Porter Airlines flies into the Purple Goldfish Project
#300 submitted by Brian Millman:
“I wanted to send through a Purple Goldfish to help in your quest for 1,001. I’m not sure if you have heard of Porter Airlines, but it is a short-haul airline which flies out of Toronto’s city centre airport (very cute and small airport) and focuses on business travelers. It started primarily operating in Canada with one US route to Newark but has expanded to fly to Boston, Chicago and Myrtle Beach.
With most airlines, you expect to sit in the typical terminal with old rows of seats. At Porter’s hub, they offer a VIP lounge for everyone. The terminal area is set up similar to that of any VIP lounge: a kitchen stocked filled with FREE soda and water, two cappuccino machines, and free snacks (Cookies & chips). Porter also offers FREE Wi-Fi with a power port under every seat as well as 14 computers for those without a laptop.
ALSO- not sure if I have gotten lucky, but supposedly there is an $100 change fee for jumping on an earlier flight… but I haven’t been charged for it once.”
Stan,
Good post and I understand what why he feels the way he does about Porter. I have flown on one return flight from Toronto to Newark, which was good, but had I listened to my gut reaction on my first interaction with them, I may never have flown with them.
I’m a Canadian but am based in London and late last year I had to make a business trip to Newark NJ. As I have friends and business potential in Toronto I decided to fly through Toronto. I’d heard about Porter and once you’ve flown on Air Canada, then you’re desperate for anything that smacks of a great customer experience.
Once I found that they had a flight that was convenient and cost effective, I decided to book it.However in their quaint Canadian and quite often American, parochial way, their web-site couldn’t handle a UK address. I tried phoning and even allowing for the time difference couldn’t get an answer. I then sent an email and the response said “please allow 30 days for a reply”. I’m still waiting! As you will know first impressions do count and this wasn’t going well.
I realize that their market is primarily Canadian and American business people and they could care less (obviously) about people like me. But even Canadians need to think a little more expansively at times.
As I do maintain a Canadian address I finally used that, but was reluctant to do that knowing that with the paranoid attitude of the US Border patrol, I’d probably get bounced back for not giving my correct home address. Fortunately the guys at Newark seem to have gone through some sensitivity training and all was well.
If I hadn’t heard good things about Porter I wouldn’t have persevered and had a good experience. I’m not sure what the moral is but airlines have to understand that the customer experience starts way before you get to the airport, and long after you arrive.