yyzgigi

Apologies if this has been reported before, but this is the first time I’ve seen this on AC. Right when boarding started got an SMS and email notification. For a second I thought I was flying UA. Good job AC IT.

EdmFlyBoi

Not sure it makes up for the disaster that AC's IT is on a fairly consistent basis.

yyzgigi

Not forgiving the poopshow but happy to acknowledge when they get something right.

D582

They were trialling this back in December... on one flight I got it about 10 min after, one I got it in the air, and one I never got it.

This is only effective if it actually works properly 99% of the time, like it does on UA. AC needs to prove itself here.

Bohemian1

Yeah, my pipe dream would be accurate info based on per zone boarding, but I suspect that is simply not feasible.

psusaver

If you got American Airlines threads, people will say they have the worst IT. If you go to Air india, people will say that there. Safe to say that a large no of airlines may have problems and people complain louder than notice the small improvements. So this post is nice that way haha

nomadic.relief

So today I recieved a text (and simultaneous email) telling me boarding had started for my YVR-YYC ... gave me a moment's panic as I had just arrived at the security line, but I had loads of time to spare.

In talking to others, seems they might have started that a few weeks back, but maybe it's only mainline? Certainly didn't get anything for YYD-YVR (though pretty irrelevant there), nor mainline flights in February.

Is it happening for all mainline flights? And is it accurate or based on anticipated departure?

YOWgary

I've had a bunch of them and so far they've been accurate to within ~5min of reality.

SearsTower

Remember, this is AC we are talking about. I have received them for some flights and not others. For a delayed flight, it was sent for the original departure time. I have also received them while I was sitting on the plane towards the end of boarding. It's a nice concept, but at least initially, it is unreliable. Maybe their app developers created this too?

HometoYYZ

Looking through my Messages, it looks like the first time I have a text from AC about boarding beginning is Feb 9. My Jan 26 flights did not get a text notification.

Same thing for emails.

Thus far, every time I've received one, I've been at the gate, and it has matched within a minute or two boarding actually beginning.

The only significant delay I've seen to boarding was last week, and looking at my notifications, they seem to have been roughly when I recall boarding ACTUALLY beginning, about 45 minutes after the scheduled departure time. So at least based on my limited experiences, it does seem to match actual boarding.

I don't seem to get them for EVERY flight. A quick glance through messages suggests I did not get notifications for a YYZ-YYC flight or a YYC-YVR flight. All my other flights are represented.

nomadic.relief

LOL I see. Standard AC IT reliability then.

yyzgigi

It is definitely not universal. Since first seeing it, my last three AC flights have had, but not my Jazz flight. Timing was pretty accurate on all of them.

PilotTobe

My last two flights had it. One Jazz one mainline. Both text and email.

yyznomad

I received the texts/emails for all of my recent MLs and they have been accurate within reason, similar to the above posts.

theranj

Got both the sms and email as I was leaving the MLL. I have had his sporadically this year from YVR