andrewesque

Hi all -- I know this is a relatively minor thing, but this is my first time dealing with an Air Canada (or Montreal/YUL) possible IRROPS issue so I apologize if I'm being overly worried.

I'm supposed to be on AC 7643, the 19:55 LGA-YUL flight tomorrow (Wednesday 9 January). I just saw that AC has posted a weather waiver due to snow for 9 Jan and am wondering if I should be proactive about trying to reschedule to get on an earlier flight, especially because I think this might be the last nonstop of the day?

I'm not sure how serious the snow is in Montreal, or how affected I should expect the AC flights to be. I know that the regional jets are likely to be the first to be canceled, but since I think all AC aircraft flying out of LGA (is this the case at EWR?) are regional jets, I'm not sure if it makes any difference to reschedule.

Incidentally, I tried to use the rebooking flight tool and kept getting an error -- I wasn't necessarily going to go ahead and rebook but wanted to see what my options were but couldn't even get that far.

Should I just sit tight and hope for the best? I'm planning on flying carry-on only and I'm not trying to make any kind of unprotected connection; Montreal is my final destination. I'm agnostic between LGA and EWR (JFK is my preference, but obviously not an option in this situation).

Thanks!

24left

Right, AC has this info on their Alert page. If the opportunity is there to waive fees and change due to weather, and you can make the change, I would suggest you do. If the online booking tool gives you an error, it's AC IT so you can call AC.






Here is the projected weather and snow from The Weather Network (there are other sites like Accu Weather etc with different weather tracking)

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca...uebec/montreal

5-10 cm is no major snowmageddon, but all kinds of things can cause flight delays and cancellations - aircraft issues, aircraft delayed elsewhere, ground conditions and so on.

Others here know more about how AC and YUL or other airports operate under these conditions. I'm just giving you some info.

yyznomad

@andrewesque

From personal experience and others here at LGA...
If you keep your current plans and IRROPs hits, you'll get accommodated on a near-future flight, but it might not be the next day... or the day after.
But if the alert is not for LGA but for YUL, it won't be as bad trying to get out of LGA.

Do you have any status (AC or *G)?

As per @24left, I would change to an earlier flight.

Adam Smith

How important is it that you get to YUL tomorrow night? The higher the importance, the more I would recommend switching to an earlier flight. This is especially so if you don't have AC status and/or have a lower fare class ticket, as AC's priority for re-booking you if your original flight is cancelled is much lower.

Repooc17

755pm is the last flight of the day on Wednesday. Certain days of the week have another flight after but not on Wednesday.

All flights between LGA and YUL are Express; whereas AC uses mainline for flights between LGA and YYZ.

I think you should try to get on am earlier flight if possible. Good luck.

royal757

Okay so, here we go:

I fly this route about every other week. Did it 25 times last year.
The last flight out of LGA to YUL is the 9pm not the 7:55pm.
During IRROPS, things get ugly BUT AC is great at rebooking and accommodating everyone. The thing is a few ERJ-175's are actually assigned form the morning to do YUL-LGA-YUL-LGA-YUL-LGA... you get the idea. So if one is delayed, the rest are and everything turns to trouble.

During delays, snowstorms etc.. I usually change (if I am on the 7:55) to the 5:40pm which I know will actually be arriving late (as I track the inbound throughout the day to get an idea) and that one will actually depart at 7:30'ish, and the 7:55 will realistically depart at 9-930pm and the actual 9pm will depart (if not cancelled) at 10'ish or whenever the inbound did make it in.

Forget the online rebooking tool, it worked all of last year except towards the end in mid-december when it started saying "there are no other options available for changes to your flight" or something like that for every single IRROPS I had (and a few other pax on my flights told me the same thing). The only way to efficiently change for free your flight during IRROPS is to call the AC reservation, and do expect to be on hold for a while.

Don't switch to a flight to EWR, less frequency to YUL and massive heavy aircrafts get the priority over regionals (from what I've observed), even more delays.

Verdict: switch for an earlier flight yes, track the inbound on flightaware. And if you need a lounge pass, I have an extra one, I am midtown tomorrow all day, and can send you my # in a message if you need more info on this whole LGA/YUL flight thing as I do it too often. Btw from what I gathered from friends and family Tuesday was a massive snow day, but Wednesday shouldn't be as dramatic, and YUL ground is good at clearing and getting operations back running fast.

royal757

wrong, Come on don't lead people the wrong way. Tomorrow (wed. jan 09) doesn't have it but AC 7645 is operated on Wednesday 16, 30 of Jan and Feb 6, 13, 20, 27 ...

Repooc17

AC7645 (9pm departure) is not daily. Check the schedule, you won't see it on Wednesday.

royal757

let's not navigate away from original topic.

see my response two posts above, I acknowledge it is not daily but other Wednesday of this month and next month have it.

Adam Smith

Yes. In that vein, the only thing that matters to the OP is that this flight doesn't operate tomorrow. Whether it operates on every other Wednesday, certain Wednesdays, or only on Blurnsdays doesn't really matter.

This means that OP is booked on the last LGA-YUL flight tomorrow.

andrewesque

Thanks all for your help so far! No status here unfortunately.

And yep, the weather issue is in YUL (snow). Here in NYC it's just sunny and windy today.

I called the help number right before I went to bed yesterday (just to kind of suss out my options) and the agent I spoke with said that the waiver didn't apply because my flight hadn't been canceled or delayed. Is this right? My reading of the waiver is that because I have a flight into YUL on 9 January (period) that I am eligible to reschedule it once for no change fee. This reservation has never been changed since the original booking.

yyznomad

@andrewesque

I don't know what was said during the call to get that reply from the agent, but it's pretty clear there is an official Travel Alert for YUL and you can definitely change your flight as this is an anticipated delay Travel Alert. Your flight need not already be delayed or cancelled for you to do this. If it's on the Travel Alert page, you can make a change even if there are no IRROPs just yet. Did you advise the call centre agent that there is a Travel Alert in place and did they acknowledge this? Call again until you get an agent who processes the change (as long as there is availability on the flight you want to change to).




Also:
https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/...ellations.html


Members in this forum have leveraged the Travel Alerts section to make changes to their bookings for flights that are anticipated to be delayed or canceled. That's one of the main purposes of the Travel Alerts.

My advice is to call back and get another agent who can make the change for you.

(If you noticed up to this point, not one person has said you can't change your flight even though no delay or cancellation has occurred!)

Often1

1. Whether you change your flight is a matter of risk tolerance. What happens to you if your flight is cancelled and you do not make it to YUL? If anything bad happens, then move the flight.

2. Call AC back and start with the weather waiver and ask, under the weather waiver, to be moved to an earlier flight. Given that these are smallish aircraft and there must be others in your situation, I would stay on top of this as availability becomes key.

Plumber

I did not know this, as I have rarely had to deal with this (I usually just call the Concierge and most times they accommodate what I need).
The wording from AC does say 'affected flights', so I have always been under the impression that your flight must be 'affected' in some way before you can make a change. Glad to learn something new!

canadiancow

A couple of the flights today are booked solid in Y, so if you're going to make a change, you should do it quickly.