Transpacificflyer

Forgive the lack of IT knowledge here, but what's the difference between the AC advisories and this thing? I have a couple flights coming up and I have received multiple alerts from AC as to changes in arrival or travel times (in some cases by 5 minutes) and in one case a change in aircraft advise.

This is something probably of use for the real FFs and not someone like me who is an infrequent FF.

jerryhung

Thank you cow

Signed up despite me not having any upcoming AC flights I can recall :P

canadiancow

AC has not advised me of any of the changes in my trips.

And mine were all booked on AC.com.

Transpacificflyer

I wonder if it is because I sign up for the alerts? I too booked at AC.Com
I also ask for SMS alerts in addition to the email alerts. This is what they send me;

From: Air Canada [mailto:[email protected]]
Subject: Itinerary Change - Important information - do not delete

The attached document contains important flight detail information about your upcoming trip. Please review it and contact us if necessary.

In any case, my intent is not to sabotage or distract from your generous donation of time and expertise. Your program eliminates the need for me to closely read the revised itinerary and to play find Waldo.

rjp123

I've been a paid TripIt Pro (connected to Facebook, Gmail, LinkedIn, etc.) user since January 2012. Not sure what this means either. Any thoughts on how to handle?

Thanks again!

canadiancow

I'm not sure, so I just deleted you from the database. Try signing up again?

jlionw

Do you plan on putting it on github?

gabdusch

Great idea and work @canadiancow!

I signed up last night and got an email notification right away, and the same email during the daily run, but it's empty!

See below:

I have 3 upcoming trips in my TripIt account, and I'm using TripIt Pro. One potential issue I could see is that I'm importing trips by forwarding the AC.com confirmation emails, which means my aircraft types are in the "full text" format like "777-300ER" instead of "77W".

Keep up the good work. Thanks for doing this. ^

YEG_SE4Life

Seems like a lot of happy folks for such a waste, no? Eye of the beholder?

SparseFlyer

Yeah. That was a stupid comment. Can't believe it's still there.

There are a million arguments that could've been made about why this may or may not be something useful. Yet this is what we get.

vernonc

I too get schedule change advisories from AC. But I forget what I did to get them. I know I opted in on AE for AC communication. And then on the app there was a convoluted process to add AE profile to AC. However I do not get equipment change notifications, not sure AC sends these out at all. And Tripit Pro does not check for schedule changes till the day off flight (24 hrs) whereas this tool seems to do that. So unless AC screws up I will get sched changes from AC, this tool and Tripit (day of flight). This tool is the only one that catches equipment changes.

Adam Smith

Moo cow, thanks for building this. I don't use TripIt, but may have to start so I can use this tool.

AC is inconsistent in sending alerts. For some bookings, it will send numerous alerts for repeated tiny scheudle changes (5-15 minutes).

On other bookings, I've had flights be cancelled or have big schedule changes and get no alert. Sometimes I've gotten a schedule change alert where I look at the "original" itinerary and think "that's not right", then realize that there has already been at least one schedule change to which AC has not alerted me prior to the one they're e-mailing me about. So sometimes it's not even consistent on the same booking.

The cow's tool is likely to be more reliable than AC's own site.

canadiancow

Hmmm it's not supposed to send you an email if there are no changes. I'll look into it.

As for the 777-300ER, of the 72 flights I had, only three had that issue, and they were all "Dash 8-300".

The plan is to have this automatically update TripIt so it's not as annoying for you, but I haven't started on that yet.

SparseFlyer

Cow, out of pure curiosity, how long did it take you to develop this?

What are your plans for it? Full app? New features? Etc.

Any major interesting roadblocks? Planned usage on other airlines?

Not to make you spill the beans, or disclose more than you want to. Just being curious.

canadiancow

Maybe 5-6 hours.

The longest parts were:

1. TripIt's API. The Java examples were 6 years old, and used an Apache HTTP library. I rewrote a bunch of that in Kotlin and switched it over to okhttp (which also cut the binary size down by 35%).
2. Registration. If I was just using this for myself, it would have taken way less time. But setting up the registration system required more than 50% of the time.

I think it will live as a web app for the foreseeable future.

There are definitely some planned new features (like updating your TripIt plans in addition to telling you about the changes), but I'm going to see if there are any obvious shortcomings, or common feature requests.

Additionally, I want to see about running it more than once a day, to catch day of departure equipment changes.

I could look into other airlines. I have a few NH flights booked that I'd like to track too.

But then I'd have to move this thread to another forum

Also, I find UA is very good about emailing me over minor schedule and equipment changes, so I don't even know if it's necessary for other airlines.