eamus

Apologies if I am asking asked-and-answered questions but I have never flown AC. Caveat: this is not a big deal, just more of a head scratcher than anything.

My wife and I are heading to Newfoundland in the summer and originally booked YYZ-YQX, in J. That was in January when I booked it, for June travel. AC sent me 3 notices of some minor timing changes, all of which was fine albeit a bit weird as I don't think I've had a single journey change that much any other time. No biggie, but then they lost their mind completely. Originally the nonstop YYZ-YQX was something like 08:40 - 13:04 outbound and 1340-18:09 return. They switched it so that we would arrive at Gander at 3am on the outbound and the return flight was scheduled to leave Gander at 5am. I am sure Gander is lovely, but there are very, very few places that I really want to be on vacation at 3am and Gander, NL, is not high on that list. More seriously we would lose our last night's accommodation if we had to travel to Gander for a 5am departure. I called the 800 number and after a 55 minute wait (is that normal??) I managed to be re-routed YYZ-YYT on flights that worked for our plans, even if they meant another night in Toronto on the return due to a missed connection back to the USA. Happy enough to chin the cost of that. Toronto's nice and I can work from the hotel. Anyway now I received an email saying that on one segment the flight class has changed to Premium Rouge (P) from Business Class (J), on an A319. Looking around a little it seems like that might not be a downgrade? Or am I missing something? The lady at AC was perfectly pleasant when I called about the re-routing but there was no offer of compensation for the cheaper flight (at the time I booked it in January, it was cheaper to fly into St. John's than Gander, but we needed to be north so decided to fly directly to Gander). Now of course the flights are dearer as we are closer to departure, so comparison shopping is not possible. Does AC always/often/sometimes move the goalposts like this, or am I being treated to a special welcome as a noob?

Adam Smith

Minor timing changes are not abnormal, but historically, AC has been very bad at notifying passengers of schedule changes, minor or not. Lately, they seem to be doing a better job, so the high number of notifications is probably partly due to that. Probably also partly due to the 737 grounding, which has engendered many schedule changes.

What type of aircraft was your original, now-rouged, flight on? If a narrowbody, there's no real difference mainline to rouge, so it's not a downgrade.

When you re-routed from YQX to YYT, you could have gotten a full refund instead, if you so chose. No compensation due otherwise as you accepted the re-route, although if you fill out the customer relations web form, they may send you a discount code (e.g. 10% off) for a future booking as goodwill.

eamus

Thank you Adam Smith. The aircraft was A320 down to A319 Rouge. I did think about a refund but a quick search showed that buying a new ticket YYZ-YYT was going to be more to do today than I had paid back in January, so short of binning the trip or switching to another carrier, I did not have many great options. The thing that has stuck out to me in the whole trip is the decision to make the one non-stop daily YYZ-YQX into timing that only cargo would be happy with. I sort of considered waiting to see if a human looked at it and decided that arriving at Gander at 3am was nonsense, but didn't want to take the chance. Our trip starts with a couple of days in St. John's anyway so we are not harmed in any catastrophic way by the re-route. It just gives us a longer drive on the return, which is why we miss our connection to the USA which is why we stay in Toronto overnight.

Adam Smith

Basically the same, then. The 320 has built-in IFE, while rouge lends you an iPad for the flight. That's the biggest difference.

I've done that YYZ-YQX arriving at 3AM, so I can sympathize. Although in our case, it was like that when we booked it.

It may be too late now since you already re-routed, but did your consider getting to YQX another way? No other direct options, but YYZ-YYT/YHZ-YQX should have been possible, if you preferred.

torcellano

I have had a number of similar disruptions to flights in the past month, including YYZ-YWG (320 changed to 319 Rouge with serious change of departure time, and notification received only one hour prior to original departure time). As noted by Adam Smith, this is almost certainly due to losing use of the 24 737s. Indeed, I have also had a YUL-LAX flight, scheduled on a 737, switched to a 320 ... so those 320s are clearly being re-deployed wherever the need is greatest, and perhaps often at almost the last minute, at least at the beginning. As the rescheduling progresses, one hopes that it will be less "last minute" ... and that seems to have happened here. The passenger traffic YYZ-YQX is probably not enormous, and thus these flights undoubtedly have a low priority for protection.

acysb87

When LAS had the "snow event" in February, I was delayed by 65 hours on return and had over 35 changes to itinerary. Many of those were minor flight delays.
At least 10 changes were of route change, mis-connect, aircraft substitution...

Bartolo

expert7700

just a reminder that Mainline to Rouge is officially a different carrier and makes it enough of a difference to a free change or refund at your request. (just in case you find other options)

//oh wait...Canada....AC has a virtual monopoly on many routes.

canadiancow

I'm also curious why there was no consideration give for routing to YQX via another airport. I suspect the timing would work out much better.

Bartolo

Bohemian1

High on my list for sure. @adamsmith provided some nice pointers too about his experience there.

eamus

We are indeed headed to Fogo Island, but that's the second half of the trip. The first 3 days are in St. John's. Re-routing to fly into YQX would be possible but the best option for us would have been via YYT, which is sort of bonkers because then we would have landed in the place we aimed to stay that night, flown north for an hour on a Beechcraft 1900D, and then driven a few hours back where we had come from. The return from YQX would also have been a connection and we would have missed our onward flight to the USA just like we will by flying out of YYT itself. So, all in all, it seemed best to just do YYT round trip and enjoy the long drive twice (in daylight). I am glad to hear it is a lovely drive: I hoped it would be. I must look up Terra Nova too.