Looks like AC is moving one of the daily YYC-YOW flight to YEG. Now they will be 1x daily 223 each for S23.

AC 353/354 YOW-YYC
AC 357/358 YOW-YEG

YYC trim down continues....

Yep & Air Canada is operating Edmonton YEG to Ottawa YOW similarly as it was in S22 & with 1x daily service from May 1 - October 28 2023 operated by the Airbus A220-300 plane ✈️.

Good news Flair Airlines gets some competition on YEG- YOW route by AC this Spring & Summer again✅!!

FLAIR AIRLINES EXPANDS WINNIPEG NETWORK IN JUNE 2023

Canadian ultra-low-cost carrier Flair Airlines this week announced network expansion at Winnipeg, where the airlines add 3 new domestic routes, with 737 MAX 8 aircraft.

Winnipeg – Kelowna eff 10JUN23 2 weekly
F8923 YWG1820 – 1905YLW 7M8 26
F8924 YLW1300 – 1735YWG 7M8 26

Winnipeg – London ON eff 11JUN23 2 weekly
F8904 YWG1530 – 1850YXU 7M8 37
F8905 YXU1935 – 2115YWG 7M8 37

Winnipeg – Victoria eff 09JUN23 2 weekly
F8919 YWG1010 – 1120YYJ 7M8 15
F8918 YYJ1720 – 2220YWG 7M8 15

https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/230203-f8ywg

the AC YOW flight may have good numbers. The amount of guys commuting from the east coast to work out here that bitch about how bad it is to fly through Toronto keeps growing.

My flight to BC Next week is usually 50% from the east and having better connections to the east is a must.

Yep Air Canada trimming/cutting flights at Calgary YYC .

Is good news for WestJet,Lynx, Porter & Flair as all 3 of them are adding new flights/frequencies at YYC.

I would agree with placing YYZ as the only tier 1 airport, because they are in a world of their own, both in terms of passengers carried, and commercial aircraft movements. I think for us non-CBSA folk, passenger numbers are the most accurate measure to determine the tiers.

Tier 1 (30 million + passengers handled)
Tier 2 (10 to 30M)
Tier 3 (3 to 10M)
Tier 4 (1 to 3M)
Tier 5 (less than 1M)

YYZ as the only tier 1

Tier 2 would be YUL, YYC, YVR

Tier 3 would be YEG, YHZ, YWG and YOW.

Tier 4 would be YTZ, YQB, YYT, YXX, YYJ, YQR, YXE, YLW (and any other airport I forgot that had more than 1M passengers back in 2019, and surely will again).

The rest would all be tier 5.

These tiers make sense even on a CBSA, or at the very least, CATSA level I think.

With the addition of Flair Airlines 3x weekly London YXU - Calgary YYC from June 1-October 26 in S23.

So far for 2023,YYC has 5 different airlines adding new flight routes to 10 destinations.

WestJet (3)
Lynx Air (3)
Flair (2)
Porter Airlines (1)
Canadian North (1)

Currently 10 total additional new routes announced on 5 different airlines so far.

While Air Canada at YYC has been stagnant/cutting some routes at YYC.

Seems like AC has re-acquired a B77W it had stored in 03/2020 and returned to the lessor in 11/2021. The aircraft is back in TC's aircraft registry as of today.

https://www.airfleets.net/ficheapp/plane-b777-35256.htm

https://wwwapps.tc.gc.ca/Saf-Sec-Sur...psc=1&xso=desc

This brings the total AC B77W fleet to 19. This wasn't mentioned in the Q3 management discussion a few months ago, so it must have been a fairly recent decision.

Might have something to do with China opening up again.....

If the lessor has not found a new home for it in 16 months, maybe they decided to give Air Canada a lower price would be a good idea. For Air Canada I suspect China opening up and the fact they avoided the delay and cost of configuring a new aircraft probably helped.

Just noticed AC changed YUL-GVA from a 333 to a 400 seater 77W for the summer.

Calgary airport scores 81 per cent recovery in 2022

http://https://calgary.citynews.ca/2023/02/01/calgary-airport-recovery-2022-yyc/

Why is this … AC conceding YYC to WJ ?

This week's AC update

YUL-GVA from 333 to 77W
YYZ-BCN from 333 to 77W
YYZ-MKE removed

Good news, considering they aren't operating YUL-LYS this summer, which is right next door.

I also see 2x 321 coming. For Rouge? There’s also an AT7 there for 5T. That’s for conversion into a combi to replace their last 732. The end of an era is almost here.

YLW was well over the 2 million mark in 2019. YYJ in 2018 had broken it but like a lot of airports in 2019 saw a slight decline due to capacity issues with the MAX grounding and fell back slightly below that.

This article sums it up well...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...-yyc-1.6721375

Theres a ton of factors that play into it, one of the main consensus' that my flight college has come to is that they are struggling to keep the hiring of crews and staff up with their turn overs. A lot of pilots in Canada aren't happy with wages and operations at the moment and it seems like a lot of change in coming to the way airlines have to recruit.

It isn't cheap to go through flight training, it will cost north of 100k most times and wages on entry level airlines aren't nearly competitive enough for people to want to take on that amount fo debt to be making 40-50k for the first few years of their career. It's a trickle down effect, if nobody is coming in at the bottom they're going to struggle to fill positions at the top. Something is going to have to give if airlines want to be able to keep up with turn over.

Both AC and WJ are having to also deal with things like new competition in the marked like Flair and Lynx. We have a course instructor at my university who is also a 787 pilot for WJ and even he struggles to express just how much money is being shed in the industry right now.

YEG to KEF (again) with FI on a 738?

Sounds like it.

Is that rumour or confirmed?