RatherBeInYOW

1. AC don't have to de-ice every flight in the winter, not even close. Especially in YYZ, where most of the problems are. Yes, on days where there is precipitation and it is below 0 it causes issues, but that is hardly every day in the winter.

2. Air Canada pads their flight times in the winter to account for de-icing, at least on some routes anyway (e.g. YOW/YYZ for sure).

3. If Air Canada isn't accounting for this enough in their flight times then Air Canada needs to fix that problem - it isn't a problem with the statistics, which are just reporting if the flight is on time.

4. Weather is hardly the only problem, or a problem unique to Air Canada. ACs OTP is consistently worse in the summer too, and UAs OTP is affected by places like EWR which are a gong show 365 days a year and yet they still seem to manage to do consistently better that AC.

Symmetre

That's an excuse the AC apologists have floated out there for years, but it's simply not valid. Westjet flies pretty much exactly the same routes as AC does, and in exactly the same weather, yet it has consistently posted a significantly better OPT. Not just recently, but for years.

Delta has major hubs in MSP, JFK and DTW - airports subjected to weather that's on par or worse than anything AC's hubs in YYZ and YUL face. And the volume of flights they run out of these airports would easily exceed the number of flights AC operates out of eastern Canada. Yet their OPT is consistently better than AC's, and by a significant level. Ditto for AA, with its hubs in JFK, LGA, PHL and ORD, which on its own is easily among the most weather-delayed airports in the world. In spite of exposure to similar weather, and operating more flights, AA manages an OTP that is so much better than AC's that the difference is laughable.

Man alive, even UA beat AC in OTP, and in spite of also operating its main hub in ORD - along with EWR (another of the worst for delays), plus DEN and IAD - all airports that face their share of winter weather.

The argument that AC can't get a plane to arrive on time because of cold weather just doesn't hold up. The problem lies in a toxic company culture, starting from the corner office.

Transpacificflyer

Flight Aware, which uses a, larger data pool. A full year's data strikes me as being more accurate.
If you are saying Flight Aware's data is inaccurate, ok.

Agremeister

United Airlines have a 73% OTP at Newark Airport, which is one of the most congested in the US, and is also a cold-weather airport. Ditto for DL at JFK and LGA, who manage a 76% OTP at both airports.

I mean come on, in Chicago, which has some of the worst winter weather in the US, UA manages an 86% OTP. 51% is absolutely, laughably, hilariously bad.

You can take a peek at the stats here: https://www.transtats.bts.gov/OT_Del...ause1.asp?pn=1

172pilot

Agremeister

On the details page, Flightaware shows scheduled wheels up - wheels down times, not block times.

24left

Not exactly.

I often take a photo at the point of wheels up (and down.) The departure time I see on my last 4 flights is the time we pushed back from the gate.

One flight showed departure time as 3:00pm. I have photos from the taxiway at that time and wheels up was only 3:18 pm.

Another recent flight showed departure as 6:56 am. Um, no. That is the exact time we pushed back at at 7:10 am, we were still taxiing away from the gate. At 7:17 am de-icing started and we were in the air at about 7:30 am.

And on another recent flight, FlightAware shows departure as 11:58am, but wheels up was at 3:17 pm
Interestingly, on that flight, arrival showed 4:47pm and that is when we pulled up to the gate.

These are just small and few examples.

I actually found the departure and arrival times on FR24 more accurate that FlightAware for some of my flights but then I didn't design the algorithms that track all of this, but the time stamp on my photos is the accurate reflection of where my aircraft was at what time.

Transpacificflyer

The data Flight Aware shows are filed altitude, filed speed, time the aircraft leaves the gate, time the aircraft arrives at gate and taxiing times. And here's the key characteristic; the method of measurement used for the flights is identical. The methodology is the same for Air Canada as it is for West Jet. If the results show that one airline takes consistently longer to make the identical journey using similar equipment and under identical conditions, then that airline has an issue with the time it takes to travel that route when compared to the other airline. That delay can come from late crew, late connections, inefficient boarding, slow cargo loading, slow refueling, mechanical issues etc. I offer that Air Canada has a lot more of those characteristics than other airlines.

As a passenger, what matters most to me is the time that an aircraft arrives at a gate and whether the airline will arrive when it says it will.
Air Canada does not arrive at the time it says it will and this makes it impossible to reliably plan my connections. The end result is that I select a carrier that can respect its promised timelines. If I am traveling from YVR to YEG direct it doesn't matter, but if I am flying in from the USA to transfer to a flight to Asia or Europe, it makes a big difference.

Symmetre

All well and good, but is still can't explain how WS manages to fly the same routes and not face the same OTP problems. It's not like the laws of physics magically bend for airplanes with blue tails.

Sopwith

Scrolling through the above it is an interesting exercise in rationalization of why a bad situation isn't necessarily bad. The bottom line is that if you believe what AC tells you (see my other thread on this topic) their OTP sucks. To make matters worse, I don't think they care.

D582

What matters is the scheduled gate departure times and scheduled gate arrival times, which is what I provided. On the specific flights that you quoted, AC's and WS's schedules are essentially the same. Even on FlightAware's own data for each of those flights (which is not always accurate, but let's assume it is), the average gate arrival delay for both AC119 and WS717 is 20-40 min.

Looking at the past 10 days.

AC119 is -12, -4, -27, -20, -114, -18, +1, -17, -9, -36. Average Schedule Adherence -25.6 minutes. Removing the highest and lowest as outliers (-114, +1) and we get an average of -17.88 min.

WS717 is +12, -5, -43, -59, -20, -14, -2, +7, 0, -88 Average Schedule Adherence -21.2 minutes. Removing the highest and lowest as outliers (-88, +12) and we get an average of -17 min.

Again I'm not saying AC is doing a great job in this regard - they have lots of room for improvement. But these reports and statistics don't always tell the complete picture. If AC blocked AC119 at 10 hours, it would be on time over 99% of the time. But that wouldn't be very useful for passengers.

yerffej201

the point i'm trying to make is that air canada doesn't care. if they did, they'd pad the schedule until they get what they want, making this discussion about on time performance all about nothing. yes, we can actually talk about getting flights out on time, but all other airlines pad schedules. you can't really adjust these stats based on how much or how little an airline schedules the flight longer, so even a 15 or 20% difference can be attributed to scheduling rather than how efficient an airline is in managing their processes.

Jumper Jack

I believe this is simply an operational disaster, so you guys are telling me AC is the ONLY major NA carrier that does not pad the schedule?
For my Jan YYZ YVR flight, we were delayed because pilot didnt show up(had to flew one from Calgary)
For my last week YVR YYZ flight, the fuel truck did not show up... and mechanic signature was missing
For my last week YYZ MCO flight, the bag loading trucks choked

Two of three instances it was the first flights of the day for the bird, so no amount of reasonable padding was gonna resolve it from being delayed, unless AC pads 80 mins plus on each of these flights.

Jumper Jack

Also, AC ranked 145/155 for on-time performance for all major airlines across the globe
So unless, AC is one of the only airline on this planet that does not pad the schedule, then the argument that all of this is due to padding doesn't hold up.

tracon

The last few weeks, the jet stream has been stronger than average. I'm guessing on many of those days, 50kts stronger than average.
To make a fair comparison, how was eastbound OTP?

A YYZ-YVR I did at the beginning of the month, we were 4:45 in the air.
About 25 minutes longer than the average I've experienced for that type of a/c.(B777)
Eastbound a couple days earlier, same equipment, airborne time 3:40.

AC may have one of the worst OTP rates, but how does their completion rate compare?
The Americans have the tarmac rule to contend with. This results in a higher cancellation rate.
Especially for flights that will experience severe delays.
It's all fine to say that American hubs have a better OTP,
but hundreds of regional flights are cancelled to make the mother ship look good.