enroute is the glossy zine on board each Air Canada flight. The latest issue focuses on some of the most sumptious food and service that can be found in Canada. I found that funny given the food and service provided on my flight home from Vancouver this past Sunday. Parts of southern B.C. got pounded with a snow storm on the day of my flight. That meant my Sunday flight was delayed from 2.30pm to 5.00pm. That was understandable. I went shopping in Richmond and bought chopstick holders and placemats. By 5.00pm I was at my departure gate. By 5.30pm we were all inside the plane. But it wasn’t until 11.00pm that my flight took off. We spent almost six hours sitting in the airplane on the tarmac. Six hours of tired passengers, crying children and forced small talk with the traveller next to you. We sat through what should have been dinner time – with nothing more than water. By hour three the flight crew decided to show us a movie. And it was somewhere by hour five that we learned from the pilot that our flight was getting bumped for flights going to Montreal and Toronto. Those airports have curfews (no flights allowed to land between certain hours, because it’s too noisy for people living near the airports). Also, one of the de-icing workers had injured himself so the line-up for de-icing was moving even slower than before. Our plane was attached to the departure gate. You would think we could have been let off at some point. I would have suggested hour three. But the rationale for not letting us out is that the flight could get clearance for de-icing and departure at any time. Collecting all the passengers after such an announcement would take too long. I spent most of the six hours writing Christmas cards. (Got half of them done). The person sitting beside me worked. Federal cabinet minister David Emerson and MPs Chuck Strahl and Herb Dhaliwal were also on the plane. I wondered if they were amusing themselves with Pirates of the Caribbean 2. When the pilots finally announced that we were leaving (new ones brought in around Hour Four, because the old ones would have worked 20 hours if they had piloted the flight), people cheered. As an apology, the crew served free drinks, sandwiches and snacks, instead of charging the customary in-flight cafe prices. Big whoop. I understand it was out of Air Canada’s control when our flight would be given the thumbs up to depart. And it is not Air Canada’s fault that Vancouver was victim of a freak snow storm. But at some point, someone at Air Canada should have made the decision that passengers on Flight AC138 had been sitting too long in the airplane and should be let off. That it was better to try and accomodate them on another flight than to have them spend 12 hours in a plane, half of that time on the airport tarmac. That the compensation should have been more than a $5 sandwich and glass of red wine. I do blame Air Canada for that.