YYZ-EWR today.

AC reports the flight's scheduled to depart at 8:40pm (on time) and arrive at 11:00pm (50 minutes late).

FlyteComm.com reports the flight's scheduled to depart at 9:57pm and arrive at 11:04pm.

I believe FlyteComm is tracking actual flight times (1:07 is about right), but is the flight likely to board on time then sit for an hour in YYZ? I know they're probably waiting for a landing slot at EWR, but the 6:30pm flight was actually flagged as departing an hour late from YYZ, so I'm wondering if they load up then sit at YYZ, or actually don't board until later. Clearly they know their slot isn't going to be much before 11pm.

Thanks!

=aw

I always feel sorry for the gate agents in cases like this.

At 8:20, the sign said "Boarding" and a few people were standing at the top of the jetway. Someone came running up to the gate from the plane, they had a chat, and announced they were stopping boarding as the flight was delayed. New departure time 9pm.

At 8:45, the sign said departure 9pm, boarding to resume at 9pm. Then boarding re-started earlier than that, everyone got on, and they announced that an earlier slot had opened up if everyone could hurry and get seated. In the end, wheels touched down at exactly the time predicted by flytecomm.com at 8pm.

It's strange (but not very surprising) that the information was publicly available long before the gate staff were told.

Crew were great, is there somewhere to write and tell AC?

=aw

Flytecomm and other trackers (flightaware etc.) get updated when the actual flight plan is filed, airline websites rarely do using instead their own internal ops dept feed.

US airlines will typically board as close to STD as possible and push back so as to get an 'on-time' rating with the DoT, even if they know the slot is retarded. I don't think AC has to report departure times to the gummint, so they may well delay boarding to a more realistic time.

Another factor is whether ATC has given a definite or a tentative slot time. Often flights load and hold on the ramp or taxiway anticipating a 'go-now' release ahead of whatever slot was estimated.