YVRtoYYZ

Wait for the text and then add 15 minutes before leaving. If no text is received, wander over to the display screens or go to the gate 15 minutes after the intended commencement of boarding.

canadiancow

Or ask the lounge agent how many still need to board

s0ssos

Sometimes I don't get a message, sometimes I do. Like, the flight from YYJ was delayed, never no notification, not even for boarding. Not like you could really go anywhere anyway, though it would be nice to know so I wouldn't have to get to the airport so early.

When I was leaving the lounge there was no agent at the desk. I presume they were around, somewhere though.

I think AC being always late is the norm. The captain, when introducing the flight, made a comment that the original departure time has come and gone, as usual.

rankourabu

I dont know when statistically speaking being late becomes the norm, but I think thats a fair assessment when 67% of your flights are late
Pretty sad when even the crew expects to be late

vancouver25k

Not at all foolproof. My last trip, first leg I had no text so wandered down to the gate about T-20. There was nobody waiting in the gate area, and the outstation agent was nervously waiting for me (and a couple of other PAX). Then on the second leg, I did get the text. I slowly made my way down to the gate and it was easily another 20-30 minutes before anyone was boarded.

Staying on topic, that first leg departed on time and arrived early. (I had a similar early arrival about a week ago. Both international, one to YYZ and one from YYZ.)

CA_Traffic

AC seems to suffer from cleaning crew shortages in most locations at all times. I'm sure they would blame COVID or the GTAA or security badging, but at the end of the day AC is just not staffed to keep their planes to the schedules they've set. This isn't even a matter of world best practice, for all their flaws even the american mainline airlines are an order of magnitude better at turning a plane in a reasonable amount of time.

s0ssos

Yet somehow hotels in Canada provide housekeeping (while in the US they do not)

vancouver25k

The email for my current delay: due to bad weather from an earlier flight.

I'd hate (love?) to be on that earlier flight.

zkzkz

Someone on one of the multiple one-time performance threads mentioned this particular flight DUB-YYZ and said they had no hope of running on time because they've upgauged it to a 777 and not updated the scheduled turn around time. I can't find the post at the moment


And indeed here I am 10 minutes past scheduled departure and they're still boarding. Boarding started on time but I wonder why it's taking so long to board a 777 .... Something's missing here... I can't put my finger on it.....

RatherBeInYOW

I'm convinced that most of Air Canada's OTP problems come down to giving a .... about OTP. How hard is it to add a second set of stairs at the rear and cut the boarding time in half?

A couple of years ago I flew Korean Air on a 777, on an international flight leaving Korea, and it was less than 30 mins remaining before departure and they just started boarding and I was thinking there was no way we were leaving on time. We left early.

zkzkz

Well... I'm not so sure about that. A 777 takes a lot of space and the engine is a big beast. The path they would have to make for passengers would be pretty far out to be safe and there might not actually be enough space at these gates. Almost all the other planes departing from these gates are 737 or smaller. They basically built this wing of the airport for Ryanair...

sha8192

I believe if they push it hard they can actually be “on time”, or at least close to on time.

I took 3 back-to-back YYZ-DUB-YYZ MRs last weekend. The first two times, the luggage loading continued for 1.5h after boarding has completed. The 3rd time the inbound flight was already 2 hours behind schedule, and they managed to land at YYZ about 2h17m late than the schedule. (Probably in a desperate attempt to avoid EU261)
Now imagine if the inbound wasn’t delayed, then they would probably have met the OTP.

zkzkz

Incidentally amusing coda to this story... I boarded my connecting flight to YUL and realized it was the same fin! I originally had the same seat assigned on both flights but I had changed that.

They were using two jetbridges in YYZ and still didn't actually get off the ground on time. so ... \o/

Neither flight was significantly delayed in the end. YYZ didn't actually load my luggage though

sha8192

I doubt the two jet bridges help much at YYZ. It's mainly to create a prestige for the J/PY folks as the 1st bridge is for J/PY only. The 2nd bridge is for Y passengers. J/PY board as zone 1/2 and mostly use the 1st bridge only, while zone 3/4/5 use the 2nd bridge only. There is little overlap where both bridges are used simultaneously.

Time to claim credit card insurance and buy buy buy those luxury makeups/purse/etc. Not entirely a bad thing .

seegs

This post is more of me venting than anything else:

Is it just me or has anyone else experienced the morning departure delay due to “towing aircraft to gate” followed by the subsequent “delay for US CBP inspection”? Almost every morning flight from YYZ is delayed for me due to this.

I guess the aircrafts are taken to the hangar overnight for grooming or maintenance but if you take a few samples of flight statuses over the day, the morning delay from YYZ is majority of the time the initial delay. This seems like an easy process improvement item for AC to just ensure planes are parked and inspected at gates early.

I may not have all the facts but the number of delays for this reason on early AM departures seems suspect and fixing this may result I better on time
performance for the rest of the day.

/Venting fin