Air Canada keeps changing flight time

[erby2283]

Yes, I'm a "little bit" of a planner. I booked my cruise and airfare with my travel agent. However, I periodically check in on my flights just to see prices and how full the plane is getting.

I am flying from Charlotte thru Toronto to Barcelona. I originally had a 2 hour layover in Toronto.  A few weeks ago I noticed they changed it to a little bit of a longer layover.  Today I look and now the flight to Barcelona that I'm booked on leaves prior to me even landing in Toronto. WTH? Last time my travel agent was ticked that he was not notified of the time change and  was surprised I caught it before they got notice. He finally got a notice from the airline a week or so later. What till he finds this out...lol.

 

My question is, are they going to keep continually changing my flight time? 

[FlyerTalker]

Who knows.

 

Next question about the unknown?

[erby2283]

10 minutes ago, FlyerTalker said:

Who knows.

 

Next question about the unknown?

Gee, can't understand why so many people hate CC and refuse to come back with such helpful comments like yours.

As someone who has never flown internationally before, a response of, "This happens quite frequently or yes, you should definitely not sit on this and advise your TA ASAP to make changes" would be more helpful.  But just keep commenting with nothing helpful to boost those post counts. 

My next "unknown" question to you would definitely get me banned.

[Ashland]

I'll take this opportunity to ask a question (regardless of how silly some of you experts feel about them).

 

I will need a one way flight from LAX-YQB in October for my snowbird cruise (excited for that itinerary).

 

I've looked at other carrier's but have decided on Air Canada (6:00am or 7:30am departure from LAX) and have been checking pricing daily (sometime several times a day...obsessing....EEK) since my time frame opened for booking.

 

Trying to beat the $1122.00pp for business class.....any chance this is going to (miraculously) happen? I'm very used to booking with DL & AA where prices change often but this is my first experience with trying to book Air Canada and there has been no change up until this point.

[1982CruzStart]

AC will have price changes though probably not as much as some US carriers. I recommend that you go to their website and sign up for their sale alerts.  That way when they do have a sale, you will be notified and can go online to check if it applies to the route you want. 

Flying to Quebec in October should provide some sale opportunities as you are outside peak tourist time except for the fall cruise schedule. 

Good luck.

[1982CruzStart]

39 minutes ago, erby2283 said:

Yes, I'm a "little bit" of a planner. I booked my cruise and airfare with my travel agent. However, I periodically check in on my flights just to see prices and how full the plane is getting.

I am flying from Charlotte thru Toronto to Barcelona. I originally had a 2 hour layover in Toronto.  A few weeks ago I noticed they changed it to a little bit of a longer layover.  Today I look and now the flight to Barcelona that I'm booked on leaves prior to me even landing in Toronto. WTH? Last time my travel agent was ticked that he was not notified of the time change and  was surprised I caught it before they got notice. He finally got a notice from the airline a week or so later. What till he finds this out...lol.

 

My question is, are they going to keep continually changing my flight time? 

First i would be very surprised if you were actually flying on AC equipment. I am guessing that you are flying on UA or another US related airline.  AC usually uses US based equipment for those routes.  I took a quick look at this route and did not find a single flight that used AC equipment all of them were served by a US based airline. 

 

I think that the flight changes you are seeing are from the US airlines and not AC. I have flown AC for years and have had flight schedule changes but rarely had those kind of significant changes to their schedule.

 

The only time we had a similar problem was when we booked through AC but were flying on UA equipment. It was a nightmare as UA kept changing the schedule and we ended up with a flight like yours that was leaving before we got there. 

 

They other problem we had was that flight changes were happening and UA was not notifying AC of these changes.  When i called AC they still had our original schedule but when i went online with UA the schedule was completely different.  Even though they codeshare a lot of routes they seem to have a real communication problem. 

 

I ended up having to  deal with UA and  AC to try and get the situation straightened out. Convinced me to try and avoid flying with UA in the future. 

[Globaliser]

1 hour ago, erby2283 said:

My question is, are they going to keep continually changing my flight time? 

 

Assuming that you're flying between 31 March 2019 and 27 October 2019 (the northern summer 2019 IATA scheduling season), then your Toronto-Barcelona flight is not that likely to change again. You're reporting stuff that's consistent with being in the middle of "schedule change season", ie the period before the scheduling season starts when airlines are finalising their schedules and optimising their slot usage for the coming season. You've probably now got a pretty final time for the Toronto-Barcelona flight.

 

I don't know whether schedule changing for US<-->Canada flights is quite as predictable, so I won't hazard a guess about that. But does it follow from what you say that it was your Charlotte-Toronto flight that was changed earlier?

 

Your TA will get told at some stage, just not necessarily immediately. A week or so later isn't out of the ordinary. And misconnects like your current booking are common during this period. It may be that by the time your TA is told, the airline robotics will have auto-rebooked your Charlotte-Toronto flight as well - and that may be one reason why the airline won't queue this through to your TA until later. Finding out about these changes immediately is not always productive or helpful, especially when there's a whole series of schedule changes to put into the system.

 

But none of that should inhibit you from poking around to see what you'd now prefer to have to fix the problem. Without more details, though, it's hard for any of us here to help.

[Globaliser]

22 minutes ago, 1982CruzStart said:

Convinced me to try and avoid flying with UA in the future. 

 

I don't know why this should be a reason to avoid UA. All airlines do this.

[Ashland]

38 minutes ago, 1982CruzStart said:

AC will have price changes though probably not as much as some US carriers. I recommend that you go to their website and sign up for their sale alerts.  That way when they do have a sale, you will be notified and can go online to check if it applies to the route you want. 

Flying to Quebec in October should provide some sale opportunities as you are outside peak tourist time except for the fall cruise schedule. 

Good luck.

Yes I have signed up for that alert...but so far nothing has applied (darn).

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to supply some helpful insight.

[FlyerTalker]

52 minutes ago, erby2283 said:

Gee, can't understand why so many people hate CC and refuse to come back with such helpful comments like yours.

As someone who has never flown internationally before, a response of, "This happens quite frequently or yes, you should definitely not sit on this and advise your TA ASAP to make changes" would be more helpful.  But just keep commenting with nothing helpful to boost those post counts. 

My next "unknown" question to you would definitely get me banned.

 

Well, your actual question was " are they going to keep continually changing my flight time? "

 

And the answer was accurate.  Airlines always have the right to change flight times, aircraft and other flight parameters.  And that applies to domestic and international itineraries.  You've discovered that they can and will change things, and the truth is that NO ONE knows whether they will again or not.

 

If you want something to go on, take this advice.  NEVER assume that any travel arrangement is locked in stone, be it airline, ship, train, taxi or your friend taking you to the airport.  And it your responsibility to keep on top of your travel plans.

 

[erby2283]

28 minutes ago, 1982CruzStart said:

First i would be very surprised if you were actually flying on AC equipment. I am guessing that you are flying on UA or another US related airline.  AC usually uses US based equipment for those routes.  I took a quick look at this route and did not find a single flight that used AC equipment all of them were served by a US based airline. 

 

I think that the flight changes you are seeing are from the US airlines and not AC. I have flown AC for years and have had flight schedule changes but rarely had those kind of significant changes to their schedule.

 

The only time we had a similar problem was when we booked through AC but were flying on UA equipment. It was a nightmare as UA kept changing the schedule and we ended up with a flight like yours that was leaving before we got there. 

 

They other problem we had was that flight changes were happening and UA was not notifying AC of these changes.  When i called AC they still had our original schedule but when i went online with UA the schedule was completely different.  Even though they codeshare a lot of routes they seem to have a real communication problem. 

 

I ended up having to  deal with UA and  AC to try and get the situation straightened out. Convinced me to try and avoid flying with UA in the future. 

 

I'm assuming you mean this is similar to booking a flight on American when it's actually run by American Eagle or something like that? I know a lot of times you can check expedia and see the same flight times and numbers for multiple carriers.  If it helps you, it's flight 1914 on 8/7.  I'm used to a flight time changing by a few minutes but never hours. 

 

Thank you for your response and help. 

[d9704011]

1 hour ago, Ashland said:

I'll take this opportunity to ask a question (regardless of how silly some of you experts feel about them).

 

I will need a one way flight from LAX-YQB in October for my snowbird cruise (excited for that itinerary).

 

I've looked at other carrier's but have decided on Air Canada (6:00am or 7:30am departure from LAX) and have been checking pricing daily (sometime several times a day...obsessing....EEK) since my time frame opened for booking.

 

Trying to beat the $1122.00pp for business class.....any chance this is going to (miraculously) happen? I'm very used to booking with DL & AA where prices change often but this is my first experience with trying to book Air Canada and there has been no change up until this point.

If you want to fly to YQB you will have few choices other than using Air Canada (although there is an AA flight through ORD that may interest you; and that saves the hassle of clearing customs in Montreal on the second leg).   I see the Business Class fro LAX to YQB on October 4 is about USD 1118.  My experience with AC is that prices change ver little (other than going up close to flight date) and Business Class will definitely not go down.  The flight I looked at is Air Canada all the way, traveling through Montreal.

 

Edited February 6, 2019 by d9704011
I made an error in my original post.

[erby2283]

11 minutes ago, Globaliser said:

 

Assuming that you're flying between 31 March 2019 and 27 October 2019 (the northern summer 2019 IATA scheduling season), then your Toronto-Barcelona flight is not that likely to change again. You're reporting stuff that's consistent with being in the middle of "schedule change season", ie the period before the scheduling season starts when airlines are finalising their schedules and optimising their slot usage for the coming season. You've probably now got a pretty final time for the Toronto-Barcelona flight.

 

I don't know whether schedule changing for US<-->Canada flights is quite as predictable, so I won't hazard a guess about that. But does it follow from what you say that it was your Charlotte-Toronto flight that was changed earlier?

 

Your TA will get told at some stage, just not necessarily immediately. A week or so later isn't out of the ordinary. And misconnects like your current booking are common during this period. It may be that by the time your TA is told, the airline robotics will have auto-rebooked your Charlotte-Toronto flight as well - and that may be one reason why the airline won't queue this through to your TA until later. Finding out about these changes immediately is not always productive or helpful, especially when there's a whole series of schedule changes to put into the system.

 

But none of that should inhibit you from poking around to see what you'd now prefer to have to fix the problem. Without more details, though, it's hard for any of us here to help.

Thanks you.  Not the CLT - YYZ flight, but the YYZ to BCN was changed.  I messaged my TA and told him we could try an earlier flight from CLT - YYZ because that flight to BCN is the ONLY non-stop flight that night.

 

Also, thank you for your insight. I have a better understand of how it works and the notification system. I just like to stay on top of things - would hate to be told last minute and then be stuck with seats I am not happy with when I booked so far in advance in order to take advantage of doing just that.

 

 

6 minutes ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

Well, your actual question was " are they going to keep continually changing my flight time? "

 

And the answer was accurate.  Airlines always have the right to change flight times, aircraft and other flight parameters.  And that applies to domestic and international itineraries.  You've discovered that they can and will change things, and the truth is that NO ONE knows whether they will again or not.

 

If you want something to go on, take this advice.  NEVER assume that any travel arrangement is locked in stone, be it airline, ship, train, taxi or your friend taking you to the airport.  And it your responsibility to keep on top of your travel plans.

 

 

But don't you think the above response is more descriptive and can be thought of as more helpful than your original one?  I can personally tell you that it is - so thank you.

[slidergirl]

3 minutes ago, erby2283 said:

 

I'm assuming you mean this is similar to booking a flight on American when it's actually run by American Eagle or something like that? I know a lot of times you can check expedia and see the same flight times and numbers for multiple carriers.  If it helps you, it's flight 1914 on 8/7.  I'm used to a flight time changing by a few minutes but never hours. 

 

Thank you for your response and help. 

 

Not quite, but close.  American Eagle is a regional carrier used by American to run those little flights, using aircraft painted in AA colors.  Kind of like Delta and SkyWest.  No flights are booked direct via American Eagle.  The thing with booking with Air Canada and actually flying on United has to do with alliances and codesharing.  You could book a itinerary with different legs all through Air Canada and they will have Air Canada flight numbers.  BUT, they can be flown on metal from alliance airlines.  If you look at a departures board at a boarding gate, you'll see the same physical flight listed under numerous other airlines and flight numbers.  

 

I may not be totally correct - wise FlyerTalker will correct if necessary (I trust his wise advice!)...

[CruiserBruce]

"First i would be very surprised if you were actually flying on AC equipment. I am guessing that you are flying on UA or another US related airline.  AC usually uses US based equipment for those routes.  I took a quick look at this route and did not find a single flight that used AC equipment all of them were served by a US based airline. "

 

The above is bad info. United doesn't fly direct from Charlotte to Toronto. They do via ORD.  Air Canada absolutely does (a check of the AC website confirms that). So this will likely be on Air Canada metal.

 

Will flight schedules change again? More likely than not. That is not at all uncommon.

[1982CruzStart]

36 minutes ago, Globaliser said:

 

I don't know why this should be a reason to avoid UA. All airlines do this.

The whole experience dealing with AC & UA codeshare flights was so frustrating that I would avoid that circumstance in the future. In the many years of flying though, not at the level some on this forum do, I have rarely incurred as many problems with our flights that I did with UA. On their own system they were showing connections on their equipment that were impossible as well as had us booked on 2 different routes at the same time. 

There are many options to fly so I see no reason to fly them unless I don't have choice. In that situation I would use them but make sure to check the booking frequently. 

[1982CruzStart]

9 minutes ago, CruiserBruce said:

"First i would be very surprised if you were actually flying on AC equipment. I am guessing that you are flying on UA or another US related airline.  AC usually uses US based equipment for those routes.  I took a quick look at this route and did not find a single flight that used AC equipment all of them were served by a US based airline. "

 

The above is bad info. United doesn't fly direct from Charlotte to Toronto. They do via ORD.  Air Canada absolutely does (a check of the AC website confirms that). So this will likely be on Air Canada metal.

 

Will flight schedules change again? More likely than not. That is not at all uncommon.

I did check the schedule and mis-read who the carrier was. The schedule was showing star alliance metal not AC metal. What I did wrong was not double check the ownership of the regional airline they were using. 

My apologies to the TS for this error. 

[Globaliser]

1 hour ago, erby2283 said:

If it helps you, it's flight 1914 on 8/7.

 

This is an Air Canada flight, albeit operated by its subsidiary Rouge.

 

Your obvious connection from CLT would be AC7583 at 1155-1353, although it does leave you with a ~6½ hour connection at YYZ. If that doesn't work for you, then you may have to ask whether you can be rebooked on a different route.

[erby2283]

1 minute ago, Globaliser said:

 

This is an Air Canada flight, albeit operated by its subsidiary Rouge.

 

Your obvious connection from CLT would be AC7583 at 1155-1353, although it does leave you with a ~6½ hour connection at YYZ. If that doesn't work for you, then you may have to ask whether you can be rebooked on a different route.

 

Yes, thank you! I am mulling that over now. What I thought would be a nice 12 hour travel time will now be more like 18-20. 

[Ashland]

3 hours ago, d9704011 said:

If you want to fly to YQB you will have few choices other than using Air Canada (although there is an AA flight through ORD that may interest you; and that saves the hassle of clearing customs in Montreal on the second leg).   I see the Business Class fro LAX to YQB on October 4 is about USD 1118.  My experience with AC is that prices change ver little (other than going up close to flight date) and Business Class will definitely not go down.  The flight I looked at is Air Canada all the way, traveling through Montreal.

 

The flight I've been watching is the 6:00am LAX departure connecting through Toronto that hasn't moved from the $1122.00 pp since I started watching it when it first became available to book. The early departure and getting into YQB at a decent time is a nice option. I will continue to watch but at some point will pull the trigger.

 

Thanks so much for posting.

[erby2283]

Thank you everyone. My TA is putting us on an earlier flight in order to make the YYZ to BCN connection. A crappy 6.5 hour layover but hey....there's a Wahlburger's! lol

Edited February 6, 2019 by erby2283

[d9704011]

2 hours ago, erby2283 said:

Thank you everyone. My TA is putting us on an earlier flight in order to make the YYZ to BCN connection. A crappy 6.5 hour layover but hey....there's a Wahlburger's! lol

Don’t know whether you’re flying Economy but if so, maybe you should look at investing in a couple of passes to the Air Canada lounge.

[sumiandkage]

10 hours ago, 1982CruzStart said:

First i would be very surprised if you were actually flying on AC equipment. I am guessing that you are flying on UA or another US related airline.  AC usually uses US based equipment for those routes.  I took a quick look at this route and did not find a single flight that used AC equipment all of them were served by a US based airline. 

 

 

I want to say that a flight booked by a US-based web site that falls under FAA/DOT rules is required to 'clearly' disclose the operating carrier(s) on a ticket as well as the marketing airline. I've ended up with a ticket that was sold by Delta with a final leg by Virgin Atlantic Little Red that was actually operated by Aer Lingus under a wet lease agreement, and all was disclosed properly at the time of ticket purchase. 

[Globaliser]

9 hours ago, erby2283 said:

A crappy 6.5 hour layover but hey....there's a Wahlburger's! lol

 

If you travel, about the only guarantee is that sometime or other, something will go wrong. So a knack, like this, of making lemonade is very useful.

 

A hidden upside of this change is the massive margin you now have against a misconnect due to the CLT-YYZ flight being late. Hopefully you won't have to call on this, but you have been given a risk reduction. So, as almost always, there are some compensations.

[waterbug123]

22 hours ago, erby2283 said:

 Today I look and now the flight to Barcelona that I'm booked on leaves prior to me even landing in Toronto. WTH?

 

Schedules change and sometimes this happens.  The good news is that when it does, you can usually change to anything, within reason.   Lots of people take advantage of that to change to a flight time or routing that is actually more desirable than what they originally booked, but was/is more expensive.  When the airline is the one that initiated the change as they did here, you can generally change again to something that works, and without having to pay the fare difference.  Use that to your advantage!

 

16 hours ago, erby2283 said:

Thank you everyone. My TA is putting us on an earlier flight in order to make the YYZ to BCN connection. A crappy 6.5 hour layover but hey....there's a Wahlburger's! lol

 

A downside to booking with a TA....you have to wait for your TA to do everything.  I would have changed my flight the minute I saw the airline change.