AC to start Stockholm next summer.

https://media.aircanada.com/2023-11-...ng-Summer-2024

YUL-ARN 3x weekly B788 starting June 14
YYZ-ARN 2x weekly B788 starting June 12

...


YUL-CPH also increasing to 5x weekly.
YYZ-CPH increasing to daily from May to October.

Wasn't it already 5x weekly last summer?

Yes you're right. The route is starting earlier, in May. That must be what they are referring to when they say "additional capacity increases to Copenhagen". YYZ was probably daily as well last year, but it's probably daily for a few more months next summer.

SAS is also leaving Star Alliance at some point in the near future. AC might want to get their foot in the door on the ARN route. Seems like a good add.

Icelandair is returning to Halifax - YHZ with 3x weekly service

3x weekly on Mon, Wed, Fri
FI607 KEF-YHZ 18:35-20:30
FI606 YHZ-KEF 21:30-4:45 (+1)

After a few years break, flights to Halifax will restart, with three flights a week from May 31 until mid-October 2024.

French-speaking destinations aside, that's unusual to start with more service at YUL than YYZ.

Wow that's a big win for YHZ to get FI back. I see FI are also adding PIT.

Halifax had a few wins over the past few weeks with DL returning in 2024. And American continuing their service. Plus with Icelandair returning this is amazing news for the maritimes. But I wish that the Greater Moncton Romeo Leblanc International airport is lagging behind when it comes to flight options and costs where YQM is generally more expensive to fly out than YFC with Linux, YSJ with Flair, Halifax, Portland and Bangor. The advantage I find with Halifax is they do not have to compete with the other airports in Nova Scotia where Moncton has to compete with two marginal airports that are less than two hours away.

YHZ really is on a run, 4x a day to NYC is really impressive. Unfortunately LGA is the last airport in NA I would connect through.

If WJ had not pulled out from the east, I wonder if an ATL flight could have got going. It seems to be working for them so far elsewhere, Id take an ATL connection over anything in the NE all winter. Maybe and YOW-ATL could work too.

IIRC, Delta operated a weekly YHZ-ATL (believe it was on Saturdays).

Yes ATL-YHZ started on the 7th of June 2007 operated with a crj900

It should be called SOS at this point. :haha:

YYC September 2023 Stats

Domestic: 1,195,308 +15.4% [2019: 1,089,222]
Transborder: 342,910 +43.2% [2019: 295,843]
International: 187,925 +56.2% [2019: 145,761]
September 2023 Total: 1,726,143 +23.7% [2019: 1,530,826]

2023 YTD: 14,105,411 +33.22%

Be interesting to see if this pace holds if YYC could possibly surpass its 2019 numbers this year. Either way, its going to be pretty close.

It looks like AC has isn't operating YOW-EWR at all until Jan. 8th? Is this due to the CRJ exit mentioned a few posts back?

GDL is actually a very major city in Mexico, and Vancouver has a big Mexican population many of whom are from that region, so it makes sense. Not for Flair though lol, it's an odd addition coming from them, it would be more something for AC or AM honestly. It isn't like a Phoenix or one of Flair's other sun spots, it is much more an actual city akin to Mexico City, not a resort spot at all. We tend to think of Mexico as having one major "real" city, and then a bunch of beach cities that may be large and have their own residents, but for Canadians they are very much sun getaways. I am very glad to see this add, I know many Mexican residents here will be pleased as well (and with the lower price!). But moreso, I kind of hope AC will see this and announces their own service to GDL, maybe 3 or 4 weekly (they aren't big on 2 or less frequency for non-beach destinations). Airlines tend to get competitive when someone else gets into a big market; if no one is operating it, sometimes airlines will leave it unserved thinking they aren't losing out. But all of a sudden someone else is doing it, big airlines like AC might try and edge them out. AC just started YYZ-MTY 3-4 times a week, so they obviously have secondary non-resort destinations on their radar. Who knows, I prefer AC and don't trust Flair to keep and nurture routes like this, but glad to gave it for now.

OK I know I am going to sound like a broken record, since I mentioned this on the old thread quite a bit. I am still surprised what Air Canada is doing out east. YUL had always been very popular for Francophone routes to Europe (in France, Geneva, etc.). But AC seemed very clear that YYZ was its global hub, and that's where they were going to build up. Post-covid, or maybe even before, AC seems to be snubbing YYZ in favour of YUL, it's insane the route growth they've had at YUL, and to all over (India, Africa, Europe of course). YYZ was the undisputed king for European routes other than Francophone. Now it seems they are dividing things up almost 50/50! Barcelona, Madrid, Milan, Bogota, Delhi, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Venice are all routes I would have thought AC would keep exclusively at YYZ, and grow as demand warranted. Yet here we are. And YYZ might be busy, but it is not THAT overcrowded that AC couldn't increase capacity there if it wanted to keep the "global hub" idea. They are not Heathrow or Schipol, if AC wanted to have all those routes at YYZ and increase frequencies, the airport could handle it. AC is levelling the international field between the two in a big way, I didn't see that coming, I thought they were really thinking to make YYZ a behemoth, but that hasn't been the case. Good for YUL, it isn't easy being a smaller airport located not far from another larger airport in the same country, the larger airport tends to reap the prize routes. But somehow AC is letting YUL take a much bigger share, I wonder if someone at YYZ pissed them off lol!

I see AC still has YVR-YQB (5x weekly) and YYC-YQB (3x weekly) scheduled for next summer on Rouge. I am surprised by this, and not sure if they will update it, but I was thinking AC would keep YVR at least on mainline like they are doing in winter. It's not like it uses a hot commodity like a 787 that would be needed for long-haul international, it's a 737 in winter. I know 5x weekly Rouge is a decent capacity boost over 3x 737, but still, using Rouge seems unnatural at YVR now lol, they went from a big presence at YVR years ago to nothing now, at all. It is this random YQB flight and that's it. Even weirder is AC keeping YYC-YQB, at 3 days at that. I cannot see any rationale for them keeping this, no inbound really on either end, and after their last cut, they went down to bare bones. It's weird to just hand over all those other major routes like LAX and FRA to others, but then keep a weird Rouge flight to Quebec.

Sorry for the long post, I went for a couple months away from the forum (not because of the forum, just personal unrelated things) and so I feel like there's a lot to say :)

They still haven't start updating domestic schedule for S24 from May yet. From the last press release (or twitter post) from AC, they mentioned it will be year-round mainline. So at the very least they will need to add new flights for May and June to satisfy the "year-round" part.

But then, YYZ-YZF was announced "year-round mainline", yet they still switch to Rouge for this winter...

Mexico recently regained CAT 1 status from the FAA, enabling once again Mexican airlines to start new US routes, and they are busy doing just that.

https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/231031-amfy2324us

https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/231010-amjan24us

https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/231006-vbns24us

It will be extremely unlikely - in the short to medium term - to see a Mexican carrier starting a new route to Canada, especially from anywhere other than MEX (or NLU).

I can confirm the interest was there from a certain Mexican carrier to launch service to YUL from an unserved destination, but this was all before the FAA gave back CAT 1 status to Mexico. Different priorities now for these airlines. They were unable to add service to a major market for more than 2 years. They need to catch up with that first.

Best bet for service to places like MTY or GDL in the short/medium term is a Canadian carrier. Once YVR starts getting AC A220s based there, there is potential for routes like these.

Did you see their Q3 results. Seems the strategy is working ! ;)

Well, that is interesting. Any thoughts on when AC will start basing A220 in Vancouver.

Wikipedia claims AC has 33 on property and another 27 to be delivered over the next three years. They must be getting close to the point where YVR will start having its own A220?

You know that AM flies 4x daily to YVR during peak winters, right? And they recently increase YVR to at least 3x daily through the rest of the winter season. This was after the FAA announcement.

Typically AM will have summer seasonal increase for YVR. Would they keep the 3x daily through the entire summer, or increase to 4x, or move the additional daily to another airport such as GDL?

Normally AC will have 1 or 2 A220 flights out of YVR for the winter season, but not this or the next winter though. In the current schedule, YVR seems to be getting quite a lot of A320 for W24...

Yes. I believe they announced it a few weeks after regaining CAT 1. Which means they were already planning it way before then. They've increased service to YVR, YUL and YYZ for the last couple of peak winters I believe. I wouldn't expect anything else to Canada besides that for a little bit.

Adding an extra rotation during a few weeks in Dec/Jan isn't the same as adding a whole new route, year round, especially from a secondary Mexican market.

I am curious how Pratt and Whitney's PW1100/1500 problems are affecting Air Canada's A220s and Air Transat's A320neos.

Every time I see an article, it just seems to get worse. The geared turbofan seems like a conceptual winner, but the real-world implementation has been just woeful. Ironically, the geared portion of the engine seems to be fairly reliable; the rest of the engine has just been a headache.

For YVR, it's more than a few weeks actually.

S22: 2x daily Apr, 3x daily May-Oct
W22: 2x daily Nov, 3x daily Dec-Jan, 2x daily Feb-Mar
S23: 3x daily Apr-Oct
W23: 2x daily Nov, 3->4x daily Dec-Jan, 3x daily Feb-Mar
S24: 3x daily Apr-

So compare to last winter, YVR will get an additional flight from Dec 1 to the end of the W23 season. The question is would YVR keep that additional flight for next summer, or if AM want to fly 4x daily on a route, or split it 3/1 to a different route.

But AM is probably mostly going for connecting traffic though, and it have monopoly of those traffic out of YVR for central and South America for everyone who don't wish to connect in US or go out of the way to connect at YYZ/YUL and possibly connect again in South America. Unlike YYZ/YUL, CM and DM are not an option at YVR. So not sure if secondary Mexican destination is any good for that, since their network there is quite limited.

Speaking of CM, looks like they are increasing YYZ/YUL to daily starting March(?) I believe...