Originally Posted by
aerobod
All they need is the flight number to get accurate information, type it into Google for the easiest access to info for any airline, no need to navigate to find a timetable. The Air Canada timetable is only updated twice a year, so is only a guide to flights as YXUFlyboy said, so is not a source of up-to-date information. Westjet as with many airlines and other sites such as Google and OTAs these days pull information for flight status and times for their mobile apps from external sources such as FlightAware and FlightStats, this then enables a single data source for codeshare and operated flights.
That is assuming 1) one trusts Google for this information (I don't), and 2) people actually know about those external sites and apps (I prefer to get it from the proverbial horse's mouth), and 3) have a phone that can run the apps (all mine are obsolete and/or no longer supported).
As for Point 2, I would say that most people would go to the most-authoritative source (i.e., the airline) for this info.
WS could fix this by showing fully-sold flights as AirAsia does. Pity WS's IT is too poor and shoddy to do so.