I looked back at the winter SOS report and WS wasn’t listed which leads me to believe they haven’t returned the slots yet. They could in theory transfer over LGW bookings but I too have my doubts on them being used. If they use them at all, I can only actually see YYC being flown.

I guess we shall see.

Seems like they’re holding onto the slots in hopes that travel demand picks up in time for summer, but the way things are looking like right now, that is highly unlikely to happen.

S21 begins next week and look at the number of slots AC is operating to/from LHR next week. 26 ( that’s 13x weekly flights), compared to 116 the same week last year. (WS was granted 28 weekly slots to/from LHR as of the week of May 3, by comparison).

There is no demand.

Are they not using some of these for cargo. LHR has to be one of the main interline points for air cargo in the world.

Yes. 6x weekly is cargo only. Further reinforcing my point that there is no passenger demand to LHR.

1x weekly from YUL
2x weekly from YVR
3x weekly from YYZ

https://www.aircanada.com/cargo/en/s...outes-network/

I was thinking of WestJet. I though they started flying the 787 in cargo only service recently.

Yes, WS has been flying their 787s a few times a week to LGW on cargo only runs.

Passenger freighters aren't very efficient, and using them at higher cost airports such as LHR might not make that much sense.

At least AC has several widebodies with seats removed, to increase cargo revenue per flight. WS doesn't even have that.

It still doesn't beat the economics of dedicated freighters. Which is why AC will convert their old 767s into dedicated freighters.

AC was very proactive during the pandemic, making strategic moves to capitalize on the new challenges the industry is facing. We have seen nothing similar from WS.

Even the planes with seats still installed are running cargo for AC. Of the 12 777-300's AC is operating, all are usually moving freight. I was surprised to see they send one with seats installed to LHR and back.

Appears to be the same with the 787's: of the 20 odd planes active, most are running cargo at one point or another between passenger operations.

Honestly it makes sense. Cargo rates are higher than normal. You don't even need to make a profit for it to make sense. You just need to lose less money that what you would be paying having the aircraft sitting on the ground doing nothing and still having bank payments to make.

Such an oddball decision. Air traffic is still so shaky, demand isn't there fully yet. And some of these are routes that would be iffy even in normal times, don't see much longevity in any of them. Moreso them just trying to keep flying something since international is so bleak, so why not add some totally random middle-city pairings lol! AC is doing the same thing with their new proposed cities list. They really want demand back on the international and transborder routes, and are just adding domestic pairings that weren't strong enough to warrant a route before, and cerainly won't now.

You have to look at frequency. These are all one or two times per week flights.

Conventional wisdom of having a "Hub" is out the window.

Take WestJet YXE-YYJ. This is not a new flight. There use to be a YXE-YYC-YYJ daily flight a few years ago. I use to fly between Saskatoon and Victoria quite regularly. The aircraft would land in Calgary, all the Calgary bound passengers would get off and 3 or 4 of us continuing on would stay on the aircraft. I guess now all the passengers can find seats 2 meters a part and social distance all the way.

Politics.

WS is being forced to readd domestic regional flying in order to get a bailout from the government.

Same reason why AC, in the middle of a pandemic, announces net zero emissions by 2050.

Both very odd announcements, serving one purpose. Pleasing the Liberals and meeting their conditions for a bailout.

All of these routes could have been added during 'normal' times, but with limited resources the airline's better opportunity costs (either real or perceived - YYZ-LGA 8x daily on WS for example) could be found elsewhere. In other words, they could have been flown profitably, but with more demand for routes than aircraft available, they were overlooked in favour of other things that were deemed as being more profitable.

Take YOW-YYJ. It's undoubtedly been the biggest unserved O&D domestic route in the country, especially after AC added YUL-YYJ on Rouge (and now that AC have announced YUL-YLW, YOW-YLW is now probably the biggest unserved O&D domestic route). It'll succeed. It could easily be flown 3-4x weekly or perhaps even as much as daily on a summer seasonal basis in 'normal' times. The only reason why it's never been flown up until now is that it overflies YVR. Now that WS have a bunch of aircraft lying around not doing international flying, there's the opportunity to try out these domestic routes.

I think that there's a possibility of Flair announcing flights to the Province of Quebec because now their website is all available in French and it doesn't look like an automatic translation. It's quite a recent change. YVR-YQB or YYC-YQB would be great. But perhaps they might just announce YYZ-YUL or no further expansion. We'll see

Yeah, that definitely looks to be the case. However, most of these routes definitely seem like they won't last, save for maybe a couple. To be fair these are pretty low frequency flights that were probably added to try to temporarily stimulate more domestic travel over the summer for people wanting a small and safe vacation/trip within Canada and who want to avoid connections.

Possibly, but they most certainly need a bilingual website to service Ottawa-Gatineau and their planned May 1st YOW launch. There's close to 1/2 million francophones in the NCR...and 1/4 of those don't live in Quebec.

Having said that, YUL and YQB are too big to ignore, so they'll be there eventually...or maybe they'll go to YHU!

I disagree about not lasting. YQQ-YYZ was a priority for the YQQ Airport Authority. YCD landed seasonal Rouge YCD-YYZ pre-pandemic. A lot of the intra-west stuff getting added can be flown on Encore...or even Link for YXS-YXX. YMM-YYZ is not a new route, but a re-launch of an old route. YWG-YYJ has been flown before...early Flair route I believe.

Now that Flair have their act together (now being run by one of the Wizz Air founders), they're definitely going to shake things up domestically.

This reminds me of the press release a few years back of YHU and Canada Jetlines. They were supposed to built a passenger terminal and Jetlines could have started service as early as 2020. lol. So much for that.

https://www.newswire.ca/news-release...700014942.html

Plan to build a passenger terminal --> fail
Plan to become a designated airport (in order to get CATSA to provide security screening at lower cost)--> fail
Plan to obtain CBSA services in order to offer transborder flights --->fail

YHU isn't even the main bizjet GA airport for Montreal. YUL still is. They should probably go after that market segment before pursuing commercial airlines.

Flair launches flights to Montreal (YUL).

Flights start in July

Abbotsford 3x weekly ($59 one way), Starts August 3rd
Halifax 4x weekly ($49 one way), Starts July 2nd
Toronto 1x daily ($49 one way), Starts July 1st
Vancouver 6x weekly ($59 one way), Starts July 1



I'm guessing some of the MAX deliveries got moved forward and they will base them out of YUL

Great news and hilarious that this comes within hours of discussion of “Flair entering Quebec”.

Yes, it turns out that my flair for predicting Flair coming to Québec was quite good :haha: