isaacchambers

Ive seen a bunch of domestic flights get cancelled - the triangle is getting decimated.....

gcashin

Yeah, it seems almost anything that touches YYZ other than the first flight of the day has been delayed significantly, and seems to have gotten worse over the past week or two. I had a connection through YYZ last week going YYT-YYZ-YYC, and unfortunately the YYT-YYZ was delayed significantly due to the inbound from YYZ. Ultimately ended up with a misconnect at YYZ.

One thing that I'd noticed on arrival is that there were no gate agents anywhere to be seen at YYZ. It was so odd to see all these gates with passengers waiting and flight crews waiting near the podiums, but no gate agents anywhere in sight. I'd passed about 10 gates on the way to Customer Service from the end of the hammerhead and only saw one gate agent. I was wondering for a bit whether they'd all walked off the job at the same time. My impression was that the lack of gate agents is also contributing to a general slowdown on almost everything that touches YYZ. Also a bit frustrating that on a significantly delayed flight of ~3 hours, I'd expected to see a gate agent with connecting info like replacement boarding passes, etc, but there was no automatic rebooking or replacement boarding passes so needed to line up at CS and wait to have a CS agent rebook. So yeah, if you're connecting through YYZ, be prepared for a mess and potential misconnect.

isaacchambers

Funny - last week flying SFO>>YYZ>>YOW. I saw very few gate agents at YYZ and the ones there seemed pretty useless. Did they do a mass hire? I saw one senior overseeing the YOW flight gate agent.

Plenty of YUL <> YOW flights getting cancelled too. YYZ>>SFO was also canceled tonight.

I think AC is now facing what happened domestically in the USA - explosion of travel domestically and transborder.....its not like they can say they didnt see this coming given the bookings were known a month ago.

There is a huge shortage of crews in the USA since plenty retired and didnt keep them current to save $$$ - i suspect AC did the same thing.

hemustbeaboss

Flight attendants are fairly quick, 1-2 weeks. They are actively recalling at AC, but judging by the delays they are still behind.

Pilots can take up to 2 months, and potentially longer depending on simulator availability. If they are flying the same aircraft as they were prior to layoff (some Jazz pilots), this interval can be much shorter.

AC681

I'm a former Jazz flight attendant trainer, it gets... complicated when it comes to figuring out who needs what training.

However it generally will be a single day plus online training if the person hasn't been off more than a year. 2 days plus more online training if off over a year.

​​​​​​It gets a bit sticky if it's a new flight attendant with less than 3 years service, they may need line indoctrination as well, that takes about a week to do.

In really extreme cases the person may require to re complete initial, that's a month.

Jazz FAs coming back also need to be certified on the E175 since it's new, that's another day.

We're also actively hiring flight attendants for YYZ....

respectable_man

… and they now ask to confirm trips 2 weeks ahead.

Why are they scheduling flights if they don’t have the flight crews (or the cleaning crews, ramp crews etc)?

EdmFlyBoi

I chatted with the concierge at YYZ when I arrived on Saturday from LHR and had to pick up a hotel voucher due to a misconnect. She was pretty flustered and when I asked if things were bad today she said it has bad for a while. Between the CBS work to rule and the massive upsurge in travellers, they are really struggling to keep up. All three hubs are apparently bad, with YYZ and YUL especially bad due to the larger number of transatlantic flights.

I reckon it may be bad for a while as AC did not anticipate the rush to get back travelling again. My experience the last two weeks is that flights are very very full and it appears it may be this way for a while unless AC is able to bring more capacity and staff back online.

respectable_man

How much of this

can be blamed on CBS and transatlantic flights? Really?

EdmFlyBoi

Well, certainly some of it could be. AC has lots of people connecting onto onward connections at their hubs. Trying to find seats for all the misconnecting people would be a nightmare. Some flights are likely being held for this reason (that was my experience recently in YYZ), especially with people who are just going to miss their flights. I was not trying to explain away everything but it was brutal in YYZ on Saturday trying to enter Canada.

And last time I checked the US wasn't in Canada (you referenced that in your post).

canadiancow

When I had to sit on my SFO-YYZ at the gate for 2 hours, a GA had to remain with us. So due to CBSA issues, a GA was out of commission for 2 hours. Add a few more flights, and that could be a lot of busy GAs, which could easily cascade to delays on other flights.

respectable_man

You are kinder than I am: I have no problem believing that *some* of the delays are due to CBS but it seems a convenient excuse, and does not explain lack of gate agents as mentioned upthread, and AC's own explanation that a number of flights are delayed because of cleaning issues. Honestly: it looks primarily like bad planning compounded by the CBS problem.

Edited to add: An agent at AC check-in in YQB confirmed there’s a crew problem systemwide.

rankourabu

Early morning domestic flight today.

Delayed of course. Captain blamed it on connecting pax thru customs... really?
How many intl flight arrive by 7am at YYZ?

The real reason. No gate agents available to board the plane. One finally showed up 15 mins prior to departure. There is only so much one agent can do.

App of course says delay due to "safety reasons".

Would love to see how big of a mess this becomes down the line today.

Symmetre

AC still batting 1000 ... two flights in the past week week, both short hops, both close to an hour late. If nothing, they're consistent.

littlea905

Sitting here at F99 at yyz going back to IAD.

An hour to get through security (priority line) and customs (US passport). Those who had a non-us passport probably had to wait an hour longer. They were holding us in security because customs hall was full.

Doesn’t matter anyway as not enough staffing for gate agents to board the aircraft on time. Gate agent ran from another flight at scheduled departure time and attempted to start boarding only to realize she needed another gate agent to help her (non-jetway boarding). Still waiting for another agent to show and 20 minutes past scheduled departure.

what’s the point of trying to operate a schedule if you don’t have enough staff to operate it? Word to those connecting through here (not us thankfully)… just don’t.

canadiancow

I'm a little hesitant to post this before I even have an arrival time, but...