Coming back from LAS to YOW via YUL last Wednesday, the LAS departing flight left on time but arrived about 25 minutes late at YUL - thereby shortening the connection time to 50 minutes.

The concierge met my family and me at YUL. He indicated that the AC automatically cancels the booking on the next flight, if the actual connection time is less than 1 hr. I was therefore booked to the next flight departing YUL to YOW about 2 hrs later.

He had the boarding passes for the second flight in hand (in case we missed the first flight), and also had boarding passes for the first flight. It took about 10 minutes to leave the plane and be waived on by the customs officer; it took an additional 5 minutes for the luggage to come onto the conveyor belt. With the concierge's help, we took the luggage to the connection belt, and then went to gate 46 (where the commuter type non-jet planes take off) within 10 minutes. We had 20 minutes to spare, before the plane left - the boarding took place about 10 minutes after we arrived. Our luggage made it to Ottawa, on our flight.

If AC will automatically cancel a flight with 59 minutes or less of connection time, then perhaps the legal transborder connection time should be lengthened to 90 minutes (our connection was 75 minutes). Otherwise, a lot of passengers will have their connecting flight cancelled, as with the case with us.

I wonder if I would have been successful in uncancelling our original connecting flight, if I had not been a SE passenger, whom the concierge agent was able to help.