OldVines

it's a Friday evening, and once again I am sitting in Medicine Hat airport while the harassed gate agents rebook people on redeyes and flights tomorrow. And once again there is no chance of me making my connection to YYJ.

Both the staff, the other passengers and the general public in the City say that Air Georgian are suffering from old unreliable planes, a shortage of spare parts and a shortage of Pilots.

It says Air Canada on the ticket and the planes, but this route is flown by Air Georgian on their behalf.

I have several more flights booked, but I will be cancelling them, and driving the YYC YXH leg in the future.

I can understand weather delays, and sympathise with airlines when they have to deal with hurricanes. But this is maintenance and planning, not unforeseen circumstances. American Airlines went the extra mile to get me out of IAH during Hurricane Harvey last month, even though I have no status with them. I've done 49 sectors so far this year with AC, and get the feeling that they just say "It's not us, it's Air Georgian"

There is no food or drink in the airport at YXH, so while I wait for the outside chance of a flight tonight my only entertainment is Flyer Talk. Perhaps one of the AC experts can help me understand why Air Canada use Air Georgian.

Ace Cdn

My guess is because they are cheap.

Rendar

I've gone through this with the Red Deer Calgary flight so many times I've just given up on it and drive from Lacombe to YEG now.

On every instance, the AC ground crew were amazing and wanted to get us to a hotel asap, but needed official cancellation from Georgian. The final straw was when a 2130 flight from yyc was canceled at 0300. We were all given rooms at the airport Delta.

Albertan Georgian ops blow chunks. No idea how that route is surviving.

LAman

Lethbridge isn't much better. Over the last 3 days, 4 of the 6 flights to Calgary have been delayed. I don't understand why Air Canada puts up with this either. In the winter it is even worse, with frequent cancellations and delays. People in my company have stopped flying between YYC and YQL because of the delays (and missed connections) and cancellations, and now drive instead.

nave888

Not on Air Georgian, but on Express, doing YEG-YYC in the winter has become painful, especially with the DH4s and reduced frequency. Flights are routinely cancelled or delayed for hours. I actually had one flight last winter where we were boarded, but sat at the gate for hours, and a bunch of us just got off before takeoff because we ended up missing commitments in YYC.

As a result, I either book flights super early (ie. 6am YEG-YYC for a 9.30 meeting in Calgary), or I fly Westjet (they don't seem to have nearly as many issues).

yyznomad

I feel your pain... I used to do over 100 flights a year on a ZX BEH, before I found out about FT!

HerpaYvr

Since this service was launched between YQF & YYC I have done about 126 segments. Delays and cancellations are the norm, as a SE i was compensated and many times driven down to YYC by cab. As a E50 I do not think I would be compensated the same way so for most of 2017 its been YEG or YYC.

This past Thursday September 21st AC7205 was cancelled. I was booked on AC7201 (decided to try this route again), so everyone from the cancelled flight was loaded on our flight. The plane was an hour late and the pilots moved slowly as if they did not care or were so new they had to think before they could do anything!

Made my connection to YYZ, but YQF was such a gong show. I am no longer supporting YQF as those folks need a make over!

OldVines

Thanks for the wise words everyone. Glad to know it's not just me.

i'm now in the Medicine Hat hotel, paid for by Air Canada, and the Pilots for the 0500 out of YXH are in the same hotel, so I'm hoping it will fly. But when you say it's cheap, there are people in hotels in Medicine Hat and Calgary tonight on AC's dollar, so the poor service must be costing them serious money.

mapleg

Only reason I can think of is because Air Georgian has a big fancy logo on their website saying this::

OldVines

And the 0500 taxied around the airport for a few minutes, then came back to the gate with a mechanical problem, and is showing 6 hours 50 minutes delay while engineers drive from YYC to YXH.

Ive given up.

RangerNS

Now that I think about it, Georgian has been responsible for a disproportional number of my delays and weirdnesses as well.

I'm sure there is an AC executive dashboard somewhere with big red marks against them. But knowing and even accepting they are a problem doesn't make it easy to replace a 30 A/C, 500 person, system.

mistermap

Wow, I've flown quite a few times on the eastern Georgian, between BDL and YYZ or YUL. It's been reasonably good, especially by comparison to what has been described here. I wonder how the two operations could be so different.

yyznomad

If by "quite a few times" you mean 300+ times, then I will say that you are extremely lucky.

mistermap

Fair enough, I do expect that I've been lucky. I've had only one bad experience in about 30 trips.

ewok22

OldVines, like u I fly YXH - YYC regularly to connect my ongoing flights, about 30% of the flights are either delayed or cancelled. I always ensure my vehicle has a full tank of gas so that I can drive to YYC if required. The upside is the replacement aircraft in ur case this week was a Jazz Dash 300 as there were so many passengers affected by the 1900 break down. Like u I am sick of poor performance of Georgian Air. No excuse for this.