Savvy Fliers Connect Through Air Canada
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Your Money Matters from The Wall Street Journal. Welcome to Your Money Matters. I'm Charlie Turner in New York. Savvy U.S. air travelers are discovering that the best way to fly to Europe or Asia is via Canada, Air Canada. The Wall Street Journal says that after years of tough times, Air Canada has turned its hubs in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver into fast, easy connecting points for U.S. travelers. International travelers are finding Air Canada a better deal for making connections than with U.S. carriers like Delta, American, or United. Scott McCartney writes the middle seat column for The Wall Street Journal, and he joins us from Dallas. Scott, we should say that Air Canada has long offered connecting service abroad, but that it's really built out its schedule, right?
Yeah, that's exactly right.
Why are savvy U.S. travelers choosing Air Canada for connections to Europe and Asia?
They've greatly expanded their offerings in Asia and also through Europe and the Middle East, too. And they've done a lot of things, making changes at their hub airports to make the connections into and out of the U.S. to international destinations much quicker. Some of it is things like adding very fast baggage belts to make sure that bags not just connect but get to customs early enough so you don't have to wait for the bags there. You don't even have to claim your bags anymore. They'll take an X-ray, give it to the customs officer, and you can be on your way. So it's convenient. Sometimes the price is right. They've really sped it up, and they're really making an effort to go after this business.
And travelers say the deals are better, the flights are faster, and, of course, Air Canada has upgraded its fleet of planes.
Yeah, absolutely. On Skytrax, Air Canada is the only large international airline in North America to get four stars. People liken it to sort of Marriott, high quality, dependable. You know what you're going to get. It's not as fancy as Singapore Airlines. It's Marriott, not Ritz-Carlton. But they're really actually sort of trying to capitalize on the unhappiness that American flyers have with U.S. airlines right now. And and saying, hey, you know, we can offer something better at a at a better price because the U.S. dollar is stronger than the Canadian dollar. They can aggressively price in the U.S. and and they're really going after business customers in particular.
And as you referenced before, you can clear U.S. customs in Canada without having to retrieve your check baggage.
How has Air Canada expanded hubs and schedules in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver?
Right. For a long time, there's been preclearance in Canada. So you clear U.S. immigration and customs customs. in Canada and then you don't have to, when you get to JFK, you don't have to wait in a long line or Miami or Dallas or wherever else you're going. You basically enter the United States while you're in Canada. But they've done a really interesting thing where it used to be that you had to collect your bags and then go through customs and then go through another TSA-like security check. And they've flipped that upside down now. And so you go through the checkpoint security check first. And then you wait in a little hold room, sometimes just a few minutes, until your name turns green. And that means U.S.
Customs has the X-ray of your baggage, your bags being X-rayed while you get screened. And then Customs is ready for you, so there's no line there. You just proceed in. The officer has your information, clears you, and you never have to claim the bags, and you're on your way. They can do 50-minute connections easily.
You can save a considerable amount of time doing it that way.
Yeah, you really can. And it's logical. The whole notion of doing the security check on your bags while they do the security check on you makes a lot of sense. They're maximizing those times. Now, they couldn't do that before because they didn't have high-speed baggage belts and they didn't have an operation that was set up to get the U.S. luggage off airplanes first and things like that. So they really have tailored it and worked out agreements with the customs authorities to say, will you take a picture of, you know, accept an X-ray and a picture of the bag rather than having them requiring the traveler to pull it off the carousel and lug it through the checkpoint.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:02–0:52
2
Why are savvy U.S. travelers choosing Air Canada for connections to Europe and Asia?
0:52–2:34
3
How has Air Canada expanded hubs and schedules in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver?
2:34–4:48
4
What operational changes speed up connections and baggage handling for Air Canada?
4:48–6:58
Speakers
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