Pearson delays persist
 

Apparently all computers are down in T1 and T3. I'm at T3 right now and saw water pouring into the terminal through the ceiling.

I was given a hand written boarding pass by DL to get through security.

If it lasts longer than an hour the press will have a field day with this !:p

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9780; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.666 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

Best. Hub. Ever.

That explains a lot. Been sitting on the tarmac for about 2 hours after being diverted while en route to YUL. Looks like a whole lot of nothing is moving out here.

WOW! Seriously...

There should be a good shakeup at the GTAA after this week...

Somehow, I don't think this is what they meant by "Everything will be back to normal by this weekend."

I just checked YYZ departures....everything seems to be on time,

aftermath of the GTAA shutdown
 

The Minister of Transport, Lisa Raitt, was interviewed today on CBC's The House. She has called for a review of the GTAA's decision.

While I am not a fan of the Conservative government, this review could be a blessing. Even before the shutdown, the GTAA was one of the worst performing int'l airports.

Recently, I had a look at their governance, and it is no wonder! Its full of pol'l appointees, and no consumer representation! I (for one) would like to see that change! Ideas welcome!

Pearson's Twitter has been mentioning a "software problem" with check in (sounds like just kiosks, but maybe staffed positions too?), and says they're working on it.

Oh.... and apparently they're taking diversions due to ground stops at Ottawa and Montreal. Just six so far, but wow.

Print your boarding passes online, and hopefully things will be as normal as possible.

Rain pouring into terminals notwithstanding.

It's times like this that I really hate that you can't use an electronic boarding pass for so many flights.

You mean I'm sitting on 1 of six diverted aircraft yet there nowhere to park us???

What's the legal workday for air crews, anyway?

Or perhaps the kiosks are working.

"Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue" comes to mind.

Here's a press release from YYZ.

TORONTO, Jan. 11, 2014 /CNW/ – Operations are being affected at Toronto Pearson due to software outages with the systems that airlines use to check in passengers. As the check in counters are not functioning properly, airline staff are checking passengers in manually which is causing slowdowns.

IT providers are on scene working to rectify the situation as quickly as possible, but it is expected that check in will continue to be slow throughout the morning.

We apologize for the inconvenience that this is causing to passengers as they check in at the airport this morning.

Passengers are being asked to use web check in before they come to the airport to help alleviate some congestion at the airline check in counters. Self-service kiosks are working and passengers can use those for the check in process as well.

Passengers should also leave themselves extra time for the check in process this morning due to the outage.

The airport authority and the airlines have additional staff on the floor helping to manage the lines and answer questions as required.

SOURCE Greater Toronto Airports Authority

You're still on the tarmac ??? :td:

National disgrace.

We're in some corner of the airfield now and a catering truck just showed up to deliver a cart full of pretzels. So there's that.

I'll be happy when the fuel shows up...

Well the airport is good match for the Mayor and City council

I guess YTZ to YUL or YOW escape today fares no better.


http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montre...port-1.2492813

Flights resuming at Montreal-Trudeau airport

Flight delays of two hours or more after temporary closure due to freezing rain

CBC News Posted: Jan 11, 2014 8:20 AM ET| Last Updated: Jan 11, 2014 10:11 AM ET

We tried to do OLCI last night, but were unable to complete the check in due to document check required. Was at the airport at 05:00 but all kiosks were down at that point and there were hundreds of people in line.

Finally made it to DTW where we missed our connection to BOS.

Next is a BOS-SNN mileage run on a separate ticket that we are trying to salvage.

AC at Buffalo, NY, USA (BUF)
 

Am sitting in the USAirways Club at BUF and an AC aircraft (looks like a 319) just landed. Anyone know what is going on? It's generating lots of chatter and curiousity. Hope it's just a weather diversion and not an emergency diversion. Limited international flights into BUF so not sure if they'll be able to get off the plane if there are no border services officers on duty.

AC199
AC1120 - its gonna be a 23 minute flight to YYZ http://flightaware.com/live/flight/A...631Z/KBUF/CYYZ
AC1861 (Rogue) Original: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/R...215Z/KMCO/CYYZ New:http://flightaware.com/live/flight/R...605Z/KBUF/CYYZ

All appear to have been diverted to BUF

Toronto Pearson Int'l (CYYZ) is currently experiencing all inbound flights being held at their origin until Saturday at 11:30AM EST due to fog.

Diverted as there was a ground halt at YUL. Most YUL bounded flight went to YYZ or BUF

These were inbound to YYZ (from YOW, YXE, MCO), not inbound to YUL.

AC1749 from Havana has diverted to Cleveland...

wow.. this is gonna be messy

DL4902 divert to BUF
AC7471 from EWR to CLE
AC7873 from EWR to SYR

Lousy Airport, Incompetent Management and Useless Airline.


Our Flight Status tool is experiencing an unusually high volume of inquiries. For this reason, if your itinerary includes one or more connecting flights, we kindly ask that you conduct a separate flight status search for your departing flight and each connecting flight included in your itinerary.

E.g. If you are flying from Montreal to Vancouver with a connecting flight in Toronto, please enter:

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AC629 YYT - YUL diverted to BUF
AC661 YHZ - YUL diverted to BUF

There was also flight bounded for YUL diverted to Buffalo

And I'm flying into YYZ tomorrow...this will not be pretty :-/

ah yes, these were early this morning.

Looks like AC661 you mentioned was first diverted to YYZ, and then told, sorry we cant take you either :P

Now, YYZ seems fogged down, and planes are going to SYR,CLE,BUF

add AA3628, now in BUF after making a few circles
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/AAL3628

WS 506 from YXE to SYR
AC 260 from YWG heading to CLE
WS 2773 from POS to SYR
US3360 from CLT to CLE

Toronto Pearson Int'l (CYYZ) is currently experiencing all inbound flights being held at their origin until Saturday at 12:30PM EST due to fog.

Similar situation here.

hopefully by then things will have settled down...

I'm sitting in YTS now trying to connect YYZ to YOW. I think it'll be a long day.

14 hours. Crew reports for duty 60 minutes prior to the flight.

Let's see if Transaero and AC869 can make it in.

I wonder if the World Class Hub and its 'partner' will have things cleared up by next weekend when I go YEG-YUL-YTZ?:rolleyes:

The latter leg will hopefully be my first time on Porter BTW.:cool:

Can we ask for our $6 back?

:D

I had a dream last night that Mississauga has amalgamated Toronto and Hazel decided to stay on as the new mayor of the amalgamated Greater Mississauga.

aircanada.com:

Looks like they are trying to be proactive with the YYZ mess...

this happened to me in Vienna a couple of years ago. total computer failure. it happens ..

Yes it happens. However, Vienna isn't a major hub like Toronto and handles approx. 22million pax per yr. Toronto handles 35million. As such, it would be expected that Toronto would have backup systems and a redundancy to support the volume of pax and the importance of Toronto as the primary national hub.. Obviously, YYZ does not have a reliable backup system. Just another failure to add to the long list of deficiencies. Why Canadians are willing to tolerate such deficiencies and poor planning is beyond me. All we get are excuses and never an action plan to deal with the problems.

Does anyone know how things are going at the other terminal? I recall at YUL back in 2007 (I think, when was the really big power failure), I was flying to YYC on WS, and WS had everything under control and the lineups were moving well. Meanwhile, AC was struggling had seemed far more chaotic!!

Still, it should not. When was the last time your bank was shut down because of a computer failure? Wasn't it TD that had a major fire in their computer centre some years back, yet continued business as usual?

Except I doubt Vienna went all "we can build a better mouse trap" and installed proprietary software that no other airport uses. The problem at YYZ is with Common Use Terminal Equipment software that runs interface and GUI into the airlines checkin systems. Hell if GTAA had PuTTY on the kiosks as a backup they could get everything running in a flash. Also looks like GTAA pushed a software update last night and brought the system down. They should have redeployed a software roll back but knowing IT teams, they probably have to do the roll back manually.

No ground stop at YOW. Some weather delays, yes, but airport operations never stopped.