Mail, Mike Downey, to talk about the horrors of flying these days, and how Air Canada is to blame.
00:00:00.000So, let's talk a little bit about travel, though. I mean, you've done some recently. Your most recent column was talking about how we've gone from the golden era of air travel to today's hell on earth on the airlines.
00:00:11.540Oh, God, yes. I mean, I remember I never got to fly on Wardair, but everybody I talked to who flew Wardair said it was the best airline in the world. It was just one big party. The food was great. The people were great. It was all about having fun and enjoying your trip to Europe.
00:00:32.620I remember my brother and his young bride went to Europe, and they said it was just the best airline ever. I have a friend who told me he flew the Canadian Pacific. Actually, he flew Canadian Pacific and a DC-6 in the late 1950s, and he said it was amazing.
00:00:53.500But Wardair was absolutely one of the best. And if you fast forward to today, my God, the terrible things the Canadian passengers have had to deal with because of the airlines not really being ready for the post-COVID travel rush and not having enough security personnel to look, you know, check and make sure everything's safe.
00:01:19.980And then plus you have this arrive can thing, which I had to fill that thing out. It took me about 25 minutes in my hotel to figure this arrive Canada and fill it all out. I guess once you filled it all out, it's a lot easier if you fly again.
00:01:36.040But plus all the restrictions with the masks and everything. And also the airlines are packing these planes with seat patterns, which are just, you know, we're talking like something out of Con Air with Nicolas Cage, for God's sake.
00:01:57.540You know, you've got no, you've got literally no, none, no legroom, none, zero. And this was on the Dreamliner, supposed to be a Dreamliner. And it was just absolutely horrible.
00:02:11.180And in my column, I say, if not for this wonderful flight attendant who saw me suffering and said, look, when you book back to Calgary, book between seats, rows 10 through 14, and there's about that much more legroom.
00:02:27.360And it was much more survivable and a much better trip on the way back. But it's just, it's just really sad how bad the situation, how stupid it's gotten with so many things.
00:02:41.760And now they want to bring back the random testing, which is completely unnecessary. So it's, it's, it's, it's awful. It's just, we've come from, you know, we've come so far, but we've actually come, come so little, you know, it's, it's just about packing those planes with people and, and, and no wonder people are losing their tempers.
00:03:07.020No wonder they are, you know, it's one of the areas where the Soviets were actually ahead of their time, a flight, I remember going way back into the late 80s.
00:03:15.840And I came off of Finnair in Helsinki, you know, flying to there, which was fantastic overseas flight, great service.
00:03:22.620Of course, some, some very statuesque Finnish flight attendants.
00:03:29.220Got on to Aeroflot to fly to Moscow from Helsinki. And boy, that was no frills. That was the first time I kind of experienced that in my life.
00:03:37.020I mean, they just packed you onto that plane. The carpet was kind of loose, even walking up the aisle, because they did actually tell you as part of their trivia, yes, we can take all the seats out of this and turn it into a troop carrier in five minutes.
00:03:48.400And your seat was wiggling and they took off like a rocket straight into the air and then dropped straight down into Moscow in a way, like, again, I think these were military pilots rather than the, you know, our domestic ones.
00:05:27.380And the flight attendant was absolutely steaming mad.
00:05:31.060But, you know, I mean, it just takes maybe it takes a little bit of common sense these days to calm down a little bit and treat passengers like passengers, not like prisoners.
00:05:44.540And, you know, they're just packing us in like sardines and they don't give a damn anymore.
00:06:06.520You didn't go out in a T-shirt and sweatpants to get on the plane.
00:06:09.120And people didn't casually take an air trip unless they were a specialized business or something.
00:06:14.440You know, this was something you did once every few years, perhaps.
00:06:17.380And now people kind of take it for granted and say, well, I want to be able to book it for only a few hundred bucks, get across the country.
00:06:23.520Well, they're going to cut some services if you want to get that.
00:06:26.300Like, I think that the airlines kind of filled a bit of a need or a demand for the consumers as well.
00:06:31.280It's just that it led to such a rough experience.
00:06:42.720You were treated, especially all the way along.
00:06:44.680And I remember as a kid, back in Windsor, my dad and I, we would drive to the airport to watch a C-Pierre DC-8 come in and land at our airport because it was coming in from Scotland.
00:07:00.540And it would be going to an exotic location like Lima, Peru or somewhere like that.
00:07:06.160And it was really it was a big it was a big thing just to see a big C-Pierre Empress DC-8.
00:07:12.660I mean, I'm a big aviation fan and but it was you're right.
00:07:18.420Now it's it's changed and there are so many costs associated for these airlines.
00:07:25.080And I mean, I don't mean to pick on the airlines.
00:07:27.780I I just think that maybe and maybe they should get more help from the government, too.
00:07:33.640I mean, my God, it's just it's a disaster.
00:07:38.040And the government could be and the thing that I hate is that they're telling us what a great job they're doing and they're not doing a great job.
00:07:46.660They're making things harder for Canadians to travel.
00:07:49.540And and and some of that's landing on the airlines, which is not their fault.
00:07:53.740It's not their fault, you know, because covid hit and they had to let people go.
00:07:59.480And now they're trying to bring them back.
00:08:02.060And and maybe the federal government should have foreseen this a little bit better.
00:08:06.520The transport minister and and and the government and, you know, they could have done more to to make things a little better for Canadians instead of telling us what a great job they're doing, which is total nonsense.
00:08:19.780Well, that's it. And the government helping them out.
00:08:22.080I mean, it doesn't have to mean giving money to the airports or anything like that.
00:08:24.480A lot of it, like so many other things, just means getting out of the way.
00:08:26.920We've got a lot of ridiculous restrictions, testing, they arrive, can't all these things.
00:08:31.640I mean, these border or these these airport staff are already overloaded.
00:08:35.620You've got to check for this. You've got to check for this.
00:08:37.540And now you've got this other stuff thrown on your plate on top of it.
00:08:40.260They can only keep up with so much and a thankless job.
00:08:43.980You know, and one thing I wanted to mention was Charles de Gaulle Airport was really organized.
00:08:48.980Like I thought, oh, my God, what am I you know, what am I going to experience?
00:08:53.580And I I there were no people sleeping on the floor.
00:08:58.660There was a couple of long lines, but but everybody everything was organized.
00:09:03.500And not only that, they were friendly and they would help you through and say, you know, what you know, where are you going?
00:09:18.580And and these are the friends, for God's sake.
00:09:21.220And and I got to the to the WestJet line and there was nobody there.
00:09:27.060Me. And they said, yeah, go ahead, go go get your you know, go to the front, get your ticket.
00:09:31.620And there was a couple after me who had no idea what arrive can was.
00:09:36.960And the lady was trying to explain to them, well, you've got to do this arrive can thing.
00:09:42.080You have to do that. And they had no idea what that was so that I can see where that would be a problem.
00:09:47.760But the only the only problem I had was through security and Charles de Gaulle.
00:09:53.400We got, you know, when your your bags go through the scanner, they have two ways to go the easy way or the way which have to be checked separately.
00:12:44.040It's called the GC-45, a GC gun Canada, 45 millimeter.
00:12:54.240And that gun, to this day, is still probably one of the most powerful guns launching a shell for great distances.
00:13:04.400He came up with all this, and then he was assassinated after working with the Iraqis on the super gun.
00:13:14.580And the Mossad is suspected of killing him, but we don't really know for sure.
00:13:19.340But anyway, that's a really fascinating story.
00:13:21.660Also, I did a piece on the Valkyrie aircraft, which is a drone that is going to be for the Air Force, which could very well be the loyal wingman following aircraft in the U.S. Air Force.
00:13:46.420And it's much, much lower cost than putting a pilot in an aircraft.
00:13:52.940These things cost about $2 million apiece as opposed to $80 or $90 million for an F-35 and millions more to train a pilot and five years to train a pilot.
00:14:03.000But this thing eventually will probably get more, it has a brain, and it has an artificial intelligence, keeps expanding.
00:14:13.860So that's an interesting article, too, if you want to have a look.
00:14:18.120And as for the weekend, there is a story which I thought was very interesting about a Marine Corps sniper.