Flight time being changed a lot

jasonb

Hi there,

Just wondering if anyone has experienced this before.

My wife booked a flight from Dublin to Toronto about 6 months ago, a direct flight, Air Canada AC895 leaving at 09:50 this morning and due to arrive in Toronto at 12:10 local time.

When she checked in this morning she was told the plane would have to land in Newfoundland to refuel, which would delay the flight by about 45 mins. As this was originally a direct flight, my first question would be why would the plane now have to land to refuel? Does this mean the aircraft changed and it can't make the journey direct?

Anyhow, I'm keeping an eye online ( Toronto Airport Arrivals ) to check the status of the flight. A couple of hours ago it said it was delayed til 12:40 instead of the 12:10. Half an hour ago it said it was delayed til 14:20 ( so over two hours delayed ) and said the flight was now from Dublin, Goose Bay & Halifax! So that looks like it's landing twice before Toronto!

And I just checked a minute ago, and now it's listed as being early, as its scheduled land time is 16:30 but now it's gonna land at 15:40 ( in other words, 3.5 hours later than the original 12:10 ) and now it's only from Dublin and Halifax, so Goose Bay seems to have disappeared.

Do all these changes, to both times and extra stops, happen much? And are they allowed to just 'change' the scheduled time to 16:30 so that they can say it'll be early by arriving before that, even though the real scheduled time was 12:10 and has been that for months?

Final question, is there someone I can ring about this, maybe Air Canada or Toronto Airport?

Thanks...

J.

Su Campu

It went Dublin - Halifax, diverted from Goose Bay for some reason, and landed 17:32 Irish time. 767-300, should be able to do the whole hop in one go, not sure why the stopover. Anything on Air Canada's website?

Track it here http://flightaware.com/live/flight/ACA895 (click Track Log and graph to see cool info) See down the bottom it's scheduled to depart Halifax at 1730GMT, arrive Toronto 1932GMT.

jasonb

Thanks for your reply!

My wife rang, they were told they were diverted to Halifax to refuel & could use their phones after refueling.

So I've no idea why the aircraft couldn't do it in one hop & I still don't see how Toronto Airport are allowed 'adjust' the scheduled arrival time by 4.5 hours & then say it'll be an hour early, when it's 3.5 hours late!

J.

Cessna_Pilot

jasonb wrote: »

Thanks for your reply!

My wife rang, they were told they were diverted to Halifax to refuel & could use their phones after refueling.

So I've no idea why the aircraft couldn't do it in one hop

J.

Possible wind underestimation perhaps. The Altantic Jetstream maybe experiencing stronger headwinds than forecast. Although the crew would have planned to have contingency for this.
Could be any number of reasons.

EchoIndia

Looking at the Flightaware history for this flight, it does seem to have been flight-planned via Goose Bay, Montreal or Halifax over recent days, whereas for comparison ACA859 LHR-YYZ (also a 767-300) has operated direct on all occasions. The aircraft used on the DUB route have higher-density seating to accommodate more passengers, so this may mean that they are a bit range-limited compared with the rest of the AC 767 fleet.