Porter Airlines - Ottawa/Vancouver

[*Miss G*]

Same with Air Canada.  It seems the Canadian airlines need to be closing the loop on their communications.

[TeamCan]

On 9/6/2024 at 3:53 PM, Fouremco said:

Well, good old Porter has done it again, less than a month from our departure date. Today they cancelled our direct morning flight to Vancouver, and switched us to a flight that doesn't get in until 9:58pm PDST. As we had afternoon and evening plans for Vancouver, this change is bad news. So from a February booking with two direct flights at great times, we have one direct flight at a terrible time and one 1-stop through Pearson, also at a terrible time. With a month left, hopefully Porter won't make further changes and go from good to bad to worse. 

 

I know, flying these days isn't what it used to be, but Porter just doesn't seem to be able to get its, er, act together. 

Oh no!  I'm sorry this has happened to you again. With the AC pilots strike looming, Porter's flight schedule was the only alternative. We just booked last week and our flight is in 2 weeks.  After reading your Porter post, I am checking my flights daily, so far so good."on time".  Your 9:58pm flight is the same return flight for us from YOW-YVR.  Hopefully Porter won't make any more changes to your flights or to any to our flights.  Safe travels!

[Fouremco]

24 minutes ago, TeamCan said:

Oh no!  I'm sorry this has happened to you again. With the AC pilots strike looming, Porter's flight schedule was the only alternative. We just booked last week and our flight is in 2 weeks.  After reading your Porter post, I am checking my flights daily, so far so good."on time".  Your 9:58pm flight is the same return flight for us from YOW-YVR.  Hopefully Porter won't make any more changes to your flights or to any to our flights.  Safe travels!

Thanks, and the same to you!

[Sprocket]

This will be our first flight with Porter, we did cancel the outbound as we were a bit worried about Ottawa in early December.  We have a flight back to Vancouver via Ottawa from Fort Lauderdale.  We rarely fly to or from Vancouver so not really sure how it works with luggage etc.  I did fly with Alaska a couple years ago and bags were checked straight through, and I cleared customs in the US IIRC.

 

We only have an hour between flights so I'm hoping it will be an easy process once we reach Ottawa and find the gate for our Vancouver leg, which I'm sure will be boarding by then or close to it.  

Anything I should know, we're old lol so can't run.

Edited October 5 by Sprocket

[3CanadianBears]

• Am I the only person who books refundable flights?  Yes, I know the cost is more, but I don't worry about flight changes as much. And not having to pay for or consider trip cancellation limits on a credit card if the need arises to cancel. 

[Ex-Airbalancer]

6 minutes ago, 3CanadianBears said:

• Am I the only person who books refundable flights?  Yes, I know the cost is more, but I don't worry about flight changes as much. And not having to pay for or consider trip cancellation limits on a credit card if the need arises to cancel. 

Probably 😉😁

[Sprocket]

1 hour ago, 3CanadianBears said:

• Am I the only person who books refundable flights?  Yes, I know the cost is more, but I don't worry about flight changes as much. And not having to pay for or consider trip cancellation limits on a credit card if the need arises to cancel. 

No I paid extra with Porter for fully refundable fares as we may cancel our return flight if Alaska air works out better for us.  Miss Southwest that’s for sure.

[Sprocket]

On 8/29/2024 at 1:56 PM, Fouremco said:

I've flown in and out of YOW hundreds of times, on a wide variety of airlines, and have generally considered the airport pretty good. Our last return flight, earlier this year, was our first post covid, and our first Porter flight in a few years. The outbound flight was very late departing, and upon our return our luggage took a huge amount of time before getting to the carousel. I don't know whether the problems were attributable to the airport or with Porter.

 

On your way to Newark, you'll have to go through US pre-clearance in Ottawa. It helps if you have Nexus or similar to speed processing, but generally it isn't terribly busy. Once through, the waiting area for US flights doesn't have much in the way of shops, restaurants, etc., so if you have the opportunity to eat or browse before heading to security and pre-clearance, I'd suggest that you do so. I'd be more precise, but I'm not sure how they handle passengers or their luggage when transferring from a domestic flight to a US flight. 

 

Just in case you've not seen it already:  https://yow.ca/en

 

Given my previously mentioned experience with the change in flights returning to Ottawa from Vancouver in October, with no notification from Porter, I recommend that you keep checking their website to ensure that your flights remain the same, or that any changes that they make will work for you.

I called Porter before I booked our tickets and was assured that we could check our bags straight through to Vancouver in Fort Lauderdale.  The link and the website says we have to collect our bags and recheck them in Ottawa after clearing Immigration.  We only have an hour to make our connection.

I don’t see how this is doable am I not reading this correctly what has been your experience?

[Dismomx5]

18 hours ago, 3CanadianBears said:

• Am I the only person who books refundable flights?  Yes, I know the cost is more, but I don't worry about flight changes as much. And not having to pay for or consider trip cancellation limits on a credit card if the need arises to cancel. 

The last time I booked flights, I booked refundable (Air Canada). It was a good thing because I needed to cancel the cruise and flights, due to medical reasons. All the money, helped to pay off the cruise we just got off. lol And I have to say, knowing that I wasn't going to be out anything really made a difference to my mental health.