With just 15 hours before my scheduled departure from Paris, the
Air Canada cancellation
showed up in my inbox
.
Air Canada stated they’d be searching
different carriers
for a flight to bring me home. I scrambled to find accommodations and had no idea how many nights to book. How long would I be stranded?
This is my first time travelling alone overseas, and everything to this point went well. I saw the masterpieces of the Louvre, including Marat slumped and murdered in his bathtub. I dined on French cuisine and tried escargots for the first time. I followed my itinerary and explored as much as I could, walking as many as 33,121 steps one day.
Now, I’m stuck in an airport hotel, spending my hours waiting on the phone. I’ve been here since my Sunday, Aug. 17 flight was cancelled.
Each time I call Air Canada, I have the same conversation with an automated system. The robotic voice says all passengers with disrupted flights should refer to the website. When I ask to speak to a human agent, it says all the lines are busy, then it thanks me and disconnects the call, leaving me without any other options.
The website pointed its finger at a full refund, but not a rebooked flight. For me, this was out of the question. A last-minute ticket from another airline would have cost me between $1,800 and $4,000 out of my own pocket.
I got another email from the airline saying they couldn’t find any flights suitable for my itinerary and they left it at that, again directing me to request a refund. I’ve tried to call several different times and have gotten nowhere.
When people hear that I’m stranded in Paris, they have romantic visions of the Seine and bustling streets with fabulous architecture, but really, I’m in a little room with a view of planes landing and wishing I could be on one.
It was a WhatsApp text from my dad that informed me
the strike was over
. When I read that, I was relieved not just for myself but for the other passengers left stranded. But when would I be heading home, exactly?
Despite the fact that the Air Canada website explicitly asks “please do not head to the airport unless you have a confirmed itinerary,” I had no choice. It was the only way for me to arrange a plane home. I waited in line for two and a half hours to speak with an agent who could make it all happen.
The staff were friendly and clearly busy, rushing around for supervisors’ confirmations and hunkering over computers to test out alternate flights, layovers and dates on a case-by-case basis.
In my case, I’ll be flying back to Ottawa on Friday with a layover in New York. Air Canada offered to pay for the hotel room, plus accommodations for food.
But until then, despite news that the strike is ending, I’m still here in France – waiting to fly home to Ottawa.
Hintonburg resident Lauren Roulston is an Ottawa writer and radio producer
