RangerNS

OTP is based on the airlines own schedule though.

The question really is what is the relative speed of, say, YHZ-YYZ, or YYZ-YYC for AC vs WS. Scheduled and actual, vs each other. And then what their respective scheduled and actual times for YHZ-YYZ-YYC might be.

Very rarely do I compare inter-airline total time for a flight, or even different options from AC (leave after noon Sunday, return after 5 PM Thursday, or as late as possible). And I certainly do not mind anything up to even a 3 hour connection, provided those rules are followed. I've missed flights by hours, but never by minutes. The polish that would get AC from 17th to 1st isn't going to fix any of those things.

Apparently "most" people do care about total scheduled time, and about connections. AC is playing a game here, scheduling impossible schedules to look good on Google. Most people won't ever look at OTP reports, or (like me) don't care about 20 minutes here and there.

Sopwith

flybit

unitl Canada has a air passenger bill of rights AC has no financial incentive to be on time.

Symmetre

I think the answer to that lies in their respective OTP scores and rankings - Westjet 9th in North America, AC 17th.

17th ... out of 20.

Not good.

BearX220

When Delta took over Northwest it inherited snow hubs MSP and DTW. Plus DL has the snow hub at SLC (widely believed to be the best US airport to connect through in winter owing to superb snow ops), principal ops at ATL which is easily felled by storms / other bad weather, and focus ops at ORD, JFK, and LGA which are all weather-vulnerable and ATC-challenged. Hard to believe DL can sort out its OTP in more congested, delay-prone airspace than AC.

The US carriers long ago learned to manipulate OTP readouts to their advantage by padding the schedules. It is still a revelation to some travelers that a DL flight can be 45 minutes late off the gate at LGA and still chock at DTW or ORD ahead of timetable.

KenHamer

Under promise and over deliver.

quantumofforce

at least people make their connections then!

RangerNS

My point is that Westjet could just "schedule" that flight to be an hour longer, and regularly use that full hour. AC, might normally be 30 minutes late, would give them bad OTP scores, but be faster in reality.

I don't have those stats.

smallmj

Increasing block time is the best way to provide wiggle room for all of the minor uncontrollable delays It means that arrivals are much more likely to be on time and that connections are more likely to be made successfully. It sounds like a strategy that focuses on happy long term repeat customers.

Having the minimum block time increases aircraft utilization. It means that less time is spent idle on the ground, which can be seen as a waste of money. It sounds like a strategy that focuses on happy short term investors.

RangerNS

The youtuber who talks about this stuff talks about this stuff.

Tighter schedules improve A/C utilization, decrease gate costs, and make schedules look better to customers.

There apparently is a limit. Redlining everything triggers cascading failures for individual PAX and the fleet.

I'm prepared to admit that AC running things a bit too tight.

RatherBeInYOW

This is the real answer. Things like AC booking crews to fly YYZ-YOW coming off of flights from NYC which are always delayed, with absolutely no buffer room, will cause rolling issues for OTP. I can't count the number of times I have sat for unavailable planes, crew or even gate space because of no wiggle room in the AC schedule. AC minimizes block time and crew connection times which looks good on the balance sheet but kills OTP - plain and simple. They care more about financial metrics than they do OTP, otherwise this would not be happening.

skybluesea

Symmetre

Sorry friend, but you're really clutching at straws here.

No airline will schedule their flights or their ground turns to be any longer than absolutely necessary. Those jets only make money when they're taking off. If they tighten the schedule and can have the aircraft fly one more segment per day, they win. If they pad the schedule and give up that opportunity, they lose. Westjet isn't going to give up X-number of extra revenue segments every week just to help make AC look bad in some annual OTP summary.

Frankly, AC doesn't need any help. They're looking pretty bad all on their own.

ridefar

DL and UA absolutely pad their schedules. Perhaps they do it out of necessity (to prevent cascading delays) or perhaps for other reasons, but there is no question that they do it. A flight of 1500 miles will be scheduled for 4.5 hours on DL, and 4 hours on AC, for example. Consistently. It is one of the reasons that MCTs can be so short at their hubs (short relative to MCT at Canadian airports for domestic connections).

RatherBeInYOW

Other airlines don't schedule as tightly. Just taking in to consideration equipment (never mind crews or gates) go have a look at WS and check flight lengths and turn around times vs AC comparables. The reason they are 10% better is not magic, it is because they allow more time in the schedule, at some cost to their bottom line. This isn't rocket science.