TravellingChris

Not true.

Transpacificflyer

OTP is most certainly not a useless metric if the route carries a large number of onward connecting pax. The OTP is an obvious indicator of the number of customers who will be inconvenienced and disrupted. There won't be repeat business if the route is too risky for connecting customers. It is why I won't take fly the YVR-BKK route again. Since you are using ICN as an illustration to dismiss the importance of OTP, I suggest you have a closer look at the data. Yes, many airlines are exoperiencing delays, but Air Canada's are amongst the worst. Oct-Nov. max delay for the YYZ flight was 191 minutes, or 3 hours and 11 minutes. That means missed connections. Compare that to another OTP dud performer ,Koreans daily 74 from YYZ at 128 minutes or 2 hours an 8 minutes. That 1 hour makes a big difference on some connections, especially since the delays also impact departures.

And now back to my initial point, if passengers cannot easily connect or misconnect and/or travel without their bags, the route won't attract repeat customers. That's all. I won't be flying on AC 5 again. It has a 26% OTP with 53% of flights very late or excessively late meaning that any onwards connecting pax are overnighting in NRT. This was one of "newer" routes introduced and I don't think the cabin's are as full as in the first year the route was introduced.

warrens

No it's not!

You didn't even slightly understand what I told you.

hirohito888

Well how else can airlines compare their operational reliability with other airlines? To a certain degree, OTP is a standard metric to allow such comparison.

Otherwise going route by route would include inherit bias. AC could argue that they don't fly PHX-LAS or AUH-RUH with near perfect weather and no congestion at either airport, that's why their OTP is always lower than others. AC would have no incentive to improve.

Of course other factors do play into OTP, such as schedule padding, turnaround time, hub vs. p2p, aircraft utilization, crew deployment, and even maintenance schedule, etc. But in short of adjusting for all of that, OTP is one of the most simplest metric to calculate and compare.

m.y

Correct, like all metrics and KPIs, you want to look for comparisons against similars competitors and compare against historical trends. While it doesn't make sense to compare AC's OTP with Ryan Air or Singapore airlines, it would concerning if AC's on time percentage is much lower lower than let's say UA, DL or WS.

Average price or revenue per order could be an interest metric if I'm comparing No Frills vs Food basics, but it would not make sense to compare that metric for No Frills against Whole Foods or 711. The metric is not useful on its own, but if the average price of a grocery store has been declining, that would be a flag for concern.

Transpacificflyer

Perhaps, because you do not understand how performance is measured and are offering an incomprehensible rationalization for AC's poor performance. You dismiss overall OTP. Fine. I did not disagree. You then stated OTP should be route specific. Well, that is what I did: I provided a route specific example of KE vs AC on the YYZ to ICN route with KE having a superior OTP in respect to average OTP and extreme delays. This is again demonstrated on the YVR to NRT route AC 3 vs JL 17. Similar departure times, JL flies a slower 767 ( cruise speed ave. 867 kmh) vs AC 789 ( cruise speed ave. 913 kmh). JL is usually ontime, with the worst time delay of about an hour. AC is more likely than JL to arrive late with its worst delay 2 1/2 hours. One won't make the onward connections if flying late with AC, but can do so with a JL flight.

billdokes

According to Expert Flyer, the JL flight is scheduled at 25 mins longer than the AC flight and operates on-time 83% of the time with an average 20 min delay. The AC flight operates 72% of the time with an average 33 min delay.

Sounds pretty much like a wash to me.

warrens

Airline data analysts would certainly use vastly more precise data than a single number all routes, timetables and plane types, which also ignores weather, security and other extenuating circumstances. They have all this information available to them, why would they ignore it?

Again, repeating myself: OTP is an extremely reductionist number that doesn't have any usefulness outside of giving outsiders something to argue about.

Case in point:

Yeah, it's incomprehensible -to- -you- because -you- want to reduce all the complexities of why planes can be late down to something simple enough to start an Internet argument over.

Transpacificflyer

It is nowhere near a wash. I specifically mentioned the aircraft and the cruising speeds. JL is using a B767 which has a slower cruising speed than the AC B787-9. That is why JL has the longer flight. The critical issue is one of the very late and the extreme delays. These are the delays that cause a passenger to miss a connection. The AC extreme delay on this route is 33% greater than JL's. Why?

Yes, the delays are manageable for a point to point passenger, but Air Canada is not a reliable carrier if one is connecting. And if we go back to my initial illustration of AC 5 where AC sells its flights to BKK with a 50 minute connection allowance, on a route where it manages an on time arrival on only about 1 out of 4 flights and where the average arrival delay is close to 50 minutes, what does that say about the airline? AC also sells a 2 hr connection option which is a crap shoot too since the excess delay is over 2 hours topping out at 2 1/2 hours. AC 5 is an illustration of the carrier's entrenched arrogance: It sells the connecting flights, even though the airline will most likely fail to deliver the passengers on time so that they can make the connection.

The "complexities" that apply to AC are similar to the "complexities that apply to JL and KE. However, Air Canada has the distinct advantage of operating from 2 of its hubs. Both JL and KE operations are at a distinct disadvantage at YVR and YYZ, as they have neither excess crews, nor equipment to swap out at these locations. And yet, both KE and JL both manage to deliver their customers on time or with sufficient time to allow a smooth onward connection. Air Canada's substandard performance and it's dishonest practice of selling flight connections that cannot be consistently delivered, is inexcusable.

billdokes

Where are you getting the average delay of 50 mins when EF shows 33 mins?

RangerNS

Then the metric you actually care about is "got to the next thing rate" (I'll include the purpose of travel in there as being as important as the connecting flight).

Most PAX are, most of the time, unaffected by AC's OTP performance. Experienced travelers know to book with enough slack that travel delays won't be horrible. Many travel tools make a point of warning about short connections, or risky connections that might lead to long (e.g. overnight, or several day) delays.

hirohito888

But not everyone is a data analyst with all the data and tools to measure operational performance. If such data was readily available, I would assume people here would be comparing AC 7M7 performance with WS or WN 7M7. There are investors, travel agencies, cargo planners, logistics operators, regular or frequent travelers that need some simple metric to assess an airline's operation and make an assessment. Again, OTP is simplified but it has to start somewhere that's consistent across all airlines.

Same goes for calculating RASM or CASM. One could argue about discrepancies on currency, purchasing power, high vs. low cost markets, airport slots/gates, etc. But it's still a metric that allows some standard comparison.

JustSomeGuy1978

Generally the question that follows an affirmative response to the "would you like some coffee" question is how the pax would like their coffee (sugar, milk, cream). I've seen many videos/blogs which state that the FA's expectation to a request for coffee is to follow with the pax's preferred add ins rather than be prompted. In the end it means more talking with a mouth full of food.

billdokes

Is it possible the FA/Waiter/Waitress didn't see you take the mouthful of food? Do you chew that slowly? Are you unable to raise 1 finger to suggest, give me a minute? Did you shovel in SO much food you can't shift it to one side and respond, albeit with your mouthful of food, so technically rude (mother always said don't talk with your mouth full) but practical.

I find this to be a ridiculous line of discussion and single incidents like this really don't reflect on AC's Overall Performance and Competitive Offering which is supposed to be the topic of this thread.

warrens

What do you mean "if"? FlightAware exists and the information you're talking about is available for free.

Investors don't care about OTP. You will see no correlation whatsoever between Delta's stock and Delta's OTP, for instance.
Frequent flyers aren't making purchasing decisions based on OTP. They're making decisions based on cost, loyalty programs, routes served, alliances, lounges, J cabin layouts, food, and so on.
Cargo shiipers don't look at top-line OTP either. They'll look at specific route data for the destinations they're interested in, not the entire airline.

And again -- what's the real and actual purpose of comparing highly reductionist numbers other than as fodder for Internet arguments?