Utskicat

CDG-YYZ is operated by AF356 and return is AF351. Current off-season has only 1 flight a day.

Historically CDG-YYZ-CDG is pretty reliable. But the last week it has been late or cancelled almost everyday.

The part that I find odd is that several times, incoming flight AF356 from CDG arrives and then they cancel AF351. They then create a new 4000 series flight number as a replacement flight for AF351 and the new flight leaves a few hours after 351 was scheduled to.

For example, tonight 20JAN AF351 655p-810a is cancelled (Flightaware and FR24) but AF4031 810p-925a is operating as its replacement. Why would they create a new flight number instead of just delaying AF351? Also...if you lookup the flight status by flight number on airfrance.ca using AF351, the results show the details for AF4031 with no mention of 351's cancellation or delay.

It it me or is this all just odd?

wysiwyg

I was on such a flight Thursday night. 356 left almost 3 hours late out of Paris resulting in it arriving around 19:15 (when 351 back to Paris was originally scheduled for 18:55). This was due to bad weather impacting all flights on Wednesday and Thursday which was justifiable. So we were issued a new flight number (AF 4085) and took off around 21:30. We arrived around 10:30 and things were quiet upon arrival at customs. We made our way to the luggage carousel and waited, and waited and waited.. other flights would arrive, their baggage getting delivered to the belt, but nothing for our flight. After an hour, they made an announcement that they had an issue with the delivery and it would come out shortly. And we waited and waited. Another 20 mins or so, a responsible from ADP came by and apologized for the delay and explained that due to the change in flight number, no baggage service crew was assigned to that plane. He said that it’s now resolved and was on its way. It arrived maybe 2 mins later. The amount of people waiting was quite low (for a 350), so I figured most had connection and likely their luggage didn’t follow onto their next flight. The person was amazing how calm everyone was (we were). I guess after so many delays, we were not surprised anymore.

Overall a good flight though, great crew (in J) and don’t recall the seatbelt light coming on at all during the entire journey.

things were more “frosty” around Paris then they were in Toronto.

Porcepic

They may have expected a longer delay and a takeoff after midnight. I know they give a new flight number AF4xxx for flights when they depart the day after the one they were scheduled, to prevent having two flights with the same number on the same day.

Utskicat

That makes a bit of sense. Just weird that they scheduled replacement segment for 1h15m after originally scheduled time then mostly stuck with it and have done so on several dates.

Tonight (21JAN) got even stranger…

AF 356 arrived on-time. AF351 then cancelled but no replacement segment tonight OR tomorrow for the aircraft F-HTYH. I thought maybe they are going to leave the aircraft here tonight and cancel 356 inbound to YYZ tomorrow and let the stranded aircraft fly 351 tomorrow night. But as of 1031p EST 356 tomorrow is still scheduled. Will be interesting to see what they do with the aircraft. I’m scheduled to fly on 351 tomorrow (22nd) hence why I’ve been watching this all.

Utskicat

Discovered something interesting on AF356’s arrival tonight. Looks like it did a touch and go aborted landing at YYZ. Looking at FR24 data looks like it did get down to 0m…not sure if it aborted on ground or seconds before. Looks like it circled back pretty quick and landed at second attempt. But it did roll all the way to end of runway 24L (9000 ft) to exit.

I’m guessing the cancellation was mechanical now.

On a positive note, tomorrow’s flight looks like it has been changed from the original A359 to one of the new ones. My business class bulkhead just doubled in size!

Thom00992

Aircraft on yesterday's AF356 (F-HTYH) had a tailstrike upon landing according to reports on instagram

PLeblond

I'd call this a little more than a tail strike


...

https://avherald.com/h?article=513fc722&opt=0

on.the.bowery

Oh wow ! Thank you for sharing.

It’s crazy how in this media sharing world we can see things almost immediately after or as they happened / are happening.

Shame to see such a young bird damaged like that, but I’m glad there are no injuries reported.

New addition to the Air France and runway 24L at YYZ love story…

Utskicat

I was thinking this exactly yesterday when I saw the radar image of the togo. AF and this runaway have quite the bond.

Utskicat

After such a bad tail strike would the flight crew still operate the return flight tonight as they would have been originally scheduled?

Or would Air France have sent a relief crew on the inbound by today to operate the return tonight?

irishguy28

It would probably be quicker to send the crew that is on standby in YYZ back to the hotel for rest and then later summon them back to the airfield to operate the delayed service, rather than rounding up a new crew from CDG and sending them over to operate a delayed service. AF will have crew hotels block-booked and arriving and departing at any time - even unscheduled at short notice - would not be an insurmountable issue.

I'm not even sure if company rules would allow a TATL crew to operate a service from YYZ almost immediately after arriving off another TATL from CDG as passengers; they would probably require a certain minimum rest period (even though they weren't "working" on the flight over) before being legally allowed to operate a TATL flight back to CDG, too.

This may also be why flights get renumbered; if the crew that are already at the airfield and ready to go can hang on there long enough to waiting out the delay and operate the planned flight - albeit delayed - without "timing out", then the same flight number can be used. If the delay is looking like it requires the crew to be sent off duty before operating the flight, then a new AF4*** number is used (which always happens when the flight departs past midnight, i.e. the next day)

Utskicat

After my last post, I spoke to a friend who is a captain at Air Canada. He said, after a tail strike like that the crew would definitely be grounded pending an investigation, at least at AC. He said he couldn’t imagine they would be allowed to fly the return trip tonight as rostered. He did say that some European carriers sometimes do a two night layover in North America. if that’s the case, then tonight’s flight crew would have been here since Saturday afternoon and all should be fine.

He also said that the tail strike is the talk of the town today at Pearson. With all the close up pics taken by plane spotters when it happened, everyone is scratching their heads about why the elevators were fully actioned. He said there would definitely be an investigation.

So I’m not sure where Air France is going to get the crew to fly 351 tonight (unless flight crews layover for 2 nights). Inbound 356 will provide an aircraft. And I’m sure flight attendants from yesterday‘s flight will be able to return today. But surely Air France doesn’t station a standby crew in Toronto just for its one flight a day?

sonal_hk

It may also simply be the crew that was going to fly 351 yesterday and didn't due to that flight cancellation...

NA-Flyer

AF has a bad luck with YYZ. It has two major incidents at YYZ and the arrival reliability record for that airport is quite bad.

Utskicat

You are 100% right. I totally forgot about the existing crew yesterday.