Has Air Canada ever cancelled your flight?

[Nahanni]

I know many U.S. carriers change flight schedules regularly but I'm wondering if anyone has experienced it with Air Canada or WestJet.

We are flying to MCO in February and there are 4 flights scheduled on departure and return days but only one is about 2/3 full. I wonder if they will push another seat sale to fill the seats or do they cancel a flight and move the passengers to other flights.

If they cancel a flight, any idea how many days in advance this needs to be done?

 

[ChisJo]

We had a flight cancelled to Phoenix last year on AC. We checked in the night before for the flight and had no problems. We got to the airport at 5:30am, only to find out that the flight was cancelled (problems with the plane - I would rather have a flight cancelled than risk a faulty plane, personally, so we were ok with the cancellation). The thing that sucked was that we couldn't get on another flight until 4pm, so we would've been at the airport for like 12 hours if that was the case. However, a GREAT ticket agent ended up putting us on a flight to Vancouver, and then to Phoenix at 10am, so we didn't have to wait so long. We ended up getting in Phoenix only 4 hours late. AC was great and competely apologetic. We ended up getting 15% off our next flight.

 

[Ted in Halifax]

If its 2/3 full ... it will be full by February. Relax ... its not a cancellation risk. They will run the flight even if its 2/3rd full

 

[RainbowsMist]

My friend just had her Dec 26th flight to Jamaica cancelled out of Halifax due to the lack of seats being sold. Left them scrambling but they found another leaving on the 15th.

I'm sure you won't have a problem though..Orlando flights seems to fill up!

 

[sjsjbrook]

You also have to keep in mind that they pick up people from Orlando and bring them back, so your flight may not be full, but the return flight may be so they still have to get the plane there.

They have been known to switch the size of the plane or change the flight time without letting you know. This is only an issue if you have reserved seats.

 

[Sue M]

Yes! When i checked in at Vancouver airport, both flights were fine. I was connecting in Toronto for a NY fligfht. We landed in Toronto and I look at the board to see what gate my connecting flight was leaving from- and it was canceled. Don't know why, but what a mess. I was told I may not get out that day didn't want to be stuck in Toronto over night, esp since I only had 7 days, 2 of which were travel days, so really only 5 days there.
I told a little white lie, and said I had to be there for a wedding, and they found me a seat on a flight leaving in 30 min. I had to run to catch it. Really run. Sweat was pouring off me by the time I reached the gate.

 

[yxe dad]

There seems to be a AC flight that goes from Toronto to NY(LGA) that gets cancelled often. My brother was living in NY a couple of years ago and over the coarse of 18 months he or our family would connect through Toronto at least once a month. During that time span 6 of those flights were cancelled leaving him or us in Toronto for the night. AC's excuse was always weather, but LGA never cancelled any other flights arriving due to weather.

AC would put us up in a hotel but it really didn't make up for the lost time.

 

[sjsjbrook]

I have heard lots of AC flights being cancelled due to weather, but I believe the OP was more interested in flights being cancelled by the airlines because of low sales for the flights.

Quite often you read about some of the American carriers, cancelling flights and moving people to different flights at different times. In fact there is one on the boards right now where their flight was changed by 12 hours (return flight).

I have to say that weather wise, if the desintation isn't affected by the weather and they can get the plane off the groud AC will.

We were on a flight from TO to Orlando during the storm of 2007. Took us 2 hours to get to the airport (usually a 45 min drive) at 5 am. When we got there many flights were cancelled, but they were all going to stow belt areas, our flight was 2 hours late, but not because they couldn't take off, but because flight staff were having trouble getting into work.

 

[ABCanada]

Given many of the ticket classes require you to pay for seat selection it is very difficult for a passenger to know how full the plane is until check in.

We have had US airlines 'change their schedule' on us. Most have an email notification that you can sign up for. They will reschedule you on another flight (we have had issues with the flights they have rescheduled us on).

Other than in South America, I have never had a flight cancelled at the last minute because not enough seats were sold.

 

[Nahanni]

I believe the OP was more interested in flights being cancelled by the airlines because of low sales for the flights.

Quite often you read about some of the American carriers, cancelling flights and moving people to different flights at different times. In fact there is one on the boards right now where their flight was changed by 12 hours (return flight).

The question was primarily about flights cancelled because of low sales but it is interesting to hear about other experiences as well. I think you can see AC seat availability quite accurately on MCO flights because the lowest fare is Tango Plus so seats are selected or "assigned" at booking. We're not expecting it to happen but just wondering if it does.

I have had AC cancel flights because of winter storms (Once, I was in Newfoundland and Toronto was closed and another time in Castlegar BC the plane could not get do the landing pattern to get into the airport - we were bussed to Cranbrook).

 

[calliemom]

We've traveled to Orlando 4 times in the last 5 years and have never had our flight canceled. We've had minor flight time changes of 5 to 10 minutes, of which we were notified in advance, but no cancellation have ever happened to our family.

 

[2gr8DisneyKids]

West Jet just rescheduled our return flight on Jan 6th! Moved it from 1 pm to 1:50 pm...

And now they almost have to run the planes even if they are nearly empty to get people back. The airlines do not have as many agreements between each other to swap people around either, West Jet and Southwest, esp. Airlines do not have empty planes staged around the country anymore, they are keeping costs down by using fewer planes.

Mechanical and weather issues are different, but capacity cancellations rarely happen. I was actually one of two people on a flight once, but we also had a kidney on board so it was a priority flight.

 

[Miandrea]

Flights to Florida won't be cancelled due to the Cruise industry. It is too costly for the airlines to cancel flights to Florida. I was told this 2 years ago during that miserable storm a few days before Christmas...most flights were cancelled except for the Florida ones....we had to wait 6ish hours...it was worth it when we arrived in Florida.

I don't know if it's actually true...just what I was told.

 

[EastYorkDisneyFan]

Also WestJet and Air Canada are what are know as a scheduled airline, which means that they will always fly to the destination that the flight is scheduled too if there are people booked on the flight. The only exceptions to this is weather or mechanical problems. Other airlines may go by what is called the charter model and will only fly if a certain percentage of the flight is sold.

 

[Sue M]

There seems to be a AC flight that goes from Toronto to NY(LGA) that gets cancelled often. My brother was living in NY a couple of years ago and over the coarse of 18 months he or our family would connect through Toronto at least once a month. During that time span 6 of those flights were cancelled leaving him or us in Toronto for the night. AC's excuse was always weather, but LGA never cancelled any other flights arriving due to weather.

AC would put us up in a hotel but it really didn't make up for the lost time.

Yes, our flight was connecting in Toronto to LGA too. They didn't give any excuse, not weather, cause it was fine. Never found out why. But it was the first and only time I had a connection canceled when I was already in the air, on my way.

 

[disneymath]

I would think your flights between YYZ and MCO would be fine ... it's the connector flights on regional carrier Air Canada Jazz that you have to worry about.

The first time we took my nephew to Disney - he was 6 months old - the final leg of our flight (YYZ to home) was cancelled. This supposedly happened two months before our vacation, but we (or our travel agent) were never notified. Additionally, the flight was never removed from the booking page of the website - even that day in Toronto the AC agent was like "oh, yeah ... that flight, the one that never got removed".

Anyhow, we got to Toronto from Orlando expecting only an hour or so before our flight home. Turns out we ended up being stuck at the airport for over 9 hours b/c they had rebooked us on the latest possible flight out. To complicate things, this was in December 2007 when AC was playing around with their stroller regulations and they had forced us to check the stroller at MCO. (9 hours + 6 month old + no stroller = not fun) Then to complicate things just a bit more we had to fly home through a snowstorm so there was significant turbulence.

That particualr flight experience still irks me to this day! (That said, we're stuck with AC as the only carrier from our home base ... most of the time they're just fine!)

 

[Gigi22]

OP--just don't get me started!
Just experienced a truly nasty series of delays on a MCO-YUL flight on Air Canada. Long story short, our original aircraft experienced major computer problems, and the flight was put on an indefinite delay until the geniuses at Montreal AC head office could crunch the numbers. The flight wound up leaving MCO approximately 12 hours late--they flew in another airplane and crew from Toronto. Of course there were lots of families with small children, including one family who were apparently on a Children's Wish Foundation trip (I am surmising this from our conversations with the child's grandmother) who had to make connections from Montreal.
Oh, yes, and the final words we heard from the ServiceAir staff (there are apparently no Air Canada employees at the gate at MCO, so no one there is responsible) were, "Fly WestJet."

 

[sean-1966]

I've seen it both ways with AC. I spent the night in Beijing once because they canceled my direct flight to Tokyo. Got me into Japan a day late and to the wrong airport. Not a big deal but a pain. I've also been the only passenger on a plane to Miami. I mean the only one. It was so weird.