Saw this bit on the local news this week regarding Goderich Ontario's airport. A Toronto company is setting up their corporate headquarters there this fall and opening a flight school, air taxi service, and aircraft mainenance there. Plus the company is launching an airline in the next year called Royal Canadian Airlines that will be running flights from Toronto and Hamilton to Asia and the Middle East. The airline obviously won't be flying from Goderich but that's where their head office will be and he did mention being able to fly smaller aircraft from there, I'm assuming as some kind of regional connector.

https://blackburnnews.com/midwestern...ance-facility/

https://london.ctvnews.ca/airline-an...-ont-1.6065171

Actually Air Transat is Canada’s 3rd largest airline, as they have up to 60+ destinations from Domestic, US & International.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat

Currently no new route yet, but looks like they are building up frequency for most routes they currently operates. Most trunk routes are planned to run with 3x daily frequency for the next summer. This includes YYC to YYZ, YVR, YXX.

So YVR, YUL and YYC have July numbers posted. Some interesting comparisons to 2019, illustrating each airports' strengths and weaknesses, which I highlighted in red.

YVR

https://www.yvr.ca/-/media/yvr/docum...passengers.pdf

July 2022: 2,083,023 (79.7% of July 2019)
Domestic: 1,135,814 (91.9% of July 2019)
International: 424,222 (58.3% of July 2019)
US: 522,988 (80.5% of July 2019)

YTD Total: 9,726,228 (63.6% of 2019 YTD total)

YUL

https://www.admtl.com/sites/default/...et_2022_EN.pdf

July 2022: 1,882,873 (89.7% of July 2019)
Domestic: 599,368 (82.4% of July 2019)
International: 884,708 (93.4% of July 2019)
US: 398,797 (94.2% of July 2019)

YTD Total: 8,116,827 (68.9% of 2019 YTD total)

YYC

https://www.yyc.com/en-us/media/fact...tatistics.aspx

July 2022: 1,559,765 (87.6% of July 2019)
Domestic: 1,182,579 (92.1% of July 2019)
International: 118,767 (73.0% of July 2019)
US: 258,419 (77.9% of July 2019)

YTD Total: 7,614,046 (72.9% of 2019 YTD total)

==============================================


So for YVR, right off the bat, it's obvious the lack of Chinese flights is really hurting its international numbers, only 58% of July 2019 numbers, and less than half of YUL's number. Even the transborder numbers were still 20% below the 2019 numbers. On the bright side, the domestic numbers are near-pre pandemic levels. But for a true COVID recovery, YVR will need China to fully open up. And there is no indication that will happen anytime soon. The low international numbers probably explains why YVR wasn't a total shit show this summer, compared to YYZ/YUL. (It was still in the worldwide top 10 shit show list though.)

YUL has firmly regained third spot in the country, in terms of busiest airport. July's international and US numbers nearly matched July 2019 numbers, an impressive feat considering the AC reductions on transborder flights announced that month.

YYC, like YVR, is near pre-pandemic numbers on the domestic front, but still has quite a ways to go to catch up to 2019 numbers on the intl/US front. Still, on the YTD total, it is nearest to it's 2019 number, out of the 3 airports. (I had to dig up YYC's 2019 numbers in order to do the comparison, which I found on page 426 of the YYC thread.)

It's crazy Vancouver has a busier airport than Montreal lol!!

There is still an outside chance they start it next summer. AC’s priority until now has been to rebuild their hubs to pre-pandemic levels. That has more or less been achieved, especially out east, so AC might start to re-focus on their secondary stations come next summer.

An assumption (which may not be true), I always had was the front of the cabin sales on that route were predominately federal government employees.

The feds have been slow at returning to the office. I would assume they are also slow at return to travel as well.

Not only China, but the entire Asia are much much more closed off in Summer 2022 compared to Europe. From YVR, only PR restored the frequency back to pre-pandemic level by July. KE restored in August, BR mid-September, JL in October, CI next January, NH next April (winter schedule still pending). CX we will probably never going to see it back to its heyday, so does some of the Chinese airlines.

================================

Looks like there are some updates for AC winter schedule from Nov until first half of Jan 2023.

YYZ-HND service suspended (AC will maintain 4x weekly YYZ-NRT)
YVR-HKG service reduction (from daily 789 to 4x weekly 450-seat 77W)
YYZ-ICN service increase (from 4x weekly 789 to 5x weekly 789/788 mix)

Also, looks like there's some reduction in MAD, AMS, and maybe FCO? But I'm too unfamiliar with Europe winter schedule from YYZ/YUL to comment on that.

Suspension on YVR-DEL was announced by AC and reservation closed, but the route is still in the schedule... so looks like AC can still re-open it quickly if they figure out what to do with it.

For federal government employees to book in business class, the continuous air travel must exceed 9 hours. So if someone was flying YOW-LHR, that would not qualify for business class and they would have to book economy. A YOW-LHR-XXX where travel is over 9 hours, the person could book in the business class cabin.

source: National Joint Council Travel Directive

That still translates into a few passengers paying a premium to fly the route.

The feds at some point in time were AC largest customer. Not surprising given the head count.

If the volume is not there for a larger aircraft it comes down to do they send a 737max (with economy and business sold as premium economy) or do they wait for the new aircraft with the premium seats.

Back in the summer the Financial Post had an interview/Article with Flair and they did mention they are looking at Hamilton again this winter. Hamilton really needs to invest more in that terminal. The city is growing quick and people are getting sick of YYZ.

If the major airlines have job vacancies I can’t imagine who they are getting to work at Flair. If you’re a pilot why would you choose them over WS and AC?

International travel and transcons are the first things coming back with the federal gov't. A friend of mine from dept. XYZ a couple of months ago went with a few other colleagues to LHR. They flew LHR-YHZ-YOW on the return. She told me it her and like 50 others of the LHR-YHZ pax were connecting to YOW. She's also going to AKL in a few weeks. The day trips to YYZ are what's the slowest to return...some of which are permanently lost to MS Teams. As far as returning to the office, the days of Mon-Fri in the office for those with a desk job are gone save for the 10-12% that never stopped going to the office and the ~5% that voluntarily want to go back full time. Doing the exact same work from home has had zero impact on productivity and in most cases led to huge increases in productivity.

One interesting thing with the public service is now that lots of NCR jobs have been filled across Canada (and vice versa to a lesser extent), reverse public service travel is happening more with people in the regions coming to Ottawa every few months for their NCR-based jobs.

* Growing Airline with quicker seniority path
* Available pilot bases more convenient than other major airlines
* Could be pay/incentives/benefits
* Simply personal preference

I think for some knowing what airplane you will be flying and potentially sleeping in your own bed more frequently could be a selling feature.

Flair is a very competitive with wages and benefits. The big catch that gets everyone is the work environment and the opportunities for growth. The pilots on the AvCanada forum have this weird romantic relationship with Flair that it makes WS/AC pilots jealous.

If Flair is offering competitive wages and benefits it is hard to imagine how they are able to offer bottom feeder fares. Something fishy going on there.

A company can pay well and provide cheap services...

You must not understand the buckets of money they are getting from axillary fees and incentives from a variety of sectors...

Uh, sure.

The problem is we have no idea if they're making buckets of money or how much they're getting in incentives. I guess none of us here can accurately gauge how well they're doing.

Wrong thread. Delete.