Diagram of Halifax airport drawn for Wikipedia:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...rt_diagram.jpg

(Full size)

Not certain if it has changed, but for a long time WestJet flight crew were all based out of Calgary. I think now they may have some based out of Toronto.

In comparison Air Canada has crew based out Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, (perhaps a few other cities).

I fly within BC usually with AC and when they do the announcements the flight attendants at least one of them will do the announcements in both english and french. When I have flown westjet on the same route they do them in english and then just push button for the same thing in French.

........

Air Canada, WestJet raising checked baggage fees

By Staff The Canadian Press

MONTREAL – Many Canadians will be forced to spend a little more to travel after Air Canada and WestJet Airlines Ltd. said they are increasing fees for passengers to check their bags.

The country’s two largest airlines are raising the fee for the first checked bag to $30 from $25, and for the second bag to $50 from $30.

READ MORE: WestJet cutting flights in a bid to reverse first loss in 13 years

The moves were made swiftly after major U.S. airline JetBlue Airways Corp. hiked its fees for checked bags and to change a ticket.

“This is the first change since 2014 and will help offset overall increasing costs and keep overall ticket prices competitive,” Air Canada spokeswoman Isabelle Arthur wrote in an email.

The new baggage fees apply on flights across Canada, to and from the United States, the Caribbean and Mexico, departing on or after Oct. 5.

...

https://globalnews.ca/news/4412875/a...-baggage-fees/

The demand is there for those morning flights because the airlines dictate it. After the 7:10 ( maybe 7:30 ) flight to YYZ there isnt another one until 1 pm. Ive long wished for mid morning departure to YYZ. I rarely need to be where im going at the crack of dawn so it means i have to kill 3-5 hrs in the airport or somewhere close to my hotel. Such is reality in Moncton.

Are those flights operated by Q400s?

WestJet’s Crew bases are YVR, YYC and YYZ.

AC also has YWG.

AC has a small A320 crew base at YWG. If it wasnt for the ACPPA, they would get rid of that base asap and just have 3, just like WS.

Doesn't AC have 4? YVR, YYC, YYZ and YUL?

Toronto's first flights are at 620 AM (it's regulated). And those are flights to Calgary, YVR, YEG and Montreal.

Early morning Moncton flights to Toronto mean you can make tons of connections in Toronto to the mid west and other parts of Canada very easily.

No pilot base in YYC. Only flight attendants.

This has nothing to do with Toronto being self-important though. It's because it's the arrangement that makes the most logistical sense for the airlines. If enough people complain though maybe the airlines would compromise and move some of the Moncton -> Toronto flights to later in the day, although then other people would complain because it would be harder for them to make connections.

There's probably an argument to be made that Toronto became an important city because, all things considered, it's a logical place to centralize things including transportation networks, not the other way around.

Both options are already available. There's a disproportionate number of early-morning flights but if you want you can fly direct on AC from Moncton to Toronto tomorrow at 15:50 or 20:30 too, or you have a bunch of other options if you want to do other connections. This is in a city with 150,000 people or so.

If this were true then it would be an amazing coincidence that Canada's provinces match our geography so perfectly that most of them have one big city with around half of the provincial population.

I think Canada's urban structure is mostly driven by the political organization of the country. Ontario has its big city, Toronto, and Ontario happens to be the biggest province so Toronto's the Canadian city and it tends to do well in winner-take-all areas that are not regulated provincially and not open to foreign competition. Some examples are financial services, telecommunications, and transportation. Toronto dominates these. Healthcare is an example of an industry regulated at the provincial level and software companies like Google are part of an industry with low regulation and high globalization. Toronto doesn't dominate these.

I guess my point is that it makes more sense to route air travel through Toronto than say, Winnipeg (which is closer to the geographic centre), not JUST because Toronto is larger but also because it's close to a lot of other large cities and because Canada's "centre" based on population distribution skews east (and south) of the "centre" based on geography alone.

What makes you think they would "get rid of that base ASAP"? Any personal inside info you care to share on this one to make it more legit?

YHU has offcially opened its new runway this morning with capacity for jets.
http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/20...principale.php

:previous:

Certainly sounds like St. Hubert is destined to be the Hamilton or Abbotsford of the greater Montreal area........

Well how about that, always thought it was a pilot base too given the amount of flights.

Except it's nearly next to DT... There's a study for a terminal being built.

^ Makes me wonder if YMX could have become an alternate airport for ULCCs if the terminal had lasted a few more years!

It would have had the advantage of not being too far from Ottawa too,