About 20-minutes ago I was on the porch of my friend's house, ready to walk down to the bus stop and catch the shuttle to YEG. My cell goes off and it is Air Canada informing me my noon flight has been delayed 1-1/2 hours. Oh well, just about the original time I had planned to go back, since my original 2:30 flight had been cancelled. So now I have a bit of time to kill, and catch up with emails etc.

Good to hear that AC is anticipating notificatlion of schedule changes. It postulates that AC has precise contact numbers to alert you to any delays or changes. I agree: that is superb customer service. I have only experienced that once and was I impressed.

Well, at least it commends one to provide contact numbers when completing the PNR on a res. I include my cell number as the "out of town" contact, and since it is on rom, I am sure to get the call, or at least the message.

I remember once when my flight from YVR-YYC was cancelled, CP managed to track me down at Hilton YVR airport hotel, I was quite sure that I did not tell them that I was staying there. How they did it was still a mystery to this date...

I wonder if this is a service they provide to all travellers,or only SE/EP?

USair once called me at 3am to tell me that my puddle jumper flight from Hamilton Ont had been cancelled and did I want to be transfered to the next flight out of YYZ or wait for the next one from Hamilton. I chose YYZ and made my meeting. AND I had never had status with them!

It would be far better service to do their absolute utmost to make the planes run on time, and not have the delays, cancellations, etc. Of course, weather is beyond their control, but most anything else can be controlled by the airline.

I am sure they try to do this for all their travellers. It's not often that flights are cancelled so it's not that many calls to go through the whole plane.

I didn't know USAir flies to Hamilton. Do they still have this route? Where do they fly?

The only place you can fly to from Hamilton (outside of Canada) is PHL, on US. At one time, perhaps still, the only airlines using YHM were US, and Royal, before it even had scheduled service. I think there was a total of 4 or 5 flights a day, depending on the day. Very spooky to arrive in an essentially deserted airport. I had to wait for the Avis guy to drive out to the airport (quite a ways from downtown) to set up the contract and give me the keys. He then drove back to town.

There was a big push on then to turn it into a serious alternative to YYZ. You could even drop your business card into a "mailbox" and they sent you a HUGE package of informational material. Don't think it panned out though. But it might yet, with all the talk of discount carriers.

Correction, Ken. They fly to PIT, not PHL. I think 4 flights a day on Saab 340s. In the early 90s it had service on NW to DTW that I took a couple times. Today there is the PIT service and now Westjet.

They keep talking about other potential services, including AC Lite which was bandied about last year. So far, no luck but it is actually a very busy cargo airport. All the couriers use it as they have no curfew, and can conduct flight operations round the clock.