Originally Posted by
YEG_SE4Life
James, why are you asking this question? The article says they landed in OGG 15 hours after their planned departure. Let's assume this is correct. It is about a 6 hour flight, which means the successful flight left about 9 hours after the originally scheduled time. When the plane turned back, it looks like they were about half way into their flight. So 3 hours out and 3 hours back. Subtract that from the 9 hours and I would say they were in YVR for about 3 hours, less deplaning and boarding time. Maybe 2 - 2.5 hours. My math is all pretty rough, but 2.5 hours is much closer to reality than 9, based on the provided information.
The timing of the replacement aircraft sounds entirely reasonable under the circumstances, and shows competent dispatch operation. Of course, Air Canada still has to shoot itself in the foot by providing a $10 insult voucher. Upping that to $20 would have cost less than $1700 and have saved a lot of bad press. Even $15 would have looked better. Or provide a free hot meal to everyone in Y on the replacement flight. But no - AC must look bad at all costs, even when they handle the mission critical parts of the operation as efficiently as possible.