Moderators: richierich, ua900, PanAm_DC10, hOMSaR
crosscheckyyz wrote:Regarding DCA, just looked up on the app. DCA is still there as is IAD and BWI. Probably just a glitch.
jasoncrh wrote:People have been complaining about airlines' bad operations in the U.S., but from what I'm seeing nothing holds a candle to the disaster that is going on with Air Canada in Canada....
Airlinerdude wrote:jasoncrh wrote:People have been complaining about airlines' bad operations in the U.S., but from what I'm seeing nothing holds a candle to the disaster that is going on with Air Canada in Canada....
I believe it's in the airliners.net rules that 1) anything negative about AC; 2) anything that points to AC benefiting from government protection against competition; or 3) anything that is counterfactual to a user's positive post about AC's performance isn't allowed to be posted... Or that's what it feels like anyways.
Some sarcasm aside, it looks like AC's Eastern operations are a disaster these days. It's great that they're trying to be somewhat proactive about cancellations by scaling down their July operations, but it's unfortunate that they've put themselves into the position they find themselves in.
I'm lucky that all of my AC flying in the next few weeks isn't touching YYZ/YUL.
skiier97 wrote:Anyone notice that AC has taken a TON of flights off their website for sale? My YYZ-DCA flights in mid July suddenly do not appear for sale anymore but my booking still shows up with no changes. In fact, as of July 1 there are no more direct flights form YYZ to and DC airport...
People on other forums have discovered that it appears that AC's website is either messed up or as of July 1 AC will be making service cutbacks.
Eso91 wrote:Looks like YYZ-YDF could be one of the routes being cancelled, bookings aren't open anymore. Very inconvenient for me as I'm booked on YDF-YYZ for July 25th.
Jshank83 wrote:Eso91 wrote:Looks like YYZ-YDF could be one of the routes being cancelled, bookings aren't open anymore. Very inconvenient for me as I'm booked on YDF-YYZ for July 25th.
Three routes will be temporarily suspended between Montreal and Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Kelowna and one from Toronto to Fort McMurray, according to Air Canada.
“Most of the flights affected are to and from our Toronto and Montreal hubs,” the airline’s email to the Star said, adding that they will be mostly “frequency reductions, affecting primarily evening and late-night flights by smaller aircraft, on transborder and domestic routes.”
International flights are unaffected, with a few timing changes to reduce flying at peak times and even out the customer flow.
https://www.thestar.com/business/2022/0 ... dules.html
ShamrockBoi330 wrote:Anyone any ideas whats in store? I have two transatlantic flights to Dublin booked July and September, both for events, and this has now made me pretty nervous tbh!
CrewBunk wrote:ShamrockBoi330 wrote:Anyone any ideas whats in store? I have two transatlantic flights to Dublin booked July and September, both for events, and this has now made me pretty nervous tbh!
Don’t worry, everyone on AC’s mailing list got that email. You weren’t singled out due to your bookings.
I checked internally and no DUB flights are affected. It is still operating daily from YYZ to the end of October, then 5 times weekly across the winter. YVR and YUL nonstops have not changed, with 4 times and 3 times weekly, respectively.
ShamrockBoi330 wrote:skiier97 wrote:Anyone notice that AC has taken a TON of flights off their website for sale? My YYZ-DCA flights in mid July suddenly do not appear for sale anymore but my booking still shows up with no changes. In fact, as of July 1 there are no more direct flights form YYZ to and DC airport...
People on other forums have discovered that it appears that AC's website is either messed up or as of July 1 AC will be making service cutbacks.
Got an email from AC today warning about cancellations.... it reads
"...However, to bring about the level of operational stability we need, with reluctance, we are now making meaningful reductions to our schedule in July and August in order to reduce passenger volumes and flows to a level we believe the air transport system can accommodate."
Anyone any ideas whats in store? I have two transatlantic flights to Dublin booked July and September, both for events, and this has now made me pretty nervous tbh!
OlympicATH wrote:My trip from YQB to YVR (via YYZ) next week just got cancelled. And I realised because I went on the AC app - no email or anything. Seems messy and unprofessional.
They’re offering a refund but what I really need is another ticket. Obviously prices are 2x more expensive now.
Does anyone know if AC will reroute me for free if I call them (and manage to get through)?
OlympicATH wrote:My trip from YQB to YVR (via YYZ) next week just got cancelled. And I realised because I went on the AC app - no email or anything. Seems messy and unprofessional.
They’re offering a refund but what I really need is another ticket. Obviously prices are 2x more expensive now.
Does anyone know if AC will reroute me for free if I call them (and manage to get through)?
tax1k wrote:Got this in a blast email from AC. Im sure others got this as well.
At Air Canada, we know how important travel plans are. This is even more the case today when many are taking their first trip in years following the pandemic. Whether for long‑anticipated vacations, visits with relatives and friends, or for business, we are grateful and recognize our responsibility when people like you entrust your travel to our airline.
Regrettably, things are not business as usual in our industry globally, and this is affecting our operations and our ability to serve you with our normal standards of care. The COVID‑19 pandemic brought the world air transport system to a halt in early 2020. Now, after more than two years, global travel is resurgent, and people are returning to flying at a rate never seen in our industry.
This surge in travel has created unprecedented and unforeseen strains on all aspects of the global aviation system. Around the world, there are recurring incidents of flight delays and airport congestion, resulting from a complex array of persistent factors impacting airlines and our partners in the aviation ecosystem. Similar effects are being seen in other industries too, where companies and suppliers are struggling to restart, unclog supply chains and meet pent‑up demand.
At Air Canada, we anticipated many of these factors and began taking tangible action during the depth of the pandemic to be ready for a rapid restart. Yet, despite detailed and careful planning, the largest and fastest scale of hiring in our history, as well as investments in aircraft and equipment, it is now clear that Air Canada’s operations too have been disrupted by the industry’s complex and unavoidable challenges. The result has been flight cancellations and customer service shortfalls on our part that we would never have intended for our customers or for our employees, and for which we sincerely apologize.
In response, we took a number of important steps, including introducing flexible ticket policies, new travel self-management tools, improvements to airport operations, as well adjustments to our schedule ‑ all to strengthen operational resiliency and to give customers more options. However, to bring about the level of operational stability we need, with reluctance, we are now making meaningful reductions to our schedule in July and August in order to reduce passenger volumes and flows to a level we believe the air transport system can accommodate.
This was not an easy decision, as it will result in additional flight cancellations that will have a negative impact on some customers. But doing this in advance allows affected customers to take time to make other arrangements in an orderly manner, rather than have their travel disrupted shortly before or during their journey, with few alternatives available. It will also enable us to more reliably serve all customers.
I can assure you Air Canada is also working in close cooperation with airports, government, and its third‑party service providers, who all are striving to return our industry to pre‑pandemic standards of operation.
We are convinced these changes will bring about the improvements we have targeted. But to set expectations, it should also be understood the real benefits of this action will take time and be felt only gradually as the industry regains the reliability and robustness it had attained prior to the pandemic.
On behalf of all of us at Air Canada, please accept my sincere apologies for any disruption you have experienced or may experience with your travel plans during this unprecedented period. I also assure you that we very clearly see the challenges at hand, that we are taking action, and that we are confident we have the strategy to address them. This is our company’s chief focus at every level.
Thank you for your patience and understanding. We certainly look forward to future opportunities to serve you and regain your loyalty at a time when we can better demonstrate our commitment to taking good care of customers such as yourself.
Sincerely,
Michael Rousseau
President and Chief Executive Officer
Air Canada
Star Alliance
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runway23 wrote:AC really needs to cut significantly to get operational reliability back.
Jazz is by far the worst-performing airline anywhere in the world right now, with roughly 25-50% of flights canceled daily, and 40-60% of those remaining are delayed.
Rouge and mainline performing better, with fewer cancellations but an impressive number of delayed flights.
The Jazz issues are hardly a surprise for AC. A few months back when AC loaded the summer schedule many domestic routes went to Rouge in an effort to trim frequencies by increasing gauge.
AC has just been greedy in believing they could operate more flights than they had crew. The worst part is that the airline fails to be honest with their customers by continuing to cancel flights 2-6 hours before departure rather than a few days in advance. There are a couple of flights that haven't operated for 3 weeks yet AC continues to cancel these same flights on the day of departure.
777luver wrote:runway23 wrote:AC really needs to cut significantly to get operational reliability back.
Jazz is by far the worst-performing airline anywhere in the world right now, with roughly 25-50% of flights canceled daily, and 40-60% of those remaining are delayed.
Rouge and mainline performing better, with fewer cancellations but an impressive number of delayed flights.
The Jazz issues are hardly a surprise for AC. A few months back when AC loaded the summer schedule many domestic routes went to Rouge in an effort to trim frequencies by increasing gauge.
AC has just been greedy in believing they could operate more flights than they had crew. The worst part is that the airline fails to be honest with their customers by continuing to cancel flights 2-6 hours before departure rather than a few days in advance. There are a couple of flights that haven't operated for 3 weeks yet AC continues to cancel these same flights on the day of departure.
Do you have a source for all of this information? Or is this just a “guess”? “The worst airline right now” sounds dramatic more than anything else. And they aren’t being honest? Again, the changes are coming, it’s not gonna happen at the flip of a switch
EdmFlyBoi wrote:It is hard to tell if this is AC's issue, issues with the lack of airport ground crew, or a combination (probably a combination).
Airlinerdude wrote:777luver wrote:runway23 wrote:AC really needs to cut significantly to get operational reliability back.
Jazz is by far the worst-performing airline anywhere in the world right now, with roughly 25-50% of flights canceled daily, and 40-60% of those remaining are delayed.
Rouge and mainline performing better, with fewer cancellations but an impressive number of delayed flights.
The Jazz issues are hardly a surprise for AC. A few months back when AC loaded the summer schedule many domestic routes went to Rouge in an effort to trim frequencies by increasing gauge.
AC has just been greedy in believing they could operate more flights than they had crew. The worst part is that the airline fails to be honest with their customers by continuing to cancel flights 2-6 hours before departure rather than a few days in advance. There are a couple of flights that haven't operated for 3 weeks yet AC continues to cancel these same flights on the day of departure.
Do you have a source for all of this information? Or is this just a “guess”? “The worst airline right now” sounds dramatic more than anything else. And they aren’t being honest? Again, the changes are coming, it’s not gonna happen at the flip of a switch
The poster is not wrong.
Yesterday (June 29th):
Air Canada delayed: 69%
Air Canada Rouge delayed: 64%
Jazz delayed: 54%
Air Canada cancelled: 3%
Air Canada Rouge cancelled: 3%
Jazz cancelled: 21%
https://flightaware.com/live/cancelled/yesterday
Shocking numbers and Westjet/Swoop/Encore aren't far behind either. The next closest North American major airline is JetBlue at 35% delayed and 0% cancelled; following this it's American at 23% delayed and 8% cancelled.
dr1980 wrote:
The RAIC badge issue is an interesting one, who does that responsibility lie with?
Thenoflyzone wrote:dr1980 wrote:
The RAIC badge issue is an interesting one, who does that responsibility lie with?
The airport authority is in charge. But the background checks are carried out by the RCMP / CSIS, which always took time, even before the pandemic. If the airport has US preclearance, even the USCBP does a background check.
The final authority that determines access to the restricted areas of the airport is the airport authority itself.
Whiteguy wrote:Thenoflyzone wrote:dr1980 wrote:
The RAIC badge issue is an interesting one, who does that responsibility lie with?
The airport authority is in charge. But the background checks are carried out by the RCMP / CSIS, which always took time, even before the pandemic. If the airport has US preclearance, even the USCBP does a background check.
The final authority that determines access to the restricted areas of the airport is the airport authority itself.
Yes it took time but no where near the time it takes now. It’s hard to get an appointment even these days for a RAIC application
skipness1E wrote:Can I ask about the transatlantic B737-8 MAX fleet, previously LHR only ever saw fins 501-517, and that's been the case since the resumption of YHZ-LHR. Is it only this subset that is set up for the North Atlantic? Bigger liferafts perhaps?
CrewBunk wrote:For the last few months, I have been curious why Canada lags so far behind the rest of the world with regard to changing Covid restrictions. It’s still law that masks must be worn when flying! It almost appeared that the government was doing everything they could to discourage air travel.
I’m starting to understand why now. While airlines have been ramping up with bringing back equipment and personnel the very infrastructure on which this lies has not. These government controlled and monitored services have been running at half speed for so long, inertia alone dictates it will be a while.
It’s not just like front line labour intensive services like CATSA and ATC, but when the RAIC pass issues noted above are realized, it affects almost every facet of the operation. Hell, a few days ago, the barista at Starbucks was saying they are operating with half staff (long line) as they couldn’t get new hire employees security cleared.
I feel for Air Canada and Westjet (for example) who were more or less ready. (Air Canada brought back / hired over 1000 pilots in the last 12 months and pulled older A320/319s out of the desert). I can just imagine the meetings with airport administration when they presented their summer schedule plans only to have the airports realize they are in no way ready.
Remember, this is the country where passenger protection laws recently changed. Soon …. Canadian airlines will be responsible for delays, re-routings etc. for problems beyond their control. The government now has no incentive to fix things when they know ultimately they will not be held responsible.
stratable wrote:What is left of Covid restrictions is really not impacting the flying experience to a point where you would expect delays because of them.
As I have said before, the new passenger protection laws really aren't a big deal, similar laws have been standard in Europe for decades at this point.
I'd agree with you, that this is really a management issue at these agencies and especially the airport authorities. It's common knowledge that it takes a while to get all the required
paperwork done, so the airports really should have been better prepared.
CrewBunk wrote:For the last few months, I have been curious why Canada lags so far behind the rest of the world with regard to changing Covid restrictions. It’s still law that masks must be worn when flying! It almost appeared that the government was doing everything they could to discourage air travel.
I’m starting to understand why now. While airlines have been ramping up with bringing back equipment and personnel the very infrastructure on which this lies has not. These government controlled and monitored services have been running at half speed for so long, inertia alone dictates it will be a while.
It’s not just like front line labour intensive services like CATSA and ATC, but when the RAIC pass issues noted above are realized, it affects almost every facet of the operation. Hell, a few days ago, the barista at Starbucks was saying they are operating with half staff (long line) as they couldn’t get new hire employees security cleared.
I feel for Air Canada and Westjet (for example) who were more or less ready. (Air Canada brought back / hired over 1000 pilots in the last 12 months and pulled older A320/319s out of the desert). I can just imagine the meetings with airport administration when they presented their summer schedule plans only to have the airports realize they are in no way ready.
Remember, this is the country where passenger protection laws recently changed. Soon …. Canadian airlines will be responsible for delays, re-routings etc. for problems beyond their control. The government now has no incentive to fix things when they know ultimately they will not be held responsible.
Skywatcher wrote:On the CTV national news the other day I saw a statement released by the Federal government that inbound border (Canada Customs) staffing levels and outbound passenger security staff were at 96 and 93% of pre-covid levels. Traffic has not recovered to these levels yet so something doesn't add up.
I would love to see a graph comparing staff levels over the last 20 years vs passenger traffic and what % of days are actually worked by the aforementioned employees. The trend is likely more staff and less % days worked.
I believe this is all simply part of public service deterioration in general. Same with passport processing, healthcare and on and on.
There's probably more employees on burnout (whether legit or not) and sick leave (whether sick or not) than ever but of course we are not privy to this information unfortunately.
Skywatcher wrote:Is it possible that the public sector part of the problem (border staff, security staff, airport authority staff etc.) are exploiting the chaos and slowing down their pace of work as part of a strategy to increase wages? Is this a union pressure tactic?
IceCream wrote:Skywatcher wrote:Is it possible that the public sector part of the problem (border staff, security staff, airport authority staff etc.) are exploiting the chaos and slowing down their pace of work as part of a strategy to increase wages? Is this a union pressure tactic?
That's a bit of a stretch, I highly highly doubt it. At the end of the day AC and the government are both responsible for this mess.
777luver wrote:But they are responsible for CATSA and the Covid restrictions which still do nott make any sense and are not done by science as they vehemently claim and cannot let go of, it’s pure politics. But I’m getting off topic. They shamed people into not travelling for the last 2 years. I’m getting off topic so I’ll stop here
flyb wrote:There is something that isn’t adding up with the entire scenario.
Seems there could be politics happening here airlines vs government.
If it was Toronto as the issue why did they make such a quick change instead of a planned slight dehubbing from YYZ temporarily or another strategy. Something doesn’t add up.
Perfect scenario for Flair and Lynx.
Seiferling said he felt sorry for the airline employees who had to deal with increasingly irate passengers.
He said communications between flights should be improved and the connecting flight to Saskatoon should have been held. He also said lifting COVID-19 protocols would help speed things up.
alo2yyz wrote:If anyone seriously believes continued masking rules has anything to do with flight delays/cancellations/etc...I have an alpine chalet near Regina to sell you.
And really, how many people are not travelling because of the mask rule? Who is saying to their employer "nope, not travelling for that meeting because I have to wear a mask" and who is sitting around planning a vacation-by-auto instead of vacation-by-plane because of a mask? 'COVID rules are deliberately there to discourage travel' is an explanation we're reaching for instead of:
The unemployment rate is at an all-time low, so vacancies can't be filled
COVID is still very much a thing, so folks are out sick
Airlines encouraged early retirement etc and are struggling to staff their schedules
RAIC pass issues as others have noted
All this quasi-conspiracy talk about public sector unions and masking rules? C'mon.
It isn't just that "we can't find ___" (security screeners, bag handlers, whatever). At my employer, HR is severely shortstaffed. The background check office is severely shortstaffed. All of this causes rolling delays in hiring (the few) people we can find who accept a job offer.
stratable wrote:Air Canada will surely reach pre-pandemic travel levels sooner rather than later, and with North America continuing to grow in terms of its population and economy, Air Canada will surely be able to turn a nice profit in the next few years.
runway23 wrote:stratable wrote:Air Canada will surely reach pre-pandemic travel levels sooner rather than later, and with North America continuing to grow in terms of its population and economy, Air Canada will surely be able to turn a nice profit in the next few years.
A lot of AC's future (just like many other companies globally) will depend on how long things drag on in Ukraine.
As long as the war goes on oil will remain high. If Oil reaches $380 (like some analysts at JP Morgan see possible as a worst-case scenario), or at least maintains at current levels this will inflict enormous pressure on AC. You can also add the importance of Real Estate to the economy (roughly 20% of the Canadian economy) that is already suffering from higher interest rates and of course inflation that will eat into people's disposable incomes, company loans, corporate travel, etc.
AC is in a good position today because of revenge travel (be it holidays or overdue VFR) but things can change very quickly.
What AC does have going for it is great leadership and network team who have been able to quickly reshape the network/airline since the pandemic.
runway23 wrote:What AC does have going for it is great leadership and network team who have been able to quickly reshape the network/airline since the pandemic.
Trip wrote:runway23 wrote:What AC does have going for it is great leadership and network team who have been able to quickly reshape the network/airline since the pandemic.
The pathetic state of AC's operations now doesn't suggest that the carrier has a great leadership team. Yes, some of the problems are outside AC's control, but many of are self-inflicted.
YEGFlyer wrote:Not a surprise that it is hard to find people to do baggage handling, ground work if you are only paying them minimum wage or slightly above minimum wage. Also not a surprise that rookies will be slower at a job than someone experienced. You would need something like 120%-150% of pre-covid staffing levels if you are now mostly hiring inexperienced staff.