Thanks for your thoughts...and the answers are yes, he made the 5:00 flight but unfortunately he still missed his bus!

From what he said, sounds like the 5:00 flight had mechanical problems; in fact, he thought he probably would have done better by waiting for the 5:30 flight (he was pretty sure it left before the 5:00 flight in the end)...didn't finally get to Montreal until 8:00 or so...fortunately the school made arrangements to collect him separately at 11:00 or so, I think (can't wait to see the bill for that one!)

Meantime, the AC agent with whom I spoke, didn't suggest that the cancellations had anything to do with delayed inbound...instead, I got the impression from her that this was primarily a time management issue. (Truth is she was rather patronizing, if not downright critical, about my query.)