SKYEG

I'm on AC420 today. Leaves at 17h00. Inbound AC16 is SCHEDULED to land at 18h15. Delayed now further.

Can anyone explain how this makes sense? Will switch to AC422 or something earlier. It's always been a 777 and departure time was always 17h00. Confused.

ridefar

This is completely typical of AC scheduling. They are terrible at handling IRROPS, and even worse about communicating. It is mind numbing how biblically awful they are. So no I have no explanation, other than in my experience it is pretty much par for the course.

SKYEG

Is there actually no explanation for this? The scheduled inbound arrival was still scheduled to land way after my departure so delays/irrops or not, there was no way my flight would have left at 5PM. I don't get this at all LOL

And yes... some communication would have been nice, at least I could plan in advance and switch out this AM. AC420 doesn't look even that empty considering it's a 777 on a 1 hour flight. Lots of unhappy folks on that one with 2.5 hour delayed already guaranteed.

ChrisA330

There is a potential for a FIN swap that hasn't been reflected in the tools you are using.

Stranger

How do you know the inbound is delayed? Flightaware or something like it? Has it occurred to you that their information might no longer be current and that maybe they are planning to bring in another plane that might actually already be there?

(BTW I had a similar situation with Rouge. However it was for a US destination and in the evening. In which case they don't update to avoid people trying to show up after US mmigration closes. Not the case here though.)

ridefar

All these things are possibilities. However (and I grant that YYZ-YUL is much more likely to get an airframe sub than some other routes) I would estimate that I have been on a flight with an aircraft substitution that hasn't also caused a substantial, say greater than 1 hr, delay about 1% of the time I have been delayed. And AC's communication was 30-45 minutes slower than the data feed from flightaware and google. Hmmm.

eigenvector

You could look at it as a blessing in disguise. Because you are savvy and have more information than most of your fellow pax, it will be easier for you to find space to make a confirmed change to a different flight from the comfort of your home rather than in a lineup of 200 people at the airport.

On a related note, I do wonder about the different sources of data available for flight delays. I use Google, FlightAware, TripIt and TripCase in addition to the airline's own website/app. It's very common to see updated departure/arrival times or gate changes posted in only one or two of those sources. TripCase in particular, despite being a free service, is quite good about notifying me of delays before they are posted by the airline itself, usually as soon as the inbound aircraft departs late from its origin (which might be 10+ hours in advance for long haul flights). This has saved my bacon on several occasions, allowing me time to get confirmed on another, earlier flight. On one occasion I was flying out of FRA and due to some glitch, my flight didn't appear on any of the info boards in the terminal itself, but I found the gate on Google. Amazing that third parties often give better info than the airport or airline itself.

yyznomad

This sort of thing happens more often than you'd think. I don't bother posting about it here, but in 2017 out of the many hundreds of AC flights taken with connections, it threw me for a loop but many of these situations eventually sorted itself out with time. Like the OP, I was equipped with the knowledge and proactively commenced with mitigation tactics, but quite often they end up being unnecessary. When they are necessary, the changes were made to accommodate, albeit rare. (Admittedly, I had the assistance of the concierge as needed).

RangerNS

We've been down this before, because there was someone either asking why the GA's don't announce things from expertflyer, or bragging that they do to impress the crowd (or something). Or the GA's have less information than what is "public". Or something like that.

What the agents have is official information. Sure the official information may be impossible or based on bureaucratic hopes and wishes, but the official information is also updated when the team of people with private information come up with a solution. (Or not, I grant).

If you are in the likes of YYZ they have A/C and crews sitting around and they could pull off something. If you are in IAH and the inbound is an hour late, your outbound flight is going to be delayed an hour.

SKYEG

At T-3 with the inbound still delayed until 7:10PM and departure still is on time at 5:00PM, maybe there is a chance they will sub in a 77W for the 1 hour flight since it's full.

Glad I don't have to sit around and find out LOL

ChrisA330

FIN for AC420 was updated, and the flight has posted a 20 minute delay.

tracon

Flightradar shows today's AC7 as being operated by C-FKAU, departing on time, 5 minutes from now.
The catch, yesterday's AC7 was operated by the same fin.
Obviously AC7 can't depart on time 2 days in a row if operated by the same fin.

Beware third party information.
Better yet beware all information.

tracon

Inbound is from LHR. C-FIVS.

DrunkCargo

I think Flightradar is correct. AC7 crosses the dateline and on the way back, flies north of it.

RatherBeInYOW

This time there was a fin swap, but you were in a place where that was a possibility.

How many of us have been at outstations where the flight is YYZ - X - YYZ and the inbound from YYZ is massively late and they don't post a delay? Or the flight I had this week were there was a crew rest issue that AC obviously had to know about yet still failed to post a delay?

"Biblically awful" is about right.