Yesterday I finally made an attempt to return from Ottawa, in the great white north known as Canada, upon my airline of choice for most international travel: American. American hasn’t really done me wrong lately, and so I feel loathe to criticize them directly, however I will say that when you use the lowest bidder, you get what you pay for.

That, you see, is the problem with American’s ticketing and gate operations in Ottawa. Up until this year, Air Canada handled those services; check-in, boarding, stuff like that. The things that have the most direct exposure to American’s clients. This is good; Air Canada simply processes people with the same expected courtesy and efficiency that they process their own passengers, they have good working knowledge of the airport, and could interchange “their” personnel with the “American” personnel with likely a minimum of cross-training.

However (and this is where I’m unclear) whether Air Canada did not offer to renew their service contract or American decided it was too expensive, which I’m guessing is the case, they’ve ended up with a level of incompetence in their operations that even the flight and cabin crew was amazed and unhappy with.

My day started at 4:45. I’ve attempted to keep myself on central time, so in reality, it started at 3:45. A.M. That’s ante meridiem, and for you slower people, that’s about two and a half hours before the sun peaks over the horizon at that latitude, this time of year. Also, for my friend, who so kindly was chauffeuring me from my temporary residence in Ottawa to the airport, this meant getting up early as well.

I was in line, waiting for my ticket, at 5:20am, my flight was at 6:55am – more than enough time to get checked in, through customs, stop by the Tim Hortons booth in the U.S. departures area, get a coffee (large, double/double if you must know) and a bagel, and wait for my flight. My ire, however, began at 5:35, when the first person in line still wasn’t checked in. It grew, and grew, and grew as the gate agent (wearing nothing to identify he was working for American, mind you, the only clue being that he sat under the American sign) who was on the phone still hadn’t checked anyone in at 5:45, then 6:05, then finally at 7:08 (as noted on my phone) I got checked in.

So what was the problem? Well at first, since the ticketing agents were volunteering no information, someone found out that “the computers were down” – which wasn’t exactly true. It’s what the gate agents said. What turned out to be the problem – after a bit of prying and finagling the ticketing agent and getting confirmation from our flight attendant, was that the ticketing agent had accidentally selected the wrong printer on the computer, and didn’t know how to switch it back.

So how was it fixed, you might ask? Well, one of the lovely ticketing agents at the U.S. Air ticketing desk came over and picked the right printer.

Now all this would be okay; I had a two hour layover for a reason. So when they boarded us at 7:25, I was fine with it. But then we sat, and sat, and sat. Why this time you might ask? Well first after boarding was complete, we waited nearly 25 minutes for the first version of the manifest to show up. When it did finally show up, it was wrong, showing that more people had boarded than were on board. The flight attendant counted, then counted again, then sent the manifest back (I’m not sure if there’s more to the flight paperwork than that, but it is what seemed to be the hold-up). The paperwork came back with the same problem. The flight attendant recounted again, and then so did the co-pilot. They figured out which seat was supposed to be filled and was not, asked for the person to indicate if he was there, and waited. No indication. But the gate crew (the same two fellas who could not select the printer at the ticketing counter) could not seem to figure out how they had boarded the invisible man.

Our flight finally pushed back at 8:35am eastern, with nearly half our flight missing their connections in Chicago, and several more having to run for it.

In a way, I feel bad for American; their choice of an inept vendor to handle their customer-facing operations has lost them a fair number of Canadian customers. I heard the following statements “I knew I should have flown Air Canada,” “My sister warned me about flying American,” “I’m never flying American again,” and “They can’t fix this.”

The damage is probably done; the entire plane was frustrated with the operation at Ottawa, and while knowing that the contractors are the ones to blame allows some amount insight in to where the problem is, American really needed to take ownership of the situation. When I called the AAdvantage desk and they had absolutely no clue as to what was going on – because the contractors had not informed them that there was a problem. I would almost bet that if there’s an after-action report, that this is covered up as a computer malfunction – or at least described as such by the vendor to American, when I know for a fact that it was just simple incompetence.

So as I sat typing this at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, with my luggage on its way to Phoenix as I wait for my flight to Dallas (I was rebooked you see, but my luggage was not, and I’m thoroughly reminded of Southwest’s “Why do they hate your bags?” commercial) I feel a sense of pity for American for once again having alienated potential future customers.

My nemesis (nemeses, perhaps) are Embraer regional jets – specifically the ERJ-135, 140, and 145s that American Eagle flies. It’s not that they are bad jets, really – it’s just that more than any other plane other than the DC-9s that Northwest still flies, their cabin configuration is just horrid. With a 2+1 seating arrangement and so little space between the seats that my knees are firmly set in the back of the chair in front of me before I even finish sitting, it’s no wonder that these little jets are the bane of my existence.

The fact is, though, that I’ve rarely been on a full flight. I think once I saw one at 75% capacity when I flew to Lexington from Dallas, but usually they’re half full – or less! Earlier this year I flew from Chicago to Ottowa, and there were three whole passengers on the flight. Sadly, I know exactly why American doesn’t reconfigure the planes: there’s no way it would be cost effective.

Of course I have no way of knowing what the cost would be to reconfigure the planes, exactly, but I can guess that there would be the cabin redesign, with figuring out how many seats to remove and how to reset them, the time and materials for doing it, the storage for the excess seats, and then the service rotation for the planes while the cabin is changed over. Even for one plane, that’s a chunk of change. After that, they’d need to configure the planes back for the end of lease cycle or for sale.

All of this, the logical knowledge of why something has not and likely will not be done really does not help my knees, though. I’m sure that with the time I spend in the air, and the raw, unadulterated affinity for capitalism shown by airlines, even the ones that I love to fly, there will be a solution.

I’m betting it comes in the form of $6 for a couple of extra-strength Tylenol served as an optional part of the beverage service.