a remarkable corporate emission

added later: Jacobin article about just how shitty Air Canada and other airlines have been to their employees.

THIS IS A LETTER FROM AIR CANADA TO ITS CUSTOMERS FROM THE END OF JUNE 2022

My comments in red 

At Air Canada, we know how important travel plans are. This is even more the case today when many are taking their first trip in years following the pandemic. Whether for long-anticipated vacations, visits with relatives and friends, or for business, we are grateful and recognize our responsibility when people like you entrust your travel to our airline.

is this an apology? this sounds like an apology

Regrettably, things are not business as usual in our industry globally, there is no shit here, whatsoever, Sherlock, to be sampled or detected, and this is affecting our operations and our ability to serve you with our normal standards of care. Sample previous tagline “Air Canada, we’re not happy til you’re not.” The COVID-19 pandemic brought the world air transport system to a halt in early 2020. Now, after more than two years, global travel is resurgent, and people are returning to flying at a rate never seen in our industry. BECAUSE LIKE THE IRRESPONSIBLE SHITHEELS RUNNING PUBLIC HEALTH ACROSS THE GLOBE THEY’RE OF THE BELIEF WE CAN GO BACK TO JAMMING OURSELVES IN PRESSURIZED INFECTIOUS DISEASE CONTAINERS AMONG PEOPLE WHO ARE RICH ENOUGH TO TRAVEL AND YET SOMEHOW HAVE DECIDED THAT THE MICROBIAL WORLD HAS NO IMPACT ON US. Wait until the flight where Monkeypox, Cholera, giardia, COVID, and hemorrhagic fever all come out to play. you’ll be shitting through the roots of your eyebrow hair and praying for sweet death

This surge in travel has created unprecedented and unforeseen strains on all aspects of the global aviation system. I’m so worried about the baggage retrieval system at Heathrow I mean, have you seen it? bags ERRYWHERE. same like hundreds of other airports. Around the world, there are recurring incidents of flight delays and airport congestion, resulting from a complex array of persistent factors impacting airlines and our partners in the aviation ecosystem. He’s not wrong and that’s an interesting way of putting it. But governments ERRYWHERE dropped the mask mandate and he doesn’t fucking mention that. Similar effects are being seen in other industries too, where companies and suppliers are struggling to restart, unclog supply chains and meet pent-up demand. Sadly, the fact that airports are pest holes means that the people who WORK THERE GET COVID, AND PEOPLE WHO GET COVID aren’t supposed to work – but they do – and at the same time are really encouraged by the company not to stay home, which means we get the maximal mixing of variants in airports while not knowing who’s infectious while mask mandates drop, a less than ideal situation for both travellers and staff.

At Air Canada, we anticipated many of these factors and began taking tangible action during the depth of the pandemic to be ready for a rapid restart. Yet, despite detailed and careful planning, the largest and fastest scale of hiring in our history, while basically telling those people they weren’t getting a raise, better benefits, better working conditions or better management, so that they were returning to work after two years of income stoppage to a stagnant paycheque while housing, fuel and food prices soar so maybe a little less use of the self congratulatory language bub as well as investments in aircraft and equipment, it is now clear that Air Canada’s operations too have been disrupted by the industry’s complex and unavoidable challenges. It’s the other guys what done it and we could keep busting ass but something terrible/interesting/black swan happened. This whole shivaree of shit corresponded to the fucking Russians booting fuel costs through the troposphere so they’re now going to make a virtue of necessity, sacrifice the employees ONCE-A-FUCKING-GAIN. YOU WILL NOTE that none of these ‘challenges’ mentions that the people who just got hired back will in large numbers be laid off again while the chaos and kinks work their way through the system. Sadly for Air Canada, a lot of people are just going to say fuck it and not come back to the company when the economy comes back, and I see many very troubling signs in the economy that it won’t be coming back at all, not for anyone who doesn’t have at least 50 million dollars’ worth of insulation, including real property, not fucking NFTs. The result has been flight cancellations and customer service shortfalls on our part that we would never have intended for our customers or for our employees, and for which we sincerely apologize.

In response, we took a number of important steps, including introducing flexible ticket policies, new travel self-management tools, improvements to airport operations, as well adjustments to our schedule – all to strengthen operational resiliency and to give customers more options. However, to bring about the level of operational stability we need, with reluctance, we are now making meaningful reductions to our schedule in July and August in order to reduce passenger volumes and flows to a level we believe the air transport system can accommodate. Yikes

This was not an easy decision, as it will result in additional flight cancellations that will have a negative impact on some customers. But doing this in advance allows affected customers to take time to make other arrangements in an orderly manner, rather than have their travel disrupted shortly before or during their journey, with few alternatives available. It will also enable us to more reliably serve all customers. If you say so, I’m staying out of the expensive disease canisters for the time being.

I can assure you Air Canada is also working in close cooperation with airports, government, and its third-party service providers, who all are striving to return our industry to pre-pandemic standards of operation. One awkward shift in the China Sea, maybe a dustup between China and US vessels, or a full scale attack on Taiwan when ‘none are looking’; one small nuke in Europe as Putin’s fury is unleashed, and the global travel industry will collapse as the banks who’ve loaned money to the airlines start calling those loans when their cash flows collapse. Pre pandemic is GONE. it has to be understood. It’s gone and it’s not coming back. Things are operating at zero bone.

We are convinced these changes will bring about the improvements we have targeted. But to set expectations, it should also be understood the real benefits of this action will take time and be felt only gradually as the industry regains the reliability and robustness it had attained prior to the pandemic. You mean you’re finally looking further ahead than this quarter? AMAZEBALLS. Too late chuckles.

On behalf of all of us at Air Canada, please accept my sincere apologies for any disruption you have experienced or may experience with your travel plans during this unprecedented period. I also assure you that we very clearly see the challenges at hand, that we are taking action, and that we are confident we have the strategy to address them. This is our company’s chief focus at every level.

Thank you for your patience and understanding. We certainly look forward to future opportunities to serve you and regain your loyalty at a time when we can better demonstrate our commitment to taking good care of customers such as yourself.

Sincerely,

Michael Rousseau
President and Chief Executive Officer

Air Canada

further comments

This is the correction, happening right in front of us. They say it’s just for the summer, but if they can PLAN TO do that in the high season, there’s nothing stopping them from doing it the rest of the year.

anyway, I’ve said it before. I’m not flying anywhere unless minimal conditions are met, including I fly first class, I don’t pay for it, carbon offset sufficient to cover is purchased and I don’t have to come back for at least two weeks. OR it’s not a jet flight and regional. Or it’s a helicopter. Or air ambulance. Anyway, it’s time to book that train ride I’ve always dreamed of; maybe a year out.

 

I don’t know their names

Fifty three dead migrants in a truck on the wolf’s mouth highway; dying of heat prostration in an airless container for a better life is a refinement of cruelty.  Six hundred have died making the perilous crossing from North Africa to Greece and Italy from Tunisia and Libya so far in 2022.

Now think about what happens when those fifty one are fifty one thousand. When six hundred are six hundred thousand.  Nothing will stem the tide of migrants, alive and dead. Between autocratic governments forcing people to starve rather than express their rights and climate change drying up water for even an inadequate life, people will migrate. Technologies will be made available for food, for light, for water, for shelter, but here’s the thing; the gap between what is possible and what gets done is going to be monitored and posited and funded and ideologically supported by and profited on by previously existing academics, disaster scammers, politicians and wealthy families. The best solutions will be stick handled out of the way at the top; we’ll be taxed like beasts to support solutions that actively make things worse and then be blamed for having supported it (however involuntarily) when things go wrong.

It’s why it’s imperative to think about local solutions for problems. No-one’s going to save us; there will be a million photo ops and no help, like Doug Ford everywhere all the time. Something weird is happening inside my brain. Maybe it’s the chocolate. Maybe I’m angry enough to feel really vengeful, but in a new way.

Maybe I’ll go back to write. I have a little bubble of energy left I think. And something else happened today that’s knocked me down, and I don’t want to feel this way, I want to shoulder it off.

 

 

First 2 eps of “Only Murders in the Building” were funny, VERY FUNNY in spots and embarrassing (as in I THREW MY BLANKET OVER MY HEAD IN AN AUTISTIC ATTEMPT TO SPARE MYSELF THE EMBARRASSMENT) anyway, quite witty and in retrospect pretty damned funny, oi the bleedin’ parrot.

R. Kelly American singer, songwriter, record producer, and convicted sex offender got 30 years in jail for raping and otherwise sexually abusing women, mostly minors. I don’t support the existence of the carceral state and believe he should have been forced to give everything down to his shoelaces away to his victims now and anything in future so he gets ten percent or a living wage, enough to keep a car running, and they get everything else and otherwise he’d be allowed to walk free. Jail just makes money for asshole white investors and asshole food service companies and asshole jailers. It’s no place even for a rapist.

I read to my amusement that ‘this here haunted doll for only 60 bucks can be yours because THE LAST BUYER BACKED OUT what no reason did I tell you this doll is haunted’ is for sale. Still, what a bargoon.

I think one of my favourite things about the Slash/Back script is how Canadian it was. It was cadenced completely differently than an American movie. Anyway.

Just in case you think I’ve gone off the deep end, a return to my normal levels of lunacy. I couldn’t find attribution.

KISS FM IN SOME KIND OF PUBLICITY STUNT or possibly because of angry fired people is playing RATM’s Killing in the Name of NON STOP and a) it’s a supremely kick ass tune and b) if it’s not a publicity stunt it’s an interesting choice of tune. anyway, this is six hours and a bit now they’ve been doing this. I think it’s very funny either way. oh well I HAVE NOW BEEN LISTENING FOR MOST OF AN HOUR if this is a publicity stunt I don’t get it and they’re going to collect a CRTC fine for this.

 

pix

Jarmo and Susana have sent pictures from a trip to Finland, and they are wonderful and extremely solstice-y, (drumming for solstice) but I don’t have permission to post, so I won’t.

Left a message for mOm indicating I sent her another 850 words; current count is 25,151. Our lads are stuck in MIA and Richie has reappeared, having done some sleuthing in a part of the airport he shouldn’t have visited. Omar has since been despatched for provisions from the food court.

I’ve got a load of laundry on. Lunch, probably in a couple of hours, will be pork chomps, leftover broccoli and cole slaw, and some form of starch. Either that or I’ll make pork fried rice, sort of depends what Jeff wants.

sad reminder

Ten years ago or thereabouts Lois and Bob lost their child Kaitlin to suicide, and I’m holding those two and her brother Jesse in my thoughts today. Keith attended the memorial service for us all. Please reach out to your friends and family even if you think they’re doing okay. Young women right now especially are really feeling the news quite personally and may be feeling desperate or unheard. The most attentive family may miss signs; it’s part of the grief and self-doubt that follows this terrible event, that we’ll ask ourselves what we could do, what we could have done. Sometimes we don’t get that conversation.

I am really lucky that when I’ve been right on the ground with depression my family and friends have rallied around me. We’re all different and need different things. I want to believe that I’ll reach out to my friends and let them know how much I love and appreciate them. Kaitlin was a vibrant, lovely human being, and she has stepped into eternity, and we remember her.

I have not forgotten

I haven’t forgotten about Roe vs. Wade being struck down.

I don’t share Jeff’s optimism about and relish in anticipation of the downfall of Clarence Thomas.

I’m unmoved by the revelation that were it not for Trump’s secret service agents telling him that the situation at the Capitol would not allow him to be conveyed there, he would have stood in front of a very well armed crowd, a crowd for whom he had previously turned off the magnetometers for his speech at the Ellipse, and turned them loose on downtown Washington, probably starting a bloody insurrection that would have gone on for days while the world watched in horror. We all knew what he was capable of, from the fountain of bilious spite that seems to be the only motivating factor, besides a nearly impervious vanity, in his personal arsenal.

I will be moved when I learn what Putin had on him. I likely never will, but the body language doesn’t lie.

I haven’t forgotten about Putin, pressing the ‘you don’t know if this is the day I nuke London’ button over and over again through the mouthpieces of those still depraved, meretricious and sycophantic enough to sit upright and talk under tv lights. I haven’t forgotten about the dead in a shopping mall, the shore boats with small cannons that are coming from one country, the shoulder mounted rockets from another, the three D printed field tourniquets (they’ve already saved lives and the Russians are stealing them, theirs are shit) from private citizens; the pencils and markers and paper for schoolkids. The Ukrainian forces are exhausted. Wave after wave of Siberian kids who may not even have indoor plumbing at home are being thrown at what are now some of the fiercest house to house fighters, kilo for kilo, in the world, but they’re tired and sometimes the reservists who’ve been called up are fighting kids young enough to be their grandchildren. In fact before the war is over I’m expecting to find a grandson and a grandchild face to face in this conflict. The Russians too are sending 50 year old reservists into battle. It’s a shit war. He ran through his youngest tropps too fast, through his autocratic contempt for them in his scheme for glory. It is NOT ‘the brother’s war’ and to call it a civil war would be to stomp on Ukraine’s self-determination and to feed yourself lies about Russia’s territorial demands. But it is a war between people who know each other, the direct consequence of the longings for Empire restored in Putin’s policies, and the fucking oligarchs who either ran away when shit got hard or followed him hoping for a payday.

I haven’t forgotten that the convoyancers are restarting their national tour. Lich has been rearrested for as far as anyone feels comfortable reporting, breach of bail conditions. Stay off social media? LOL. Unless you’re impounding her phone and serving public notice to the telecom companies that she can’t have another one for the duration, bes’ uv Bri’ish luck wi’ ‘at. Senior members of parliament (the Conservative side of the house be scuffing their loafers and avoiding comment) have warned Canadians not to become complacent about abortion rights; stuff that happens in the US can happen here and we’re fools not to pay attention.

I haven’t forgotten about my grandsons, who thrive, or my children who appear to be doing satisfactorily. Nor about my wide skein of acquaintances, family members and friends who suffer from cancer, or loneliness, or depression, or lack of work, or excess of work, but mostly from the terrible grinding dailiness of the bad news, when they’re supposed to be holding down ‘all that’ a household, a family, a routine, two squares a day, gardening, maintaining family and social contacts, navigating the minefield of contemporary politics.

I haven’t forgotten about how all of the pleasures I enjoy are balanced on a knife edge. But the landlord just came for the next three months’ cheques, so I doubt we’ll be going anywhere until September, and that has settled my mind just a small tad. Thank you to the founders of that particular feast.

lovely day

Peggy, because she is a goddess among women, made PIE yesterday and I got to take some of it home to Jeff.

Paul came to the housefilk and had a wonderful time, sang a few tunes upon request including Willie’s Diamond Joe.

Cindy was in fine form and made me realize that I haven’t memorized ‘Lady of Komarr’ so that kinda STOPPED IN THE MIDDLE ah the joys of middle age.

Then after we had such a great time, getting fed lunch with chicken and taters (Peggy) and kale in bacon fat provided by Joe, and singing and playing and talking, I get home and Mike called and he came over for a big chunk of the evening and we ordered White Spot burgers and club sammies for dinner for delivery and all was as it should be.

It was so wonderful to see him. He was in a reasonably good mood. This was amazing, given that his oppression by all things mechanical and electrical continues. He has in the recent past detailed how everything that can break, arc, spark etc. is likely to just fall apart in his hand, but I got to see it last night and he’s definitely under a curse right now. I wish I could help him break it.

Paul and I had another painful discussion about his condition and I told him it doesn’t really matter how many legitimate grievances he has if his roommates are so done with him that he doesn’t have a place to live. He needs help and I’m going to try to get him some now that the denial has stopped.

much foreshore

Foreshore Restaurant for breakfast w/ Jeff, Foreshore for walkies with Paul, then off to the weed store in New West for YES THEY HAD TRAINWRECK I’M SO HAPPY and also gummies, because I’m out. All in all a very nice day. Woods were full of birdsong and the weather is so splendid (and the sky so beautiful, filled with ripples of clouds) it’s just … lovely.

I complained about Beyoncé’s new video (to my friends on Social Media) having migraine/epilepsy triggering flashies. A technology journalist asked me to comment and I told her that it was my preference that affected Black people comment, I’ve said what I needed to say and don’t need to further grab the mic. Got my own platform (pat pat) right here.

feet

Second last time I spoke to Katie on the phone she said could I please do something about Paul’s feet, so I took him out on the deck (it was GORGEOUS here yesterday, just a hint of the heat that will fell us on Friday) and trimmed his nails. We none of us bend all that well. I can still do my feet but it’s hard and I sort of have to wedge myself into the bathroom in a particular way so that if I have a fainting spell I won’t kill myself falling over.

Beforehand we went for a walk in Hilda “It Says I’m an Avenue but Actually I’m a Street” Park. We listened to the crows and talked to a nice lady and her easily perturbed pooch. And we actually talked about Paul’s medical condition like adults for the first time ever. This probably has something to do with how the kids lowered the boom this week. I told him that for his own longevity, comfort and safety, he should get a diagnosis. He’s unconvinced anything can help him. So I tried to be encouraging.

After the walk, he sat on the deck and I brought him sugar free home made iced tea (using the carton of Splenda I got from Mike) and a nourishing, light lunch. (Smoked salmon, red onion, capers and garlic cream cheese on sourdough muffin with a side of the last of the cole slaw.) THEN I did the feet. Anyway, I try to help look after him as best I can, and it will be easier when he stops pretending everything is fine.

Katie and Alex are going camping Canada Day weekend. Ryker will be with his dad. Ryker’s no longer eating at mom’s (it’s not a problem; there never was a child more interested in solids in the history of getting fed).

There’s other family news too but it’s not for public consumption. Age is reflective and brutal, should we live so long and have the brains to think with.

Got my bloodwork and my meds, thank you Jeff for the boost of energy required to do it. Jeff got us fish and chips for early supper and SO GOOD. I’m going to turn the leftover chips into Really Bad Poutine Imitation. Since I have neither gravy nor cheese curds.