Air Travel - Always a Good Story

The best part about flying a lot is that you end up with a lot of stories about the random crap you've been through.

Today was no exception.

So the plan today was flying on Air Canada from Edmonton (YEG) to Baltimore (BWI) via Toronto Pearson (YYZ). I was to depart Edmonton at 7:00 am.

I wake up at the ungodly hour of 4:30 am to make sure I had enough time. After a shower, I pull out my phone for a quick email check. There's an email from Air Canada saying my flight has been delayed from 7:00 am to 8:20 pm arriving in Toronto at 8:00 am tomorrow.

(Aside: At this point in time (I now realize) I should have been suspicious because there was no notice informing me of what YYZ - BWI flight I had been rebooked on.)

So my heart essentially stops working as I dig around for the toll free number for Air Canada reservations. After being on hold briefly, I get an agent (miraculously, an anglophone). I tell him what's going on. He looks at his system and says "Hmmm that's weird. Let me put you on hold and I'll have a look into it."

Meanwhile, I check both Kayak (http://www.kayak.com) and FlightStats (http://www.flightstats.com). Both show the flight on time at 7:00 am. Odd. So I head over to Air Canada's website and my brain promptly explodes. They show the flight as on time but list the departure time the same as the email I received. Also odd was that they showed the flight being over 14 hours long. Normally, it's 4.

Finally the Air Canada agent returns and says he's waiting to hear back from someone who's calling YEG to check with them as they'll have the latest information. On hold again.

An agonizing 16 hours (actually, 3 minutes) later the Air Canada agent comes back and tells me YEG says the flight is on time.

Naturally all of this has taken some time. So now I'm running late. I rush out to my car to get to the airport.

I finally arrive at the terminal and discover that my flight (AC106) is not shown on the departure displays. I check in. No problems.

So I'm just about to start boarding (on-time) and I can't help but wonder what the hell happened to Air Canada's computers this morning.

More to come if the drama returns..