Originally Posted by
Ace Cdn
If the flight arrived and the flight crew is too fatigued to continue then it is a safety issue. If he felt he wasn't able to operate safely then that is their decision to make. A plane has to fly with two pilots so the first officer taking over the whole thing is not an option. Also since Las Vegas is not an AC crew base they don't have extra pilots available there.
As for the catering - the aircraft do not have fridges on board and leaving the existing catering on for the next morning in a hot airplane is an inviation for food poisoning. As the plane was double catered in Toronto that is why the buy on board options were not available on the return. I will say that someone did drop the ball as they should have arranged for some sort of
catering the night before to be delivered before the departure time of the flight the next morning.
It is obvious some errors were made and things didn't go smoothly. It would be interesting to see how they respond.
I agree 100%. This was a disagreeable experience for the OP, although it came at the end of his trip, so I don't see how it ruined everything that preceded it - unless the OP "invested" a lot of cash in the slots.
However, a pilot isn't going to cancel a flight cavalierly if he is merely a little tired. It is a safety issue, and important one, and fatigue cancellations are not common and no pilot would want a reputation for frivolous cancellations. I believe the overwhelming majority of pilots understand that they are working a service industry and that people are impacted by their decisions. Fatigue has contributed to crashes before, I'm thinking of that AA MD-80 crash a few years ago, and if a crew member of the flight I am scheduled to take believes he is insufficiently able to operate the aircraft safely, I'll take another night in Vegas, paid for by AC, ten times out of ten.