In light of all of the recent threads about various delays I thought I'd start a thread about the terrible OTP that AC seems to be experiencing in general over the last several months. According to their own published stats at http://www.aircanada.com/en/about/otp/index.html they seem to have been consistently dead last among North American carriers.

For example the most common route I fly is AC10 between YYC and YYZ. From looking at Flightaware it appears that flight has almost never arrived on time. Curious to know what others experiences have been, ideas what the root cause of the problems is, and how they can be fixed. Maybe AC Top Tier or Andrew Yiu could offer some insights as well?

- Labour strife?
- Equipment reliability?
- Weather?

To me, it appears as if there's absolutely no desire, on the part of any employee to actually try. It will depart when it departs, so be it. I also think there is some subtle pressure being applied by the pilots in terms of what is mechanically "ready to fly" and what isn't, as in if they can find a reason to delay they will. "That lightbuld REALLY needs to be changed".....

I have seen the same trend over the past couple months.

I believe that as it is the summer travel season, that AC is maximizing the use of each aircraft that they have. I think they are trying to fit in as many flights as possible to accommodate increased demand (real or projected)

This seems to hurt the serviceability of the fleet since aircraft are not given as much down time between flights to do minor/preventative maintenance. With turn around times compressed, any added maintenance delays can time out a crew, which then snowballs down the line with more delays/crew issues.

I think it will be sorted out after labour day.

Just a theory.

IMO the old Equipment is being pushed and is at it's operating limits. The A319 and A320 planes are always having issues now.

They need to be replaced or full rework

Same applies to the older CRJ's Jazz is operating

All 3 are chronic now as far as maintence delays, every single flight I've been on that has been delayed it was one of the 3 and some semi minor subsystem failure

I have to agree. My travel has been 99% delay free (almost always on TATL flights) until the last couple, where the YEG-LHR flight has been delayed by 4 hours both the last time I flew, and recently when a friend flew. The identical delays seems suspicious to me. [Sidenote - my delay didn't actually happen. But they send a previous day notice to everyone that the flight was delayed, then we all had to sit there with the plane ready for an OT depart because they had told everyone to come later...].

Return flight same trip - 2.5 hour delay because of climate control issue (took 2 hours for someone to think of turning an engine on given the umbilical was broken).

Definitely both wierd and a recent occurance.

Peace.

I don't have any explanation for the poor performance, because I lack the necessary information.

The latter condition does not constrain all people, but their views should nevertheless be evaluated in their proper context.

I find that AC has a knack for turning a short delay into a long delay - either because they do not have enough staff and/or the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing. Here is an example from this week - YVR->YYZ, with an 1130 departure:

- 1000 - Flight delayed ten minutes from 1130 to 1140 because of aircraft replacement - although new aircraft is at the gate
- 1120 - Gate agent announces that due to smaller replacement aircraft 20 people will not get on the flight - this is after normal boarding time for n 1140 departure
- 1145 - Start boarding for an 1140 departure
- 1154 - Receive text notification from AC that flight will depart at 1153 - one minute ago
- 1200 - Captain advises that they are waiting for a seat cushion replace (remember plane has been sitting there since 1000)
- 1215 - Flight finally departs.

I notice that, as far as I've seen, there are 2 main reasons why planes from my base are late:

1- late inbound flights. When planes in YUL, for example, go mechanical and leave late, they arrive late. We don't have a crew base in YEG, so for the crew to get a rest time, the return flight is delayed.

2- Tight turnarounds! Some of the planes are on 40 minute turnarounds! I've actually seen GA's call boarding while pax are still walking out of the gate, just to get things going! Recently, I saw a GA call priority boarding, process one pax, get a call, turn around, and yell at the one pax to wait, as the plane was still half full! She actually made him stand beside the door to the gate, and as soon as the last pax walked off, she called boarding again!

With such short turnarounds, it doesn't take much to mess things up!

YVR-PVG is for the past 7 days on average 40 minutes late. Very inconsistent, and makes it hard to catch connections, which are not plentiful. NRT is the same issue. AC is not really trying to be on time, or they set their schedules too tightly for some reasons.

Your opening sentence is highlighted, as I can assure you, nothing could be further from the truth. For my own selfish reasons (and those of our customers), I want to get to where I'm going - ON TIME.

Also the speculation regarding labour strife in Post # 1 is incorrect. I'm fairly certain that all labour contracts have been signed.

So what's your take on it then? Why such a bad on-time performance? Why does it appear to be worse lately? Would truly appreciate your perspective.

Also, is it possible that I heard an SD ask the pilot over the phone the other day to wait until 6:31 pm before door open so he could claim his supper? (Flight sched to arrive at 6:10, we were pushing 6:30 anyway....)

Many of the posters have already outlined many of the reasons. Tight scheduling, wicked weather patterns, maximum aircraft utilization, some maintenance issues to name a few. As in every other post, I only presume to speak for myself, and addressing your assertion that there is a lack of desire on the part of any employee to get a flight out on time. I and the colleagues I've worked with this Summer have worked very hard to get things moving, and regrettably for all involved, sometimes there are prevailing factors beyond our control. From our end I will reiterate - there is absolutely no benefit and no vested interest in anything other than striving towards on-time performance - not even the dinner claim paid when the clock strikes 18:31.

The on-time performance of AC is bad and getting worse. My next AC flight will be YYZ to YVR on Saturday, so I looked up the performance of AC's flights over the last two days. Yesterday 1 of 19 flights arrived on-time with 5 being more than 30 minutes late. So far today 0 of 15 flights are on-time with 11 being at least 30 minutes late. I don't think AC cares about this at all.

You're right - I should not paint all employees with the same brush. I apologize (really!) I just wish I could see some urgency as we approach departure time. Remember a while ago when there were employees running around with clip boards trying to get them out on time? It DID seem to make a diffrence.

Re: the 18:31 question, are you saying then that it WAS a possibility that I heard that? Does it make sense?

Looking at the responses it appears that it's generally a combination of factors which are hampering the OTP. One of the questions I'm curious about is how most of the other NA Carriers have vastly superior performance compared to AC. I realize that that there could be different factors involved with US Carriers but I would think that aircraft utilization, mechanical reliability, and weather wouldn't differ all that much.