meltedmarshmellow

Consistently for early AM Air Canada flights from Toronto to the United States flights that I am on are delayed. A 5-15-30-45 minute delay due to idiotic passengers who don't make the right decisions in the morning is cited as the reason for a pilot delaying pushback. Those same delays inevitably end up with a "passengers are no show, we now have to pull the bags" - further compounding the delay.

Here's a brilliant idea. How about pull those bags once the flight closes and leave them (after pulling bags from the cargo hold). It doesn't make any sense to delay 90-95% of the passengers who are already on the flight. What is Air Canada's SOP on this?

RangerNS

Why do you think that that decision isn't made when they are "closing" the flight?

Often1

These complaints all depend on where one sits. The day you are stuck in Preclearance because some fool in front of you has caused a problem and then miss your flight, you will curse AC for not holding the aircraft.

canadiancow

No, I'll curse the fool in front of me.

I don't think anyone would object to a 5 minute wait to allow someone to make the flight, but unless it's a situation where an agent post-CBP calls the gate to say "he's out of CBP and running", you just don't know how long you're going to have to wait.

lcohen999

You would but the average Joe will not and in 2 weeks, you will see a CBC article about how this person HAD to be at this place at this exact time or else something horrible will happen.

Air Canada won't give him a refund and he's mad...etc

SYM

How often is the problem connecting pax, who have no control whatsoever about when the first inbound flight of the day lands at Pearson?

james dean

I'm thinking late pax no checked bags: close the door on sked or perhaps 5 minute grace (I hear a concierge can intervene to a certain point)
Late Pax with checked bags: most likely they want to wait as much a operational feasible because they know if they have to pull bags it's going to be far lengthier delay!

yytleisure

You’re all thinking like flyertalkers, watching connection minutes and recalculating more often than a 2002 GPS. I see this being more about Joe Clueless stopping to Tim's and the bathroom and calling the wife and da missus and looking at the current ridiculously expensive car parked in the concourse all the while not realizing their 1hr connection through customs requires a little hustle. Or just people getting lost or not knowing what to do or so on.

FinsToTheLeft

I had a flight FLL-YYZ last week that was slightly delayed. If you followed “Where is my plane coming from” on the app, the plane had gone YYZ/TPA/YYZ/FLL. The first segment showed as “Delayed due to passenger delays at customs”.

meltedmarshmellow

Yes, it always shows this.

Because a 5 minute delay turns into a 10 minute delay turns into a 15 minute delay turns into a 20 minute delay, and 45 minutes later they decide to pull the bags.

Air Canada needs to make up their goddamn mind. If it's 5 minutes, fine. But if the goal posts keep changing then that's wrong.

I'm consistently on the first outbound flight of the day. There is no concern for inbound flights. Just a bunch of idiotic passengers who value their own sleep versus everyone else's on the plane - and usually they have no status and are at best cattle ready for slaughter at the back of the plane.

No, I won't, because I take responsibility for my actions. If you have no status, and are flying Y, and don't have NEXUS, get to the airport 4 hours early. It's not that hard. I do see the NEXUS lanes these days are getting longer and longer, but I surely don't have a problem with the priority/business class lane. If I didn't have access to that or NEXUS, I would certainly follow Air Canada's guidance of showing up at least 3 hours early. If I didn't and miss my flight, that's on me.

Take off without me. I would expect AC to do that.

YZF_Elite

IMO, if someone hasn't shown up by the time boarding has completed (unlikely a connecting pax at 6am) then they clearly didn't make it to the airport on time. I find it hard to believe that they were at the airport for the 60 min cut-off, but if customs is routinely taking longer than 45 mins for pax to clear, then perhaps the check-in cut-off needs to be amended to 75-90 mins. I don't agree with waiting, I also think the policy of having to remove bags should be revisited (recognize that is likely a government regulatory rule) as I agree that is routinely an issue.

OttawaMark

Why don't you tell us what you really think of those you deem beneath you?

elenea86

Oh, but if it was a SE MM flyer, that would make it ok? Your logic here is flawed. Before I had my Nexus, I can't tell you the amount of times I had to RUN for flights at YYZ even with a 2hrs -2.5hrs connection time there because of CPB. It's even worse now that there isn't a special Nexus/Business class line when you are going through security in the connections area (unless that has changed since the last time I did a connection there).

YUL is even worse and their lines are what prompted me to get my Nexus card. There's a large chunk of flights that leave between 5:30 - 6am to the US and it's always a madhouse in the security and CBP area. I have been at the airport 3hrs before my 6am flight there and it didn't make a difference because:

• Security doesn't open till 4am
• CBP doesn't open till 4:30am
• There's at least 20-40 people already by 3:30am waiting in line.

I have a flight to LAS in a few weeks from YUL and i'll be thinking of you as I fly with my small Aeroplan Silver status in Y when I arrive to the airport 2hrs before my flight You're lucky as not all Canadian airports have a separate Nexus and BuisnessClass lane. YUL certainly doesn't and Nexus sometimes takes as long as normal customs now. A coworker and I tested it out as she doesn't have Nexus and we got out at the same time.

It's easy to get angry at the Pax when you really should be angry at AC for all of this. Moreover, you don't know the circumstances surrounding why they could have been late. What if their mom was rushed to the hospital because of a heart attack and they had to be there, hence why they were late getting to the airport? What if there was a major accident that just happened a few cars ahead of them and now they are stuck for a few hours? Or maybe they were at the airport 3-4hrs ahead and got pulled into secondary and then had to run for the flight?

Just wait till you are the one running because of a flight and how happy you are to see that it hasn't left yet.

For the record, my issues stem from the assumption that this is a no status pax in Y causing the issues.

RangerNS

I think you really need to re-calibrate your expectations, meltedmarshmellow .

I don't know how long you've been flying on the regular, but your attitude is not healthy. This is not air travel of 1967, and you aren't flying F to the Middle East or Asia. I suppose there are other options, but neither WS or the 'coon have lounges, and the US carriers are all inarguably worse for NA service.

Maybe a gig with the level of travel causing you this kind of stress isn't for you?

andrewesque

Yes, I'm glad to know that those of us who fly economy and/or who don't have status are apparently sub-humans ready for the abattoir. Charming!