Question: Misconnected at YYZ, full of confused people, no help, can't get thru, what to do?
Jun 30, 2019, 4:05 pm
#16
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: YYC
Posts: 23,789
Still, apart maybe from SW, AC probably has the highest percentage of their fleet grounded. And of course, it is even a higher percentage when considering the domestic/NA part of their network.
Jun 30, 2019, 4:09 pm
#17
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Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: YYC
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So your preferred approach would be for them to raise fares and limit traffic as a result, instead of optimizing capacity and ending up with less but fuller flights at the cost of having to delay some people either due to overbooking or IRROPS? I would think that given a choice many customers would prefer the risk of getting bumped to a later flight. (Of course, better communication would lead to less frustration, but eh, this is AC.)
Jun 30, 2019, 5:25 pm
#18
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On top of that, they are still dealing with 787 engine issues..
Jun 30, 2019, 6:15 pm
#19
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: YLW
Programs: AC- SE100 1MM, Hilton Diamond, Marriott Platinum, National Executive, Nexus/GE
Posts: 4,299
My son and I are here in Toronto for a few days, Blue Jays baseball weekend. There are serious IRROP issues as we are always going through the airports for the UP train and the hotel shuttles and the big arrival board is mostly red with canceled and delayed flights.
I see many folks standing around us waiting for the hotel shuttle with the Air Canada delayed flights kits, i mean many folks.
Have a nice view if the airport watching flights come and go with no issues, lol.
I see many folks standing around us waiting for the hotel shuttle with the Air Canada delayed flights kits, i mean many folks.
Have a nice view if the airport watching flights come and go with no issues, lol.
Jun 30, 2019, 6:17 pm
#20
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: YYG
Programs: airlines and hotels and rental cars - oh my!
Posts: 2,993
The MAX issue is completely irrelevant.
Massively overbooking flights has always been the root cause of AC's IRROPS problems - any time a plane runs seriously late or goes mechanical, there is no capacity in the system to take up the slack.
Massively overbooking flights has always been the root cause of AC's IRROPS problems - any time a plane runs seriously late or goes mechanical, there is no capacity in the system to take up the slack.
Jun 30, 2019, 6:48 pm
#21
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Of course the Max issue has increased overbooking. THey are trying to use as much of their fleet as possible and optimize to compensate. Which means there is even more demand for inexistent extra capacity. Alternative would be to raise fares so as to reduce purchases. Is that better?On routes where demand is below expected, they proactively cancel some flights, and redistribute the load to the remaining ones, so as to free planes to reassign to different routes where they don't have capacity. They are cheduling Rouge 763 on normally mainline routes. Doing what they can; hence quite a bit more schedule changes than usual. Persoonal experience too BTW.
Jun 30, 2019, 7:50 pm
#22
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: YYG
Programs: airlines and hotels and rental cars - oh my!
Posts: 2,993
Of course the Max issue has increased overbooking. THey are trying to use as much of their fleet as possible and optimize to compensate. Which means there is even more demand for inexistent extra capacity. Alternative would be to raise fares so as to reduce purchases. Is that better?On routes where demand is below expected, they proactively cancel some flights, and redistribute the load to the remaining ones, so as to free planes to reassign to different routes where they don't have capacity. They are cheduling Rouge 763 on normally mainline routes. Doing what they can; hence quite a bit more schedule changes than usual. Persoonal experience too BTW.
Jun 30, 2019, 8:43 pm
#23
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Lets for a minute concede that the MAX is responsible for this recent mess. Ok fine. But what's the excuse for not having any channels to deal with this at the airport, or on the phone...
Jun 30, 2019, 9:55 pm
#24
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2001
Posts: 10,964
Interesting experience at YTZ so it was all worth the trouble (but lost a day to attend all the activities in Montreal). Even with a cancelled flight, my YTZ-YUL flight was not full.
What I am really curious are the following:
1 - is Air Canada required / has AC committed to disclosing reasons for delays and caneclleations. One guy on my shuttle bus this morning said their flight to London ONT just cancelled with no reason given last night. My inbound was late and no reason was given
2 - when does their system automatically rebook? The guy on the cancelled London flight (they were already at the gate ready to board) said he was automatically rebooked immediately (he got the e-mail when he was on the queue waiting). Mine not only did not rebook, the 2nd segment disappeared from the PNR (but the first segment stayed)
3 - why do they not let the airport agents do "one stop shop" so they can rebook customers? (The SE agent said it was to reduce the lines at other counters but with huge IRROPS, this is really bad. The rebooking part also did not have a Priority line)
4 - how can there be no rebooking agent at the entire airport during a big IRROP? Did someone screw up or this is really how they do things?
5 - what do I do next time? (I am a UA *G and this was a UA award ticket. Might that be why I got an error on aircanada.com/cancelledflight?)
Thanks.
What I am really curious are the following:
1 - is Air Canada required / has AC committed to disclosing reasons for delays and caneclleations. One guy on my shuttle bus this morning said their flight to London ONT just cancelled with no reason given last night. My inbound was late and no reason was given
2 - when does their system automatically rebook? The guy on the cancelled London flight (they were already at the gate ready to board) said he was automatically rebooked immediately (he got the e-mail when he was on the queue waiting). Mine not only did not rebook, the 2nd segment disappeared from the PNR (but the first segment stayed)
3 - why do they not let the airport agents do "one stop shop" so they can rebook customers? (The SE agent said it was to reduce the lines at other counters but with huge IRROPS, this is really bad. The rebooking part also did not have a Priority line)
4 - how can there be no rebooking agent at the entire airport during a big IRROP? Did someone screw up or this is really how they do things?
5 - what do I do next time? (I am a UA *G and this was a UA award ticket. Might that be why I got an error on aircanada.com/cancelledflight?)
Thanks.
Jul 1, 2019, 6:32 am
#25
Join Date: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,124
Interesting experience at YTZ so it was all worth the trouble (but lost a day to attend all the activities in Montreal). Even with a cancelled flight, my YTZ-YUL flight was not full.
What I am really curious are the following:
1 - is Air Canada required / has AC committed to disclosing reasons for delays and caneclleations. One guy on my shuttle bus this morning said their flight to London ONT just cancelled with no reason given last night. My inbound was late and no reason was given
2 - when does their system automatically rebook? The guy on the cancelled London flight (they were already at the gate ready to board) said he was automatically rebooked immediately (he got the e-mail when he was on the queue waiting). Mine not only did not rebook, the 2nd segment disappeared from the PNR (but the first segment stayed)
3 - why do they not let the airport agents do "one stop shop" so they can rebook customers? (The SE agent said it was to reduce the lines at other counters but with huge IRROPS, this is really bad. The rebooking part also did not have a Priority line)
4 - how can there be no rebooking agent at the entire airport during a big IRROP? Did someone screw up or this is really how they do things?
5 - what do I do next time? (I am a UA *G and this was a UA award ticket. Might that be why I got an error on aircanada.com/cancelledflight?)
Thanks.
What I am really curious are the following:
1 - is Air Canada required / has AC committed to disclosing reasons for delays and caneclleations. One guy on my shuttle bus this morning said their flight to London ONT just cancelled with no reason given last night. My inbound was late and no reason was given
2 - when does their system automatically rebook? The guy on the cancelled London flight (they were already at the gate ready to board) said he was automatically rebooked immediately (he got the e-mail when he was on the queue waiting). Mine not only did not rebook, the 2nd segment disappeared from the PNR (but the first segment stayed)
3 - why do they not let the airport agents do "one stop shop" so they can rebook customers? (The SE agent said it was to reduce the lines at other counters but with huge IRROPS, this is really bad. The rebooking part also did not have a Priority line)
4 - how can there be no rebooking agent at the entire airport during a big IRROP? Did someone screw up or this is really how they do things?
5 - what do I do next time? (I am a UA *G and this was a UA award ticket. Might that be why I got an error on aircanada.com/cancelledflight?)
Thanks.
Jul 1, 2019, 8:33 am
#26
Join Date: Jan 2016
Location: YYZ
Programs: FOTSG Tangerine Ex E35k (AC)
Posts: 5,612
This has been going on for decades, and happens because AC is not willing to invest in better infrastructure or more staff. They have gotten away with it due to the lack of competition and any decent customer protection legislation. They are supposed to give reasons for cancellations, but often don't. Their IT systems are supposed to automatically rebook you, but they seem not to work properly much of the time. During IROPS, you will struggle to find anyone at YYZ willing to help and the phone lines will be busy. To avoid this, pad your connection times and try to avoid last flights of the day. You can also buy their On My Way "insurance", which gives you a phone number that they will answer.
Jul 1, 2019, 11:39 am
#27
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: YYC
Posts: 23,789
This has been going on for decades, and happens because AC is not willing to invest in better infrastructure or more staff. They have gotten away with it due to the lack of competition and any decent customer protection legislation. They are supposed to give reasons for cancellations, but often don't. Their IT systems are supposed to automatically rebook you, but they seem not to work properly much of the time. During IROPS, you will struggle to find anyone at YYZ willing to help and the phone lines will be busy. To avoid this, pad your connection times and try to avoid last flights of the day. You can also buy their On My Way "insurance", which gives you a phone number that they will answer.
Well, they could include the price of On My Way in the fare fr everyone and improve their infrastructure. :-) But ask yourself, which percentage of their customers would support that? Presumably if they would, the would already purchase it today?
Jul 1, 2019, 12:10 pm
#28
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: YWG
Programs: Free Agent
Posts: 1,478
OP- thanks for sharing the experience.
Did you try to rebook yourself via the AC IRROP web tool and got the error? AFAIK, award ticket shouldn't matter as you have an AC locator. I always try web first, then phone, then stand in line... If the web tool isn't working, then it truly is org incompetence vs staff at one particular airport.
Did you try to rebook yourself via the AC IRROP web tool and got the error? AFAIK, award ticket shouldn't matter as you have an AC locator. I always try web first, then phone, then stand in line... If the web tool isn't working, then it truly is org incompetence vs staff at one particular airport.
Jul 1, 2019, 12:35 pm
#29
Join Date: Jan 2017
Location: Halifax
Programs: AC SE100K, Marriott Lifetime Platinum Elite. NEXUS
Posts: 4,561
People are up in arms enough with the airlines that they talk about it enough that MPs are at least paying lip service. People are also only focused on price, that "actual service" has been unbundled and OMW is available for $25-40/direction. That is: people want rebooking magic to happen; people are unwilling to pay $40 for rebooking magic to happen.
Air Canada is caught up in the race to the bottom here as much as unsuspecting FOTSG who remember the awesome service they got on their honeymoon visiting the Big O before pieces started falling off of it.
But like the FOTSG who don't understand GTE and get in arguments with the previous flights GAs, I choose to be amused, rather then existentially disgusted with humanity.
Jul 1, 2019, 2:25 pm
#30
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 3,130
Of course the Max issue has increased overbooking. THey are trying to use as much of their fleet as possible and optimize to compensate. Which means there is even more demand for inexistent extra capacity. Alternative would be to raise fares so as to reduce purchases. Is that better?On routes where demand is below expected, they proactively cancel some flights, and redistribute the load to the remaining ones, so as to free planes to reassign to different routes where they don't have capacity. They are cheduling Rouge 763 on normally mainline routes. Doing what they can; hence quite a bit more schedule changes than usual. Persoonal experience too BTW.
As for increasing air fares, that's a moot point. The advance purchasers will still get cheap fares, the last minute folk will still pay high fares. If the capacity to provide the service doesn't physically exist, the air fare doesn't really matter.
