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I can confirm that Porter has never cancelled a flight because they felt there weren't enough people on board.

Today's delays are entirely weather related at YTZ. Did you not notice all the thunderstorm cells passing through the area, combined with the fog on the island?

Also, it is not unheard of for the window of opportunity for landing at YTZ to be literally a couple minutes. They know how long it takes to fly from A to B and if they see a window of opportunity where the weather is expected to be a bit better, then they'll try and time it to get in there at that time. Sometimes it works, sometimes the projections are off and they're forced to go to Pearson.
 
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TOareaFan said:
It just struck me as strange.....3 flights....the earlier one is a go (although late) indicating that the "current" weather is not too bad....the middle one has to be canceled because of the weather (indicating that the weather is thought to worsen) but they know that there is no need to cancel the 3rd one?


So 2 of the 3 pilots are willing to "push their luck"?

As arte johnson used to say "very interesting".
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Weather does change during the day. When I was flying I did have days where I canned morning trips because of weather and rushed an afternoon trip because of forecast weather for the evening. And I have the opposite, flown morning and night and canned an afternoon trip when there was a thunderstorm cell over the airport. That's how aviation works.

All those factors are compounded by the fact that Porter operates a smaller aircraft from a very constrained airfield (short runways, limited options for alternate approaches, etc).

For an airline like Porter, I really don't think it's anything untoward. Unlike the majors they are flying a plane that sips fuel. I would think that the hassle of canceling a flight (you have to re-work they days flying schedule not just that one trip) and the attendant impact on passenger perception of service would be a huge deal for them. I don't think they would undertake such practices lightly. It certainly not in keeping with the image they are trying to cultivate.
 
Fog was extremely thick last night, they likely would have not seen the run way till they where ontop of it. I'm surprised there was no cancellations. We almost had two big boats collide near Ontario Place because of it.
 
jn_12 said:
I can confirm that Porter has never cancelled a flight because they felt there weren't enough people on board.
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Thanks for the confirmation ;)

jn_12 said:
Today's delays are entirely weather related at YTZ. Did you not notice all the thunderstorm cells passing through the area, combined with the fog on the island?
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Interestingly, the flight that they were put on (the "earlier flight") ended up leaving Chicago within minutes of when their original flight was supposed to and when it landed at YTZ the fog was so thick that I could not see the plane from the mainland!

If that plane could land, I am pretty certain they all could!!!

Anyway, let's all agree to disagree and just compromise with "there was bad weather that presented an opportunity to combine some flights to create, both, the maximum possible customer safety and airline profitability".
 
sigh... there's nothing to ;) at. I worked for Porter for a year and a half. If they were trying to be cunning and secretive they would have been doing that from the start. It's not the way it works there. Trust me when I say that there have been many flights that should have been canceled and weren't.

Am I reading it right? It sounds like you're saying the flight before the one they were on was delayed? If it was, and it was expected to go out at the same time as the next flight, they would combine flights only because it makes sense. Why have two planes going to the same place at the same time? That's quite normal whether you're a bus, plane, train, whatever. Plus, they might not have had the slot times to have two flights go out at once.

Also, it is possible for one pilot to feel comfortable landing, and another pilot not feeling comfortable landing. Pilots all have different backgrounds. One pilot for Porter was a fighter pilot in Yugoslavia and he's fearless because of his background. Obviously very few pilots has dealt with the conditions he has, so he would feel more comfortable in situations like inclement weather. So it is possible that the weather can be borderline and one plane can land and the other won't. It's the human element that we tend to forget.

Anyways, it has nothing to do with not enough people on a flight. It sounds like it was just a case of doing what makes sense under the conditions present.
 
jn_12 said:
sigh... there's nothing to ;) at. I worked for Porter for a year and a half. If they were trying to be cunning and secretive they would have been doing that from the start. It's not the way it works there. Trust me when I say that there have been many flights that should have been canceled and weren't.
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There may not have been anything to ;) at then but I think there is now....I guess the words "worked at" lessens the value of your confirmation that Thursday's flights were not combined but that it was just a weather related problem.

jn_12 said:
Am I reading it right? It sounds like you're saying the flight before the one they were on was delayed? If it was, and it was expected to go out at the same time as the next flight, they would combine flights only because it makes sense. Why have two planes going to the same place at the same time? That's quite normal whether you're a bus, plane, train, whatever. Plus, they might not have had the slot times to have two flights go out at once.
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If you are going to pick apart my posts at least read back to the start of the discussion.

Several hours before my friend's scheduled departure, they were called to say get to the airport early....the flight you were going out on has been cancelled due to weather....so in stead of leaving in 3 hours can you come to the airport and leave in 50 minutes......then they ended up leaving within minutes of their original departure time anyway......for your scenario to make sense they would have had to have known at the time of the call that the flight leaving in 50 minutes was actually going to be further delayed making the flight combination a common sense situation like you described.

Like I said earlier, we can all agree to disagree on this.....having been "combined" more than a few times in my travelling life with AC....the pattern that my friends saw on Thursday just rang very familiar.....could be a total coincidence or not....let's move on.....
 
jn_12 said:
Also, it is possible for one pilot to feel comfortable landing, and another pilot not feeling comfortable landing. Pilots all have different backgrounds.
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It's not just background. Based on experience, company policies and aviation laws will usually dictate to what minimums (worst weather) a pilot can fly. It's entirely possible for a new airline to have a crew who could not meet the minimums for a given flight profile. In which case, shifting the passengers to another flight if there is room is entirely reasonable.

And trust me, you never want any pilot operating right at his/her minimums; it's an uncomfortable ride for both the pilot and the passengers.
 
The Port Authority has now come up with a plan to build a pedestrian tunnel to the airport.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/644579

The tunnel, which could cost $20 million to $40 million, would be 8 metres wide, 4 metres high and outfitted with moving sidewalks for passengers of upstart Porter Airlines, which began flying in 2006.
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From the picture, you can see that it would involve taking an elevator at either end of the tunnel. I am not sure that this would be much of an improvement over the current setup -- and since the tunnel wouldn't allow for cars, you would still need to have the ferry as well.
 
I assume the tunnel will be widened from its currently proposed 8 metres in order to accommodate bike lanes?
 
sjc said:
The Port Authority has now come up with a plan to build a pedestrian tunnel to the airport.


From the picture, you can see that it would involve taking an elevator at either end of the tunnel. I am not sure that this would be much of an improvement over the current setup -- and since the tunnel wouldn't allow for cars, you would still need to have the ferry as well.
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I think if you got off the plane and the ferry was right there about to leave, then you would be better off getting on the ferry. If, however, you got to the ferry just as it left...you know that it is going to be 15 minutes before you the next one leaves....I doubt that the elevator-moving sidewalk-elevator system would take that long. So what it would provide is a more flexible and convenient combination of ways to get across to the other side (in both directions).
 
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