Saskatoon and Regina Air Service

[Stormer]

I just heard on CTV that Delta's passenger loads were up 45% year over year. They even changed to a bigger plane. We are getting so screwed. C'mon WestJet...

[Stormer]

apparently WestJet flies to MSP from several smaller airports in Canada:

Find flights to Minneapolis St. Paul:

• From Charlottetown
• From Deer Lake
• From Halifax
• From Moncton
• From Montreal
• From Ottawa
• From Quebec City
• From St. John’s
• From Sydney
• From Thunder Bay
• From Toronto

[scotty c]

Originally Posted by Stormer

apparently WestJet flies to MSP from several smaller airports in Canada:

Find flights to Minneapolis St. Paul:

• From Charlottetown
• From Deer Lake
• From Halifax
• From Moncton
• From Montreal
• From Ottawa
• From Quebec City
• From St. John’s
• From Sydney
• From Thunder Bay
• From Toronto

All of those listings have you going from the originating city to Toronto and then connecting on a codeshare flight operated by Delta to Minneapolis. WestJet itself doesn't fly direct to MSP at all.

[Robag]

Originally Posted by casper

Usually when there is a change in flights the airline will re-book you (at no cost) onto pretty much any other flight that is available between the two destinations.

Air Canada is a legacy carrier that interlines with all the other legacy airlines. You can get a single ticket that has Air Canada transferring to United or Delta or American as an example. They do the same with most of the airlines in the rest of the world. They try to use their own flights or their partner United but in a pinch they will move people onto any of the other legacy airlines as needed.

The problem is WestJet is not a legacy carrier, they started life as a stand-alone discount carrier, only in the last few years have they started to interline and codeshare. Today for the US they only interline with Delta and American and a few select airlines in Europe and Asia. Every few months they another one or two airlines.

Air Canada and WestJet don't interline. That means if a flight is cancelled in Calgary to say Saskatoon the agent that is rerouting people does not see and can't rebook onto the other airline. All they can do is offer a refund and you go over to the other airline and try to buy a new ticket.

I can't agree with you on this. United would not book us on any other carrier last year except Air Canada, as they are Star Alliance partners. United said, nope, we are not partners with them, so we will not book you on those flights.

My biggest issue is I purchased my tickets through a third party. It would be much easier to deal directly with Delta, but I have to deal with Flightnetwork, as that is who I purchased my tickets with. Makes for some frustrating conversations as I can not plead my case for the flights I want directly with Delta. Flights I want come up on Flightnetwork, but are not coming up on Delta, and Delta won't budge to the Flightnetwork guys. Maybe they won't budge with me either, but if I chat with them, maybe they would listen to my case. Not sure.

[Stormer]

Originally Posted by scotty c

All of those listings have you going from the originating city to Toronto and then connecting on a codeshare flight operated by Delta to Minneapolis. WestJet itself doesn't fly direct to MSP at all.

I was wondering whether that was the case, but why don't they list Regina, Calgary, etc.

[SkydivePilot]

Originally Posted by Stormer

I just heard on CTV that Delta's passenger loads were up 45% year over year. They even changed to a bigger plane. We are getting so screwed. C'mon WestJet...

Yup. They switched from a CRJ 200 to a CRJ 705. It has to be a conspiracy.

[Pinus]

Originally Posted by SkydivePilot

Yup. They switched from a CRJ 200 to a CRJ 705. It has to be a conspiracy.

I'm intrigued by your use of the term "conspiracy" here. Since you claim to work in the airline industry, can you please elaborate on why you see this as a conspiracy against Saskatchewan, and what possible reasons they could have for this?

[casper]

Originally Posted by Robag

I can't agree with you on this. United would not book us on any other carrier last year except Air Canada, as they are Star Alliance partners. United said, nope, we are not partners with them, so we will not book you on those flights.

My biggest issue is I purchased my tickets through a third party. It would be much easier to deal directly with Delta, but I have to deal with Flightnetwork, as that is who I purchased my tickets with. Makes for some frustrating conversations as I can not plead my case for the flights I want directly with Delta. Flights I want come up on Flightnetwork, but are not coming up on Delta, and Delta won't budge to the Flightnetwork guys. Maybe they won't budge with me either, but if I chat with them, maybe they would listen to my case. Not sure.

Here is the rules Air Canada has:
- http://www.aircanada.com/en/drs/documents/irop.pdf

The table at the top of the second page defines the priority Air Canada is suppose to use in finding a suitable routing.

I have been on United in Saskatoon where the outbound flight is going to cause a missed connection and United has moved me over onto Delta.

The problem with all of these things is it is up to the agent your working with to know the rules and also know how to do the change. If it is a head of time over the phone and you don't like the answer phoning back in and getting a different agent can produce different results. One more than one case I have phoned the airline and said "look this all caused by a cancelled flight, can the airline take control of the reservation and do this" and they have.

For IROP at the airport if they move you over to another airline they usually have to print paper coupons that you hand over to the other airline at check in or the gate. On more than one case the agent does not know how to do it and needs to call someone over to help.

[scotty c]

Originally Posted by Stormer

I was wondering whether that was the case, but why don't they list Regina, Calgary, etc.

I'm guessing because Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Calgary all would have direct Delta flights to Minneapolis of their own. No one would take a WestJet flight connecting through Toronto when you can fly direct with a codeshare partner.

[Robag]

Originally Posted by casper

Here is the rules Air Canada has:
- http://www.aircanada.com/en/drs/documents/irop.pdf

The table at the top of the second page defines the priority Air Canada is suppose to use in finding a suitable routing.

I have been on United in Saskatoon where the outbound flight is going to cause a missed connection and United has moved me over onto Delta.

The problem with all of these things is it is up to the agent your working with to know the rules and also know how to do the change. If it is a head of time over the phone and you don't like the answer phoning back in and getting a different agent can produce different results. One more than one case I have phoned the airline and said "look this all caused by a cancelled flight, can the airline take control of the reservation and do this" and they have.

For IROP at the airport if they move you over to another airline they usually have to print paper coupons that you hand over to the other airline at check in or the gate. On more than one case the agent does not know how to do it and needs to call someone over to help.

Whatever, I know what happened with United last year and I talked to 3 different agents, one of them being a supervisor. Until it works for me, I won't agree.

[Robag]

Originally Posted by SkydivePilot

Yup. They switched from a CRJ 200 to a CRJ 705. It has to be a conspiracy.

I think you mean CRJ 900. Only AC Express flies 705, and not for much longer as they are converting all of their CRJ 705 to 900 configuration, plus they have just ordered 5 brand new CRJ 900's.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Robag

Whatever, I know what happened with United last year and I talked to 3 different agents, one of them being a supervisor. Until it works for me, I won't agree.

FWIW United has rebooked me on Delta when their aircraft had mechanical problems one extremely cold winter morning a couple of years ago.

[RepomanYWG]

Originally Posted by esquire

FWIW United has rebooked me on Delta when their aircraft had mechanical problems one extremely cold winter morning a couple of years ago.

Yeah that one really cold winter we had a few years ago Expressjet would not fly their E135/E145 planes out of YWG due to the cold. United has mainly used Skywest CRJs in the winter since that debacle.

[Stormer]

Originally Posted by RepomanYWG

Yeah that one really cold winter we had a few years ago Expressjet would not fly their E135/E145 planes out of YWG due to the cold. United has mainly used Skywest CRJs in the winter since that debacle.

I have had at least 2 cold weather debacles on CRJ 's as well. Pilot told me that the older models can't fly below -35. Also had a nose gear freeze deployed on me on takeoff in a CRJ and had to return to YQR.

[Treesplease]

Originally Posted by Stormer

I have had at least 2 cold weather debacles on CRJ 's as well. Pilot told me that the older models can't fly below -35. Also had a nose gear freeze deployed on me on takeoff in a CRJ and had to return to YQR.

Showing my ignorance here, but isn't it usually below -35 in the altitudes up where jets operate? If its just the landing gear they worry about operating at -35, I'm not sure I would be comfortable with a plane flying at -50 at 20,000 feet and counting on stuff thawing out in the minute or two iit takes to get down to warm air below.

A long way of saying, shouldn't a plane be able to function at just about any temp? even Hawaiian airlines? The idea of a Canadian made plane that can't handle cold temps seems almost incomprehensible.

[SkydivePilot]

Originally Posted by Pinus

I'm intrigued by your use of the term "conspiracy" here. Since you claim to work in the airline industry, can you please elaborate on why you see this as a conspiracy against Saskatchewan, and what possible reasons they could have for this?

I guess my brand of humour falls short. Lol!

[SkydivePilot]

Originally Posted by Robag

I think you mean CRJ 900. Only AC Express flies 705, and not for much longer as they are converting all of their CRJ 705 to 900 configuration, plus they have just ordered 5 brand new CRJ 900's.

That's right, I meant the '900-series. Thank you.

[SkydivePilot]

Originally Posted by Treesplease

Showing my ignorance here, but isn't it usually below -35 in the altitudes up where jets operate? If its just the landing gear they worry about operating at -35, I'm not sure I would be comfortable with a plane flying at -50 at 20,000 feet and counting on stuff thawing out in the minute or two iit takes to get down to warm air below.

A long way of saying, shouldn't a plane be able to function at just about any temp? even Hawaiian airlines? The idea of a Canadian made plane that can't handle cold temps seems almost incomprehensible.

That's right. The ICAO temperature at Tropopause averages -56.5C.

[kattiff]

Originally Posted by Robag

I can't agree with you on this. United would not book us on any other carrier last year except Air Canada, as they are Star Alliance partners. United said, nope, we are not partners with them, so we will not book you on those flights.

My biggest issue is I purchased my tickets through a third party. It would be much easier to deal directly with Delta, but I have to deal with Flightnetwork, as that is who I purchased my tickets with. Makes for some frustrating conversations as I can not plead my case for the flights I want directly with Delta. Flights I want come up on Flightnetwork, but are not coming up on Delta, and Delta won't budge to the Flightnetwork guys. Maybe they won't budge with me either, but if I chat with them, maybe they would listen to my case. Not sure.

That's quite odd, my friend works for Delta in Winnipeg (YWG is super sad about Regina losing the service btw) but at YWG Air Canada, WestJet, United and Delta are the only major airlines and they rebook passengers on each other's flights all the time. AC puts a lot of their oversold flights on WestJet. It is possible.

And your case with Flightnetwork, always the trouble with the third parity groups. It's called a "bulks tkt" and Delta could and usually would help you but it's more of a pain for the airline to do all of Flightnetworks worK, call Delta ask them to help. If they see it's because of the service ending I'm sure they would do something to accommodate you.

[kattiff]

Originally Posted by kattiff

That's quite odd, my friend works for Delta in Winnipeg (YWG is super sad about Regina losing the service btw) but at YWG Air Canada, WestJet, United and Delta are the only major airlines and they rebook passengers on each other's flights all the time. AC puts a lot of their oversold flights on WestJet. It is possible.

And your case with Flightnetwork, always the trouble with the third parity groups. It's called a "bulks tkt" and Delta could and usually would help you but it's more of a pain for the airline to do all of Flightnetworks worK, call Delta ask them to help. If they see it's because of the service ending I'm sure they would do something to accommodate you.

Looks like Delta is pulling out of Halifax too...