Originally Posted by
warrens
No. Not true. The
average OTP of the
entire airline is mostly a useless metric except as an Internet forum and media talking point. You might as well be talking about the average price of everything at a grocery store, or the average price of "a car".
Every route has its own unique OTP environment. Since Seoul is a topic, it's worth noting that ICN has poor overall OTP. Like.... we're talking in the 50-60% range.... Air Canada's two daily flights in and out of there get caught up in this. At this very moment, for example, Incheon is reporting a 40 minute delay for all arriving planes
This shows up as a black mark on AC's reputation, not Incheon's, but there's literally nothing AC can do about it.
Meanwhile, Air Canada's afternoon flight from Montreal to Boston is pushing 90% OTP, with only one flight in the last two months arriving more than 30 mins late.
Neither of these things have anything to do with eachother beyond the 014 on the ticket.
OTP is most certainly not a useless metric if the route carries a large number of onward connecting pax. The OTP is an obvious indicator of the number of customers who will be inconvenienced and disrupted. There won't be repeat business if the route is too risky for connecting customers. It is why I won't take fly the YVR-BKK route again. Since you are using ICN as an illustration to dismiss the importance of OTP, I suggest you have a closer look at the data. Yes, many airlines are exoperiencing delays, but Air Canada's are amongst the worst. Oct-Nov. max delay for the YYZ flight was 191 minutes, or 3 hours and 11 minutes. That means missed connections. Compare that to another OTP dud performer ,Koreans daily 74 from YYZ at 128 minutes or 2 hours an 8 minutes. That 1 hour makes a big difference on some connections, especially since the delays also impact departures.
And now back to my initial point, if passengers cannot easily connect or misconnect and/or travel without their bags, the route won't attract repeat customers. That's all. I won't be flying on AC 5 again. It has a 26% OTP with 53% of flights very late or excessively late meaning that any onwards connecting pax are overnighting in NRT. This was one of "newer" routes introduced and I don't think the cabin's are as full as in the first year the route was introduced.