New Air Canada plane: Embraer 463!
 

I was on YYZ-YQB yesterday.

The gate agent told passengers that we would be on a smaller airplane than normal

Since I knew we were scheduled for a Q400, this caught my attention. Perhaps a Dash8-200 or 100?

She then advised that because it was 'a smaller Embraer', that luggage normally taken on board would not be allowed, and it should be gate checked.

Since I am a gate lice at times. she looked at me and told me to check my bag.

Curious, I queried her. She said it was a 'smaller Embraer.'

Curious further, I asked her. "It's an Embraer 463", she said.

I was quite looking forward to enjoying this new experience.

On board, of course, it was Bombardier Q400. Big disappointment! But apparently, a model of the Q400 that has smaller bins?

Since I don't do regional much, are there actually variations in bin size on the Q400?

And I look forward to one day, voyaging on the Embraer 463!

The former SkyRegional Q400 that have been recently transferred to Jazz are an older variant of the Q400 and do indeed feature smaller overhead bins

She works at the airport, so you must be wrong. You did indeed fly on an Embraer 463.

I thought maybe it was fin # 463, but that part of the 4xx fin series belongs to an A321.

Any other guesses as to what "463" was really in reference too? Is it a specific Q400 model # maybe? (couldn't find anything on that either).

I think there are 4 of these Q400 with the smaller bin design. You have to gate check rollaboards on these aircrafts.

And welcome to YQB!

Could be a simple mixup. I mean Embrar to Bombardier?

Question. Does Bombardier append/shorten aircraft name/series the way boeing and airbus do? Ex 777-300 becomes 773, 380-800 becomes 388? Because then I can see the Dash8-400 6th iteration becoming Dash8-463 that way.

She specifically said it was an Embraer 463

Any clue how this 463 could possibly be?

It's secret code for international super-agents of course. That was no regular gate agent, that was just a front. You sir, have been part of an international covert operation and didn't even know it...

Was the GA's name Penny 4?

I wouldn't think so as the older Dash-8's were expressed as DH4 which sometimes is still used for the new Q400 but most places I see online it's actually called Q400 so no, I wouldn't think there was any way it could be twisted into anything as you suggest. Just MHO of course.

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Boeing used to assign internal customer codes that are suffixes to the aircraft type itself. Rather than, say, a 747-400, you might see 747-433. The first '4' indicates it's a -400 series model, and the '33' is the Boeing customer code for AC*. I should say 'was', as Boeing no longer uses customer codes for their 737-Max, 787s and beyond.

Perhaps Bombardier has a similar numbering convention, and their customer code for AC is '63'?

* We all know that AC no longer uses 747-400s, and Lord knows I've been looking in vain for them at YVR lately, but the -433 designation remains, following the planes' transfer to new owners.

.........................or the AC GA was just dreaming stuff up off the top of her head to get people to hurry up, check their luggage, sit back down so she can get back to a Reddit.com discussion or running Gabor Lukacs name through the computer to see when he is through next.

Or she was merely trying to do her job and attempting to placate gate lice. We can imagine all sorts of scenarios.