I can tell you that three weeks ago, I had a bit of a personal problem while dealing with Aeroplan. I called Aeroplan from my office one morning and pressed 2 to receive services in French. I left the phone on the speaker phone while waiting a half hour and listening to Air Canada music. This is costly for Aeroplan. It is perhaps an isolated incident; I don't want to spend all our time on it.
I want to talk to you about something else. I would like to make a suggestion. You said that training is given in French and in English in a given area. You also talked about the French Café awareness workshop.
I would like to suggest something else. You should stop using prerecorded cassettes on your flights and allow your employees to speak. That would force them to practice. In the past, flight attendants would talk to us because they were supposed to be bilingual. Today, they simply put in the audio cassette. We're not giving them the chance to practice.
I would suggest that they be given a chance to sit down, have a coffee and talk to us. That would be a good opportunity to practice the other language. We have taken away their chance to chat. Flight attendants stay quiet nowadays during flights. They put in an audio cassette and somebody else does the work for them. That's just a suggestion. In addition, that would prove to clients that your employees are able to speak both languages, not simply saying "Bonjour, monsieur" and play a cassette.
We don't even know if employees are able to speak French or not: they no longer speak to us. Those who dare ask for a bottle of 7UP find themselves before the Supreme Court.