 <p>Have you verified that <code>tableViewController</code> is not nil? </p> <p>your <code>@property</code> should definitely be strong as the view controller is taking ownership of the entity. A <code>weak</code> reference will definitely nil out.</p> <p>Likewise I would also put a breakpoint in the debugger and <strong>confirm</strong> that <code>[self booking]</code> does indeed point to a valid object <em>at that point in the code</em>.</p>