Canadian North announces new baggage rate policies
Changes affect Saver, Flex, Super Flex fares starting May 29
Some checked baggage fees are set to rise on Canadian North flights starting May 29, the airline announced in an email to customers Wednesday. (File photo)
Got a ticket for a Canadian North flight? You may need to pack a bit lighter for your next trip, as the airline is raising its fees and allowances for checked baggage.
New baggage fees will take effect May 29, the airline announced Wednesday.
“With the resurgence of travel and heightened demand, we have experienced a significant surge in passengers wishing to carry on and check multiple bags,” the company said in an email to customers.
“This trend has resulted in bumped baggage, flight delays and even fewer available seats.”
Nunatsiaq News was not able to contact a company spokesperson to elaborate on the announcement about the baggage policy changes.
The high price of products in the North sometimes means passengers must bring extra items with them. This has meant “not all bags reach their destination when their owners do” because of “capacity and weight regulations,” the email said.
The new fees will affect the Saver, Flex and Super Flex fare categories.
According to fee information on the Canadian North website, at the Saver and Flex fares passengers’ first checked bag will still be free, but a second checked bag will cost $86.25 and may travel by standby. That’s up from the current price of $57.50.
A third checked bag will also cost more at $138, up from $114.98, and fourth and fifth checked bags will now have to be shipped by cargo, rather than costing $114.98 as they currently do.
The fees to check an animal in the hold or have a pet in the cabin will remain the same, at $230 and $86.25, respectively.
Super Flex fares will now include first and second checked bags for free, with a third costing $138 and any fourth or fifth bags being shipped by cargo only.
Fees for overweight and oversized baggage are also going up for checked bags that are above the 50-pound limit and larger than the total allowed size of 158 centimetres.
As of May 29, passengers will be charged $172.50 per overweight item between 50 and 100 pounds, and $230 per item larger than the limit of 158 centimetres, or 62 inches, which is calculated by length times width times height.
Where a checked item is both overweight and oversized, only one of these fees will apply, whichever is less.
Bags that weigh more than 100 pounds must be shipped by cargo and cannot be checked in at the counter.
Talk about greed. Piita Aatami Must need another bonus.
Hey Truestory; It was only 600K last I read about it, not so shocking considering most now have that much in their accounts…
It all adds up for us small taken advantaged of people.
Do some further journalism, please. Go ask Canadian North how much revenue they expect to lose because of Canada Post catching onto the postal code issue allowing people to ship Amazon. I suspect Canadian North is going to lose out on millions of additional cargo revenues.
The result, they will want to make that up somewhere else. This is likely just the start. They know people will have to travel with additional baggage again since everything is beginning to no longer ship to the rest of Nunavut except Iqaluit. That means moving back to the old days where if you had any family travelling, you always sent them with three bags minimum to grab necessary things.
They say they’re doing this so they wont have to increase fares, that’s essentially a threat saying, eat this change and if you don’t and make noise about it we will just increase your airfare anyways.
I suspect we will be seeing future bumps in airfare to make up for all that lost cargo revenue from Amazon ordering across the Territory.
Our MP will be nowhere to be found, not doing anything meaningful or getting anything meaningful done anyways, nor will NTI, ITK or any of the leaders of this Territory. They all commit to making cost of living affordable in words but there’s not been a single meaningful change in this Territory to keep costs down. Guess there’s not really much to be done after giving Canadian North complete control over most of the Territory allowing a full monopoly in most parts.
“Thank you for choosing Canadian North” – Like we have a choice.
Must be highest baggage prices in the world now. Disgusting. Need calm air or air north to start serving nunavut to put these crooks out of business. No compassion. Worse then northwest company.
All this double talk is pure bs.
Mo money mo money mo money
Remember a time when flights missed due to weather and next day there was a make up flight? Recently there was a missed flight on Monday but instead of next day people had to wait until Saturday to fly out. If no family to stay at, who could afford to stay at a hotel?
Insane Canadian North. You don’t give a literal flying fornicate
The increasing costs in Nunavut, including higher prices for groceries, diapers, infant formula, and extra shipping fees from Canadian North, are causing concerns about the rising cost of living in the region. Additionally, the focus of discussions between Lori Idlout and Iqaluit MLAs on topics only related to a part of Iqaluit raises questions about representing the broader Nunavut community in these dialogues. Furthermore, Canada Post’s return orders for shipments from Amazon to communities outside of Iqaluit add to the financial burden faced by residents. This situation highlights the need for a comprehensive approach to address the economic challenges affecting the entire region.
The Government of Nunavut’s MLAs, Ministers, ADMs, DMs, Presidents, and CEOs of Inuit organizations are receiving large paychecks while showing little concern for the increasing cost of living in Nunavut, which is placing extra financial strain on the lower and middle classes.
Our MP convinced a committee and hold Northern president to account for his generous salary while the communities suffer. Why brush her with the same brush as the incompetent MLAs who are afraid to say anything to serve their constituents. Shame on Canadian North for increasing luggage fees when the smaller communities can no longer get Amazon.
sotherners with the Gold and Dimond status just got SCREWED!!! NO more bringing 3 or 4 bags on the plane for free LOL
Let’s be honest. Most Gold and Diamond members travel so frequently and for such short trips that they usually don’t have more than one checked bag.
The group most impacted by this policy change will likely be regular families traveling and bringing items back, as well as tradespeople who need to bring tools with them for work.
It’s a rich gets richer program. as told to me this program benefits Gov of NU workers who get paid travel benefit to collect the points. No choice of airlines that they give back to those who don’t pay their own ticket. affording a family trip once a year won’t get the status points G of NU workers do.
This is not about extra revenue it is about discouraging passengers from taking extra bags. Like all airlines baggage allowance is shrinking industry wide. There are constantly payload issues so less bags helps this issue.
It is about changing customer behavior. The question is will it?
You must be joking. You think its just pure coincidence that they lose millions of cargo revenues because Canada Post is no longer shipping Amazon orders across the territory and paying Canadian North for it? Come on now.
Wonder what’s next? No more aurora points? No more country food cargo rate? No more aeroplan flights?
Canadian North should change their name to Corrupted North and the new slogan can be We Take Advantage
My other post on a different post support northern corporate greed and all the monopoly’sin Nunavut go bell Canada go northern go coop go calmair. Go Canadian North, Nunavut is your oyster. And it will not change
Think baggage is shooting up? Wait for ticket price shock when airlines start mixing in Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). Promoted as airline fuel made from food and waste oils. Guess for all the climate change Net Zero believing folks to cheer fantastic. Until it’s all used up. Then it’s on to farmland to grow plants such as soybean, corn, canola to be processed into fuel. As the SAF processing plant in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba will use. Robbing food growing and livestock grazing land for SAF. (What will less land to grow food on skyrocket food prices?) Canada wants 10% of SAF to be reached by 2030 and 100% 2050. EU is about the same with 70% by 2050. Sustainable Aviation Fuel is expensive to make. Plus storage and fuel delivery systems need to be upgraded. Using Sustainable Aviation Fuel will increase air ticket price by 2x and possibly 4x.
Back in the day it used to be two 70 pound bags included. Then it was two 50 pound bags included. Then it was one 50 pound bag and $37.50 for the second. Then it was $57.50 for the second. Now it’s $86.25.
All of this hardship with airlines began with the scammy nutrition north program. Bring back food mail and the airlines will be back to rolling in the dough. It’s a domino effect year after year it gets harder. Don’t you miss the 2 airlines, 2 pieces of luggage at 75lbs? That was during food mail days but the “airline of the north” lost hundreds of millions and it went to north mart. Just a shifting of taxpayers money and politicians need to make informed decisions as to where to shift that money back to that will benefit The People and not corporations.
The scariest words are: wer’re from the government and were here to help.
the solution is not from the government it’s from the private sector. let all airliners bid on medical travel. daily, lol. Get multiple airlines bidding on cargo and seats. Also still feeling the reprocussions of COVID-19, the government caused all this too. they are not for the people they don’t listen.
…and yet when something goes wrong, the people who use that Ronald Reagan quote are usually the loudest screaming for the government come to help them. Or, as you just did, complain about the government being involved but demand the government fund things. Yeah, that makes sense.
Thanks to those incompetent Inuit Orgs QIA executives who gave up all their rights for their constituents. Inuvialuit org and Nunavik walking all over NU leaders.. thanks alot from your constitituent.
50% increase on your second checked bag. Complete scam. They only recently increased the pet in cabinfee also 50%. I really don’t get the pet one at all, passengers carry the pet and forgo a carry on so why the higher fee?
.
As others have said you really just need to listen to the leaders of the Makivik and Invialuit owners – they have recently complained how the Northern started using its own planes instead of Canadian North. Time to make it up on the backs on regular people.
This may mean less bags for Canadian North to lose, send to the wrong destinations, inexplicably damage, or have their employees rifle through and steal the contents of.
Nothing is going down with us this summer and no totes coming back. And next summer the trip will be one way.
Good riddance.
If only some company would go north and compete, we are all well aware delayed air would drop prices millisecond.
TFN – NTI should have included for acquirig land in the south for Inuit to move to so that Nunavummiut would have an option for survival. We need that now. The basic essentials are shot. The connection to baggage fees is a minor example but it reminds you of the cost of living. Even basic education cannot get you housing. How does one get out of the hole?
Remember when the merger happened… First Air and Canadian North joined all of their terrible practices into one? There were promises of no drastic changes in prices or routes… has this held up?
The decision makers at Canadian North seem to be utterly devoid of the requisite education, training, and experience that is required to exploit the efficiencies that are the norm at professionally operated airlines. Switching to larger, more efficient aircraft usually results in improvements in customer service, but Canadian North’s ineptitude and inefficiency tragically results in customer experiencing consistently getting worse.
When any group of Canadian aircraft mechanics, pilots, flight attendants, or airline administrators gather together there are always former Canadian North employees there to inform everyone else of the airline’s toxic workplace, and the incapable and unprepared supervisors and managers who constantly set employees up for failure.
It is quite expensive to run an inefficient and outdated airline, so rather than Canadian North improving things will only continue to get worse.
The board of this airline is a complete joke. Oust them all. They’re putting profit over people. Treating the north like their personal piggy bank. It’s cheaper to fly to Greenland than it is to our own southern capital. They should be absolutely ashamed of themselves.
With all the increases in CN airfare , flights late , delayed , connections missed are a common occurrence and now $86.00 so a second bag can go stand-by and maybe show up at the end of your trip if at all . What’s happens with your standby luggage when you have multiple connecting flights, as most of us do in the smaller hamlets . At which stop is your luggage ejected from small ATR , never to be seen again . As we know CN does not have an electronic tracking method for lost luggage , just look for where it was last seen hope they find it
Whatever happened to your luggage MUST travel with you? Why are customers expected to pay $86 with no guarantee that your luggage will travel with you.
Thanks for your money, hope you get your bag sometime !!!!
Is there any other airline that takes your money , so your bag may not fly with you !!!
These comments are great. It sure shows the support of our only airline, Canadian North. Can we now let this go and go for coffee?
I am sure that for Canadian North and the loss of sales for the 46 passengers that will go on the other plane to a destination that is not really where they want to be, only to pay another couple hundred bucks to get to ideal location, give your head a shake. Book your ticket in advance Daniel, Julia, Brain, and whoever else is complaining or at least 46 people at a time to fly once a week to Montreal for $699. one way.
By the way, you can fly YFB – YOW everyday for around $581.00 one way if you book in advance, in most cases 10 days in advance with an airline that cares about your communities. When was the last time you seen a fundraiser that didn’t include a ticket donated by Canadian North?
What did I lose. I lost my access to my Gold card but that’s okay, I understand the need.
Think less of your greed with your hurtful, hateful comments and support the only company that supports you.
Great to hear you can get a one way ticket from Iqaluit to Ottawa for $ 582 one way but everyone does not live in Iqaluit , the place of airline choices, Amazon and a lower cost of living .
For the rest of us that don’t live there we may want to visit family in another community not go south . Costs for travel within Nunavut and travel to southern airports from the communities have continued to increase. there is no other airline , CN is the only choice for air travel and haven’t seen a one way airfare for a flight that is shorter than the flight from Iqaluit to Ottawa under 1000 dollars for many years
would be ecstatic if there was an ticket for $582
Please take some time to actually talk to the highly trained professionals on the front lines at CN who have their every action obstructed by incompetent amateurs in management who consistently act without thinking, and who never ask questions of those who actually understand what is happening.
Blunting dismissing the informed observations of those who post here is counter productive. Why shoot the messenger?
If CN wished to actually support the community they could adopt the best practices that are required of profitable and efficient modern airlines. Having worked in the airline industry for 30+ years I have seen few airlines that are more dysfunctional than CN.
CN’s baggage tracking and handling system is the most outdated and most inefficient of any 737 operator in Canada, an inexcusable example of complacency and a solid example of an utter lack of interest in customer service.
CN’s high cost operating model is entirely due to a consistent inability to exploit the efficiencies that are derived by adopting industry best practices in a structured, rigorous and methodical scientific manner.