A Tale of Two Airlines

To get to Seoul, I took two flights and two different airlines: Air Canada and Korean Air. I cannot begin to explain how different the two experiences were for me.

The story starts in Toronto's Terminal One at the Air Canada check-in counter. For those of you who have never been to this place, it is a cavernous room that looks much like a futuristic spaceport. You have to check-in with a computer which was not as clear as I would have hoped. Then you have to get in line and drop your baggage off. This is where things got interesting. The lady at the counter weighed my stuff (it was heavy) and asked for all of my documents. She asked if I was working in Korea (yes) and then asked if I had documents for that (yes, and I showed her). Then she asked when I was coming back (I didn't know). She said I needed a return ticket in order to be let into the country, or I needed a contract to prove I had a job (even though I had a one-year work visa). She disappeared for about 5 minutes (to check with a manager perhaps, though it was never clearly stated) and when she came back she said I would definitely have to go buy a return ticket (about $800-900) before they could let me check in. I called my recruiter (it was about 6:30am) and she thought – as I did – that this was not quite right. I went to the ticket counter so she could talk to them on the phone (they refused to) and they continued to tell me I needed buy a ticket from them. Keep in mind, I wasn't actually flying to Korea with them. I was just flying to Vancouver. Eventually I convinced someone to let me fly to Vancouver and pick up my bags there instead of having my bags get put on the plane to Seoul. Thus, saving me almost $1000. I did have overweight bags and had to pay $100 extra for them (which is fair, considering they probably have to spend more on fuel for the extra weight).

Things didn't get much better after that with Air Canada. The plane was cramped and whenever the guy in front of me put his chair back he pinned my legs against my chair and I couldn't open up my tray (if you don't know me, I have short legs and this never happens to me). The guy beside me was pretty close to me as well. I was very tired, and I was trying to sleep the whole flight but it wasn't possible in that situation. There was no food service and we only got two drinks (no snacks!). We were also delayed for almost an hour waiting for passengers who were coming from another flight. The upside was that the flying time was about a half hour quicker than what we were told so I was not quite as late as I could have been getting into Vancouver.

Contrast that with Korean Air. When Alex and I originally checked in we did not have seats together, but the airline was nice enough to find us two seats together by the time we boarded the plane. I only had to pay $70 extra for my overweight baggage (for a flight that was more than twice as long). The seats were wider and had much more leg room. We got two large meals (both Korean food, which was nice, even though I didn't really know what I was eating).

We even got snacks with our drinks (honey roasted peanuts!). Overall, even though the second flight took almost 11 hours, it was by far the more enjoyable flight. If only I could have flown with them (or West Jet) from Toronto to Vancouver, I would have had a much better journey

But as my sister said: if the worst part comes at the beginning (Air Canada trying to steal my money) then the rest of the trip will be easy. And it was.

For those of you wondering, we didn't actually go over the Pacific Ocean to get to Korea. We went North over Alaska, the Bering Straight and then Russia (but we did not fly over North Korea for some reason). It was mostly ice and not much else, but it did make for some nice views of mountains.

Note: I should also mention that Air Canada told us that the ticket we would have to buy would be refundable. Personally I did not believe that it would be, but I would have made sure of it and gotten guarantees in writing from the workers. I just wanted to make sure I added that clarification to my account of the events of February 27^th.