It is kind of a non-issue cut though, since the flight was always routed YYZ-YYC-NRT anyways, it never counted as a non-stop. Something is very odd with AC schedules and booking still, they are obviously not done changing things. You can still book the "direct" flight on the booking engine, but it's gone from the schedules. Although the YYZ-NRT "direct" flight is gone from the schedules, AC9 still shows up YYZ-YYC. Yet when you search the schedule for YYZ-NRT, the AC9 flight isn't there all of a sudden. We'll see what happens, but still it isn't really a major change since it just means the ticket isn't on one code, but the YYZ-YYC flight is still there, and the YYC-NRT flight is still there. I guess for bragging rights of '# of destinations served directly' it is a loss, but not really a cut for flights. I just noticed on flight schedules, the AC33 "direct" YYZ-SYD is gone too, but same exactly as YYZ-NRT, it is still on the booking engine. But same difference, doesn't change quantity of flights, would just be another "lost destination"

That was only since the advent of YUL-NRT. Before that, there was direct YYZ-NRT during the summer.

Same goes for YYZ-YUL-GVA, YYZ-YUL still has flight 834 but if you search YYZ-GVA it doesn't come up as a direct flight.

Yes exactly, same thing. So it isn't that the flights are cut, just the way the schedule shows it vs. the booking engine?

And the YYZ-NRT is nothing to do with YUL-NRT, before or now. Unless AC is planning to discontinue the thru-flights for all of these routes (NRT, SYD, GVA), then I think it is just the way it gets displayed on the scheds

Air Canada changed from using a very old internally developed reservation system (that IBM was maintaining for them) to an "off-the-shelf" reservation system called Amadeus. That transition happen in late fall.

All of the flights that were multi-stop such as YYZ-YYC-NRT were broken into individual flights just prior to that transaction. I am not certain if they did this to simplify things during the transition or Amadeus does not support this type of flight.

Amadeus is a very popular reservation system. In contrast WestJet runs on the Sabre platform.

Amadeus supports multi-stop runs. It's a much more sophisticated system than AC's old RESIII.

The reason they removed these multi-stop flights was to make a significant systems transition go as smoothly as possible.

Also, there is no need for that kind of route numbering nowadays. From what I understand, multi stop flights create a lot of headaches for gate agents. Something to do with upgrades and FF points treated as 2 separate flights instead of 1.

If you remove multi-stop flights, you eliminate the requirement to deal with these scenarios and keep things simple and uniform.

Major headaches, especially since 3/4 of the time the plane would change fin in YUL anyway, so if 834 was delayed out of YYZ but on time for YUL-GVA they couldn't work on YUL-GVA until push back in YYZ which was so counterproductive. All for 25-30 pax max.

For AC on the Canadian end there is no need. On the foreign end there may be some legal reasons. Most of those flights were long gone by the time did this transition. I think the last ones remaining were to South America.

I have encountered it before on United. When United use to serve Regina and Saskatoon from Chicago it was always a YXE-YQR-ORD flight. The few times I was on the flight it was heading to/from Saskatoon and were not permitted off the aircraft in YQR. I also did it once on United from Melbourne to SYD connecting onward to the US.

You weren't permitted off at YQR or SYD because that would be cabotage. (transport of passengers between two points in the same country by a vessel or an aircraft registered in another country)

Very few countries in the world allow that.

It's odd then that the actual booking engine still calls these direct flights and let's you book with one flight, instead of selecting connecting flights? Try any of the YYZ- destinations above, and they are all bookable as direct single flights, and not how the flight schedules show it? Anyone with insight on booking engines know why? Seems odd the schedules and booking are totally different

AC still has 3 Express triangle flights that I can think of, namely YOW-YQR-YXE-YOW, YUL-YUY-YVO and YUL-YVO-YUY. However, those aren't traditional thru flights, like say PD's YTZ-YOW-YHZ/YFC/YSJ or YTZ-YUL-YHZ flights.

PAL Airlines are expanding to YBG and increasing service to YYY: https://www.newswire.ca/news-release...842631619.html

Nice to see some competition at YYY & YBG to YUL.

AC appears to have further reduced service to Asia:

YVR-HKG Reduced from daily to 5x/6x weekly
YYZ-HKG Suspension extended to May 31.

YVR-ICN Reduced from daily to 6x weekly
YYZ-ICN Appears to be suspended in April

YVR-TPE Reduced to 4x-5x weekly

YYC-NRT Suspended until May 1

ah, I was going to post this along with the weekly update tonight. For the most part of April, seems like YYZ-HND and YUL-NRT will be the only surviving Asia routes east of YVR.

Interestingly, there haven't been any cut for TATL service. But with this rate, TATL cuts seems inevitable, especially for MXP and maybe FCO.

I wonder if this will affect WS's launch of FCO too...

WS said in a recent interview it has no plans to change its schedule and haven't been impacted in their bookings yet. Advance bookings for FCO seem pretty good so far. CDG resumes next week, and it too has good advance bookings.

https://calgaryherald.com/news/local...ad-of-covid-19

WS will launch FCO. That probably won’t change. What will most likely change is the frequency/length of season. Sporadic cuts are likely.

That's going to change quickly IF Canada decide to raise travel advisory. Right now "avoid non-essential travel" only apply to most affected region in Italy and Korea... If it ever extend to the entire country, we'll probably see AC pulling out of ICN, MXP, and FCO completely...

Indeed, hence why I added "yet". May is still 2 months away so a lot can change in that time frame. Rome itself currently has less confirmed cases then some North American cities like Toronto and Seattle.

The current warnings in Italy include the cities of Milan and Venice, both of which AC serves in the summer and from what I can see MXP is still on the schedule from the end of March.

Korean Air reducing service worldwide

YVR-ICN reduce to 4x weekly until Apr 25
YYZ-ICN reduce to 4x weekly until Mar 28, then suspended until Apr 25