The future is in our past -
It is that time again - the end of another year! It's a time to recall the events that made headlines at home and abroad. Two global events vied for first place in 2009: President Obama's dominance in world politics, and global warming, which has been renamed climate change to put a spanner in the views of the skeptics.
Of course the usual suspects Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan remained on the radar but have been downgraded into the old news category. The main news focus shifted to the man that had the power to produce change with respect to all aspects of man made destruction. The globe fully expected to be on the road to change in 2009.
In January, President Barrack Hussein Obama rode into office on the proverbial white charger of hope, which dropped him at the door of the White House and hasn't been seen since. Perhaps the fleeing of hope was a harbinger of things to come, for some supporters couldn't wait to distance themselves from President Obama after the anticipated change did not materialize.
Barrack Obama, the Knight in shining armor turned out to be a Bush wannabe in disguise. Expectations were dashed quickly for any meaningful change when President Obama simply stepped into the former President's shoes and resumed business as usual.
Rather then the anticipated change, President Obama ushered in a coming of age for activists who had been cajoled and flattered into believing in the existence of heroes. However, President Obama's hero status didn't even last for the usual fifteen minutes.
In this time of instant communication, followers knew the jig was up within days of his taking the Oath of Office. His staff appointments let the cat out of the bag and paralyzing bewilderment set the course for 2009.
By the time the Global Warming Conference began in Copenhagen no one was expecting change. President Obama had lost his chance to make a difference globally. No one at the conference felt obliged to follow the President's example, except Canada's Stephen Harper who acts like a spare groom at a wedding. VoilÀ!
There's not a single headline from Canada that stands out for 2009, except perhaps the proposed sale of CANDU nuclear reactors to India and Turkey or the latest proposal to accept bids for the sale of the entire AECL's CANDU Reactor Division. What fools we mortals be!
In Newfoundland and Labrador, the headline that takes the prize for 2009 is "Air Canada to resume flights from St. John's to London in summer". We are to believe that this announcement has nothing to do with the fact that Go Travel Flights will offer a similar service.
Air Canada scaled back direct flights to London in 2006 before canceling them in 2007. This move caused much consternation in the province and left Newfoundland and Labrador with no direct overseas service for the first time since the Second World War.
Will travelers go back to Air Canada? There's no doubt flights that arrive in London in the morning are a convenient connection to other destinations. When Air Canada scaled back and scheduled the flights to arrive in London later in the day, passengers unable to make connections dropped the flight.
The peculiar part of this announcement is Air Canada is now saying they will schedule flights to ensure connections to other parts of Europe. They are announcing the scheduling as a new arrangement, not as the resumption of a past service. Curious isn't it?
It really is too bad that top management at Air Canada play fast and loose with the traveling public. It's too bad, because they have some of the best employees in the business who go above and beyond the call of duty.
On a recent trip from France, an Air Canada employee made a stellar effort to get me on an earlier flight to Halifax so that I would not miss my connection. When Fernand Demers saw that my flight was so late that the connection to Gander would be missed, he decided, without being asked, to get me on an earlier flight.
I cannot thank Mr. Demers enough for accomplishing the task. He could not have known that after we had boarded the flight to Gander, we were asked to leave the aircraft and go back to the terminal to wait for my original flight.
In spite of that wait, it made me happy that the people on my original flight would not be stranded. In Halifax, another person went out of his way to wheel me to the waiting area. Like Fernand Demers, Nathan Horne is a credit to Air Canada.
The human behavior of the employees is in direct contrast to that of company policy created by the top executives of Air Canada and other corporations. It looks like the more it becomes economically important the worse the behavior at the top becomes.
How long it will take before we spot a headline announcing cancellation of the London route, if the Air Canada flights succeed in making the venture unviable for Go Travel? Is it worth getting one's hopes dashed once again
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