This is not cool:

https://www.elliotlaketoday.com/arou...ottawa-2084765

Just making an observation here. I think the point @thenoflyzone is trying to make is that within a 1 day's drive of Calgary or Edmonton (say 10-12 hours), you can reach about 4-12 million people (if you count being able to reach Vancouver and Seattle from Calgary in a day driving).

Within a day's drive of Montreal, Ottawa or Toronto, you can reach 60-80 million people. So @thenoflyzone's comment about needing to fly to get almost anywhere is pretty accurate.

This also doesn't factor in alternates to driving or flying (i.e. train and bus), which are minimal out west.

Flairs Summer 2020 Schedule Highlights

Three New Destinations
Ottawa (YOW), St. Johns (YSJ), Charlottetown (YYG),

One Returning Seasonal Destination
Halifax (YHZ)

Six New Routes
Ottawa (YOW) - Toronto (YYZ) - 7 Weekly/1x Daily (using B737-8)
Ottawa (YOW) - Halifax (YHZ) - 3 Weekly
Ottawa (YOW) - Calgary (YYC) - 3 Weekly
Ottawa (YOW) - Edmonton (YEG) - 3 Weekly
Charlottetown (YYG) - Toronto (YYZ) - 3 Weekly
St. Johns (YSJ) - Toronto (YYZ) - 4 Weekly
--Ottawa (YOW) - Vancouver (YVR) - 5x Weekly (One-Stop via YYZ)

One Returning Seasonal Route
Halifax - Toronto (YYZ) - 6x Weekly (Up from 4 last year)

This is one of the worst starts to the year for international flights I've ever seen, probably the worst. Looking at airlineroute.net it is a bloodbath, every post is basically a cancellation or reduction of some kind. And it's spreading, not just China specific flights. The fact that AC has cancelled their only YYZ-HKG flight through March is insane, that flight is a staple of the schedule and now it's gone. So many others too, way too many to mention, but it is dark days for international travel for sure.

The airport code for St. John's is YYT. YSJ is Saint John, NB.

And a common mistake distinguishing between the two!

For anyone who's been in the Halifax Airport you have to be very careful listening to the departure announcements. You could have a couple of flights boarding simultaneously to St. John's YYT on Air Canada, WestJet or Porter.....and at an adjacent gate....a flight to Saint John YSJ!)

They usually also say Newfoundland or New Brunswick in the announcement.....but some only hear "St. John's" or "Saint John" and don't even distinguish which province they are going to!

And then there's "Sydney"......and the story of the couple from the UK a few years ago.....arriving in Halifax and wondering why their connecting flight to Sydney (Australia....or so they thought) was on a Dash-8!

The new Flair flights are actually to Saint John, New Brunswick

Here's the YSJ Airport news release:

http://www.saintjohnairport.com/news...to-saint-john/

Most boards read Saint John NB or St. John's NL in my experience.

One has to be truly dense to make this mistake.

But it has happened though, and on more than one occasion. :rolleyes:

I agree that the amount of geographical ignorance this reveals is truly astounding.

Yes....easy to read correctly. But it's the PA announcements in an noisy airport environment.....and people just hear what they want to hear anyway!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/oops-...stake-1.353972

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2172858.stm

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...australia.html

https://www.capebretonpost.com/news/...-sydney-14464/

^ It doesn't help that even their subnational jurisdictions are so close in terms of how they're abbreviated... Sydney, NS and Sydney, NSW :haha:

Saint John vs. St. John's. You're talking to someone who was born in Saint John and grew up in St. John's! :-) YHZ needs a flight to St. John's, Antigua to really make things more confusing!

Wonderful for YSJ to land Flair service.

So in response to Swoop, Flair first pull out of YHM, and now they also pull out of YXX, and downsize YEG to their 4th largest operating base, behind YYZ, YYC, and YVR..

With a connection to St. John, USVI for good measure lol

Which is completely the opposite of the traditional model for an LCC. Operate into secondary airports. They don't survive if they are going head to head with the big boys at three of the nations largest airports.
Hope they last another two weeks, my wife and daughter are using them next week.

So Swoop has generally stayed away from some of the most expensive airports in the country (YYZ, YYC, and YVR) instead electing for the lower cost alternatives such as YHM and YXX. Why is Flair continuing to offer low fares and operate out of the Pricey Three, yet Swoop can’t/won’t?

TPAC, yes. TATL is/will do just fine. YVR being the premier Chinese gateway from Canada, they are the one that will lose out the most.

I'll repeat what I said a few days ago over on the YYC page. WS must be patting themselves on the back for not launching any China service. YYC-FCO looks like a genius move compared to launching YYC-PEK/PVG or YVR-Asia.

Look at the bright side. There was too much capacity on the TPAC front - Australia included, as we saw with MEL going seasonal. This situation might help to re-balance supply/demand. Airlines wont be so quick to reinstate all those flights back. This might mean YUL loses PVG, as an example (similar to AC axing YYZ-HKG for a month). If that's the case, then so be it.

Well, the thing is if they operate out of secondary airport, WS can just use Swoop to undercut their price and force them out.

If they operate out of major airport and WS hubs, then WS cannot just move Swoop in the compete with themselves, or cut the mainline price, which they would probably lose more than just letting Flair take a small piece of the pie.


I would say YYZ will lose probably as much as YVR. If the traffic got so bad that the airlines need to cut a route, then they would most likely pick YVR over YYZ. After all, Asia-YVR-YYZ could still work, but Asia-YYZ-YVR probably not.

Because then WestJet would be competing with themselves? :???:

I could eventually see them rolling Swoop into a fare class at the back of the plane.