While I may share some people's views re entitled, overpaid union layabouts, the fact remains that Air Canada has a competitively priced service. You can almost always find a better price than Westjet to any given domestic location, and with more flight choices, if you put some effort into it.
As for the fuel surcharge, if you don't like it, fly with someone else. Take a look at travelocity for a flight from Toronto to Shanghai in July. Seventeen airlines will be happy to take you there, including the cheapest, Air Canada, fuel surcharges and all. Questionable advertising practice, perhaps, but all the airlines do it.
Every airline has to pay for fuel, they all have to pay if they provide you a meal. I'd like to be able to pay a little bit less and choose whether or not I'd like to eat on the plane. For seven bucks, and something like five if you pay for it ahead of time, you get a roast beef sandwich and chips. No more expensive than in the airport, certainly.
Charges for changing your flight? OK, Westjet charges $25 less for a comparably priced fare if you have to change it. Or, pick Air Canada, and choose to save $5 more per flight and get no changes, or cancellations. I got stuck on this once, I had to write off a trip to Washington, but really, when the flight costs $150 each way and the change fee is $75 plus the new fare difference, I'll roll the dice every time.
Don't get me wrong, I've had my baggage lost, flights cancelled, and what have you on Air Canada just like on many others. In fact, I was on a flight from Winnipeg to Ottawa through Toronto that was delayed on the ground in Winnipeg for a thunderstorm. Because the flight I was on was scheduled to arrive late, they gave my seat on the flight to Ottawa away to someone else already in Toronto. Thing was that it was the same plane I was on that continued on to Ottawa. So, I explained that there was no way I could be late for the plane, seeing as I was on it (I even had the same seat number assigned to me), but they gave my seat to some lying Toronto scum who said they just had to be on that flight to Ottawa at 10:30 at night. What the hell can you do in Ottawa at 10:30 at night anyway? I got my $200 for being bumped, though, and I'll take that any day.
You get what you pay for. I buy the cheapest tickets I can get, and I'm 95% satisfied with Air Canada. I guess you could have a kinder, gentler airline which sold tickets at twice the price of others and had better service, a glass of wine, a curtain you could draw isolating you from the x-CFL player sitting beside you. A few business types would go for it, but in the long run? Try finding a full service gas station, for an extra 2-3 cents per litre on gas that costs $1.00/ litre already. It's all about price.
