Farmer Diaries

Lets say that 10 years ago I wanted to fly to Chicago from Montreal -- I call my travel agent (in my case AMEX) and they would book a flight and I would be charged by AMEX.  The rate was the rate and is in Sleepless in Seatle "no one knows what the airline charges". However, for inflation purpose, the data was available to the government's statistical office.  Taking a large number of Flight Montreal to Chicago you got a price for the flight! Now move the clock to 2018, you want to buy a flight from Montreal to Chicago, you take your phone and open Expedia and take the flight that fits your requirement!  That data also goes into the government statistical office. Now comes to fun part, you've got to provide additional information; at the same time the airline charges you for extra benefits:  Want food on board, want a better seat, got luggage?  All these are now additional fees (and sometimes for a substantial amount of cash).  So a plane ticket th...

What a shock! Now I don't know the particulars of all that transpires about the case being discussed in the Canadian press, that has apparently been percolating for nearly three years now, but I got to say that when I saw that Azerbaijan was involved... let's just say that I was not entirely surprised. More than 20 years ago I was the "financing representative" of Bombardier in a team that was sent to finalize negotiations for the purchase of a number of regional aircraft.  To give the reader a sense of how these things normally work, there are about 10 Bombardier representatives (contract, maintenance, operations etc) there to finalize the purchase agreement.  Normally, this process takes 4/5 days.  We all arrived on a Sunday night and Monday morning we had our first meeting (with the draft purchase contract).  By 10:30 am the contract was signed -- for the full retail price for the aircraft! Needless to say that the contract guys were surprised (me too -- ah ...