Air Canada 877, June 18, 2019, Frankfurt, Germany
 

Arrive at Air Canada counter one hour and fifteen minutes prior to departure. No one at desk. A few moments later, an employee arrived and told me I was "two minutes late." What?
I had my ticket in hand, with the departure time clearly printed. "The flight's closed", she said. "What do you mean closed? Overbooked?" Employee snaps shut her purse and walks away.

Phone Air Canada office in Frankfurt. "Oh, yes, that flight was cancelled." Odd, since was no cancellation notice on the arrivals/departures screen, and no passengers lingering about the counter waiting to be re-assigned. "Can you issue me another ticket?" "No, because you checked in online last night so your ticket's marked 'used.' " Spent the night at one of those airport hotels, at my own expense, and secured a flight on a partner airline the next day.

Wrote a civil letter (postal) to Air Canada CEO Colin Rovinescu. That was six weeks ago.

Avoid. Repeat, avoid this airline.

By cancelled you mean your ticket was cancelled. The flight operated. If you checked in online why didn't you just proceed to the gate?

I was going to suggest a possible schedule change such that T-75 was actually T-55.

And a BP doesn't do you much good if you're checking a bag.

Depends on the bag. You really just need to get past security (might not be so easy in Germany if you have a large bag), and you can gate check.

Has to be this. No chance there were no staff at T-75 at the check in counter.

At FRA maybe less likely but I do recall our check-in experience last summer in AMS where we were at the check-in desk well before the check-in/drop bag deadline and the counter was about to be closed at about T-90

LOL.


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...7f5207a638.png

More LOL.
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...8a5f8a4a5b.png

(I feed ADS-B data to FlightAware from 4 Raspberry Pi's, so I have an enterprise account, lots of flight history.

LOL

I assume we're being trolled then.

Well, there was no flight cancellation.

Isn't there some kind of "flat tire" rule in play here that would have allowed OP to rebook onto the next flight for a nominal fee?

Too Late to Avoid AC
 

This is most troubling. I have a question about when AC 'closes the gate' on departing flights. On Friday I am connecting to AC899 VIE-YYZ on a TK flight from IST and I have a Paid Business Class ticket issued by United. My connection time is right at 1 hour. Now my experience at VIE is that one hour is usually more than enough. But what if the TK flight is running late. If I arrive at the AC899 Gate at T-10 minutes, are they going to tell me "sorry, the gate is closed" and "oh, since you ticket is 'used' we won't re-book you, call United for help". ??