^ Agreed.

However, OSL, BER, OPO, MRS and IST make sense as the next logical destinations. Figuring out the next 4-5 is the trick. Plenty of opportunities, as you say. Simply looking at where TS flies with the A321s is already a good indication of where they will probably go. Plus more, obviously.

Bordeaux, Nantes, Basel, Malaga, Naples, Palermo (or Catania), Prague, Budapest, Bucharest, Zagreb, Ajaccio (Corsica), etc.

Marrakesh in North Africa as well.

Once the bulk of A321XLRs will be in house, I'm confident the majority of these will get service.

Now that there is a WestJet Q400 route between Regina and MSP any word on how well it is working out.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saska...olis-1.7034400

Other than the Q400 between Vancouver and Seattle/Portland this must be one of the few routes from Canada to the US on a Q400 or smaller. Does WestJet Encore even have any other service to the US.

That would explain why YEG-NYC and YWG-NYC aren’t there, but had bigger numbers than that in the older StatsCan numbers I’ve seen. I would expect NYC traffic to be more of a split between LGA, EWR and JFK. The LAX/SNA/BUR/ONT and SFO/OAK/SJC split definitely happens, but LAX and SFO are more firmly the leaders.

I have no idea how to read PD’s interline agreements. It doesn’t appear to be much of even reciprocal frequent flier benefits yet, never mind coordinated networks, scheduling and marketing. Time will tell.

Encore also flies YYC-PDX and YEG-SEA.

Westjet released a couple more puff pieces on their new routes, this time for YYT and YHZ:

The WestJet Group's growth strategy comes to life in Halifax this summer amidst return of transatlantic air connectivity

WestJet Group CEO Alexis von Hoensbroech outlines strategic plan in St. John's

These are very much PR events, drumming up publicity and goodwill, like they did in Edmonton that I mentioned a couple pages back. It is nice to see WS give some positive PR for destinations like these, and the re-addition of trans Atlantic is super important. But overall the service is not great to either YYT or YHZ (YHZ is certainly better overall, but when WS chopped their intra-eastern schedule and retrenched in Calgary, it made a big dent in both airports. YHZ only has one transborder destination (ORL once a week all year), and their only eastern destination is YYZ (and only 3x daily). Their service to the West (YEG, YYC, YWG, and YVR) is much larger than eastern ops, that was never the case before. And the sub-daily Europe destinations is an obvious strength, and likely drawing in connecting pax from Western Canada. But still without a huge inbound feed, they can only sustain lower weekly frequency (and of course they can use 737s, that was the key to making them work).

There’s still quite a few turboprop transborder routes, including everything PD does out of YTZ, everything transborder flown on floats (unless there’s still some piston engine services), PD to EWR & BOS out of YOW and the same destinations on AC out of YHZ, WS on YYC-PDX and I imagine seasonal YYC-SEA Dash 8 service will return this winter to the route.

Forgot about all the float plane sand PD. Ok, not as rare an species of aircraft as I would have thought.

Looks to be mostly Canadian airlines. In Victoria International, Kenmore has their smaller aircraft to Friday Harour and Seattle. I can't think of any other US airlines doing the reverse.

In this weeks update, WS removed the following routes for W24/25

YEG-MBJ
YOW-CUN
YOW-MCO
YOW-MBJ
YXX-SJD

So maybe YOW is getting Swoope-- I mean Sunwinged?

The Hamilton and Ottawa situations are vastly different.

With Hamilton, they lost the vast majority of their passenger service when Swoop left, having only Calgary service remaining until recently. With Ottawa, losing WS Montego Bay, Cancun and Orlando flights are only a drop in the bucket in terms of overall service (let alone WS service), not to mention other airlines already servicing these destinations.

KW will undergo a similar fate as Hamilton when Flair ultimately goes under.

https://www.waterlooairport.ca/Modul...1-957c43938308
Flair Airlines inaugural flight to St. John’s, Newfoundland takes off from the Region of Waterloo International Airport. May 06, 2024
https://twitter.com/FlyYKF/status/1787560081803919514
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GM6tr1RX...jpg&name=small https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GM6tr1TW...jpg&name=small

Seems to be that way for the two MBJ and the YOW-CUN route as all of those are still bookable on WG’s website under WG flight numbers. WS actually for winter 2023-24 extended the seasonal YOW-CUN route into May for the first time ever, so I can’t imagine it would get cut outright but probably cutting capacity by about half with only the WG flights remaining.

With YOW-MCO, either that’s transferring the route to WG or the market is being ceded to PD despite WS pulling loads in the mid- to upper-80s this winter. Seems ripe for PD to go double daily next winter with F8 also out of the way.

Need to keep our eyes peeled as to what scheduled international route authorities PD applies to in the coming weeks. Interesting how WS are keeping YOW-RSW even though Deluce has publicly stated YOW-west coast Florida is coming this winter - presumably to both TPA & RSW but perhaps it’ll be just the former.

I know that there's a large Newfoundland community in Waterloo Region, but YKF-YYT seems an odd choice to me.

Makes more sense than YKF-YDF that they launched last summer. It evidently worked as it's back for a second summer.

YQM's 2023 pax count: 600,121

https://cyqm.ca/wp-content/uploads/2..._FINALxx-1.pdf

Jan/Feb 2024 combined: 81,300 pax: https://cyqm.ca/wp-content/uploads/2...March-2024.pdf

RCAF's 100 anniversary features a special livery for the CF-18 demo team:

https://www.wingsmagazine.com/rcaf-c...001D3490978J5J

https://www.wingsmagazine.com/wp-con...6-1024x682.jpg

3rd summer now, they originally launched it in 2022!
YKF-YEG is also back after a hiatus last summer.

I find it surprising they are running YKF-YXX/YKF-YVR with nearly identical flight times. I get the logistics of doing a west-east redeye, but it seems like alot of capacity, especially when the towns are an hour apart.

They'll draw from whole GTA being dirt cheap compared to other options.

Especially the GTHA, with particular emphasis on the Hamilton part given YHM's somehow got eastern service on WS, but only YYC to the west this summer...talk about a head scratcher. :shrug:

Snapshot of Q1 2024 stats for Canada's busiest airport.

YYZ - 10,900,000 +8.7%
YVR - 5,994,036 +9.1%
YUL - 5,028,321 +11.3%
YYC - 4,065,701 +6.75%
YEG - 1,693,692 +1.0%
YOW - 1,084,416 +14.0%
YWG - 965,617 +6.2%