They moved YVR from Narita to Haneda a few years ago when slots at Haneda opened up. AC retained the Narita flight.

No, NH never operated NRT-YVR, at least not in the recent time.

The service began as NHD-YVR, starting from S14.

Current plan for NRT-YVR is to run for 4 weeks, then go back to HND. But S22 schedule is still not finalized.

Yeah YVR was moved over as part of the batch of international slots that opened up at HND. HND is better for O&D, while NRT is better for connections. Given how traffic's tanked, no doubt YVR will again rely more on connections for the next while.

Yes, your correct. It was JAL and AC at Naritia and when ANA came along it was from NHD from get go.

The Vancouver International Airport saw its "year-over-year" passenger traffic drop by 72 per cent and it expects this year to be another challenging one because of fewer people choosing to travel by air.

A report that goes before Vancouver city council Tuesday doesn't say whether the drop was calculated for a full calendar or fiscal year, or whether the statistics date back to the declaration of the pandemic in March 2020, but said passenger traffic for the "year-over-year" time frame was 7.1 million.

Statistics on the airport's website show the number of "enplaned and deplaned" passengers for 2019 was 26,379,870. That volume of traffic decreased to 7,300,287 in 2020 and 4,991,843 from January to October of 2021; the November and December statistics have yet to be released.

The Vancouver airport and others in Canada don’t anticipate passenger numbers will return to pre-COVID-19 levels until 2025.

“We anticipate COVID-19 and its effects will endure for several years, and that the return of passenger traffic will be bumpy, slow and unpredictable,” said the report, which was released prior to a presentation Tuesday to council from Vancouver Airport Authority President and CEO Tamara Vrooman.

https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/l...ouncil-4987094

The the above reasons,is why most Canada airlines✈️ are going to continue to re route/consolidate most of its passengers flights through its busiest Airport Hubs & that likely won't change for the forseeable future!!

Canada - Europe flights - Air Canada will likely to continue to consolidate most of its Europe flights✈️ through its busiest 4 AC Hubs in Toronto YYZ, Vancouver YVR, Montreal YUL & Calgary YYC✅!!

As for WestJet they will continue to consolidate most of its Europe flights through its 3 busiest WS Hubs in Calgary,Toronto & Vancouver✅!
Most of the AC & WS to Europe flights from its busiest Hubs are likely to operate this Spring/Summer.

Currently AC still has Halifax YHZ - London UK LHR flights scheduled on the Boeing 737Max8 this Spring/ Summer 2022, but how likely its to operate is still up in the air & still have to wait & see what AC decides??

Also WestJet currently still has Halifax- London Gatwick UK,Dublin,Glasgow and Paris CDG flights scheduled on the Boeing 737Max8 planes this Spring/Summer a few times weekly and how likely all them operate is still up in the air too and have to wait & see what WS decides??

https://biv.com/article/2022/01/chin...-omicron-cases

In response to China’s ban on 4 of Air Canada’s Vancouver YVR to Shanghai PVG flights from carrying any passengers,it looks like Transport Canada has quietly taken action & “restricted/blocked” 4 of (MF) Xiamen Air 806 flights✈️from carrying passengers too on YVR to Xiamen XMN,China until end of February 2022 in response to it.

Not surprising Canada did it also, as since March 2020 pandemic restrictions, the AC 25 & Xiamen Air 806 has had similar departure times at night to China carrying passengers from YVR & usually competing against each other!

YOW is the first major Canadian airport to report December 2021 and year-end pax stats:

Sector / Dec-20 / Dec-21 / % Change
Dom: 44,664 / 165,898 / +271.4%
TB: 0 / 7,292 / #DIV/0!
Int'l: 0 / 11,955 / #DIV/0!
TTL: 44,664 / 185,145 / +314.5%

Sector / YTD 2020 / YTD 2021 / % Change
Dom: 1,032,037 / 1,143,950 / +10.8%
TB: 163,093 / 11,242 / -93.1%
Int'l: 168,382 / 15,597 / -90.7%
TTL: 1,363,512 / 1,170,789 / -14.1%

12 Months Rolling / % Change vs Year End 2019
Dom: 1,143,950 / -71.4%
TB: 11,242 / -98.4%
Int'l: 15,597 / -96.3%
TTL: 1,170,789 / -77.1% - still a huge decline vs 2019. April 2022 will be the start of a huge upswing percentage wise, but not raw numbers wise.

The meaningful indicator these days
Month-Over-Month Change
Sector / Nov-21 / Dec-21 / % Change
Dom: 143,880 / 165,898 / +15.3%
TB: 3,790 / 7,292 / +92.4%
Int'l: 3,642 / 11,955 / +228.3%
TTL: 151,312 / 185,145 / +22.4%
Avg/Day: 5,044 / 5,972 / +18.4%

In December, YOW handled 44.2% of pre-pandemic December 2019 traffic levels.

Basically all Intl is from Nov and Dec.

-77% will be more or less in line with the other major airports. YYC should have better results than the rest of the pack, due to strong domestic numbers.

I would not be surprised to see YYC finish ahead of YVR for 2021.

I imagine the Prairie airports will have the smallest percentage drop vs 2019.

They won’t. YVR/YYC/YUL will finish the year ~ 7/6/5 million respectively….

Out of the 3, YYC is the only one that will beat its 2020 numbers though.

Interesting observation. Hi-Fly does a lot of flying for the Canadian government. At the start of COVID they did the repatriation flights from cruise ships and many of the evacuation flights. They have been doing many of the flights to bring over Afghanistan refuges for resettlement in Canada. They are a charter airline out of Portugal that does the same for many of the European governments.

I can understand going to Hi-Fly when AC, WS and Transat are busy flying their normal routes. However all the domestic airlines are struggling to find routes to deploy their widebody aircraft onto. Wondering why they are not getting as big a piece of the government charter business.

I believe the US has some type of program that goes back decades where they provide subsidies or preferential contracts to the US based airlines and in return the airlines each have several aircraft the US government can activate into national service during an emergency and that is how they moved Afghanistan refuses into the US.

^

At the start of the pandemic in 2020, hi-fly was a regular at YUL on flights from China (including their A380). Mostly to bring in PPE. Nothing pax related. AC, WS and others have done a lot of repatriation flights, more so than hi-fly, that’s for sure.

I know hi-fly recently won a contract for YFB runs, due to the water issue there. And yes, you are right, those contracts should have gone to a Canadian carrier. Mind you AC was involved with water runs to YFB too I think.

FAA has now cleared 90% of all U.S commercial fleet to operate their radio altimeters during low vis ops. They've added 7 additional radio altimeters to the list of approved equipment, bringing the total to 20.

As I was saying last week, this now includes all A220s/CRJs/Dash 8s. It also includes the ATR and Embraer E120 turboprops.

https://www.faa.gov/5g

Air Canada expands its q400 Castlegar to Vancouver service from 4 to 6 weekly!

WS schedule updates to the end of April.

Domestic: https://www.westjet.com/en-ca/flights/domestic-schedule

International/TB: https://www.westjet.com/en-ca/flight...ional-schedule

Doesn’t look like much in the way of route suspensions, but frequency reductions abound.

Yep mostly frequency reductions on flights by WestJet. And there are still few route suspensions for WS currently like :Calgary YYC- Portland US, seasonal Edmonton YEG - Kahului (OGG) Hawaii & YEG - Los Cabos,Mexico all suspended until March as examples.

Also looks like WestJet YYC - Nashville,US & YYC - Paris,France (seasonal) flight ✈️ routes both scheduled to resume mid March 2022 & on the same day.

The UK is requiring airlines to use a minimum 70% of their slots this summer, meaning those routes will likely have to operate in some capacity otherwise AC/WS will risk losing those slots.

https://www.routesonline.com/news/29...r-summer-2022/

YFC year-end pax stats:

100,844 people traveled through YFC in 2021, compared to 103,667 in 2020, and 427,085 in 2019.

That is a surprise. Fredericton Airport was closed (for the most part) from Jan 23, 2021 - Jun 26, 2021. with no major carriers.

Compared to only reduced service in 2020.

The closure (while not ideal) did allow for a major overhaul and facelift.

I wonder if demand remains soft, they might be able to use the 737 MAX to keep the slot allocation but not run an expensive widebody to London.

A used slot is a used slot, regardless of the plane.

I don't think demand will be soft next summer. People are eager to travel. Demand will bounce back quickly in the coming months.

I suspect AC/WS/TS will use up all their slots at European airports without a problem.

Why is it a surprise? Demand was soft in the beginning of 2021, and then picked up exponentially in the summer. As an example, YHZ handled more traffic in the month of Aug 2021 alone than Jan-July combined.

https://canadianaviationnews.wordpre...-pre-pandemic/

With the current slowdown due to omicron, it should be the same situation this year, only better (hopefully !)

If they need to use up slots they can always do tag-on flights. These are not overly popular these days but it is a lot more cost effective to add a tag-on to Rome or Paris that an extra flight all the way from Canada.

Seems from the current schedule, AC is planning to uses about 91% of their slot. So they can still afford to cut some more services.

Maybe YVR/YUL to LHR will go back down to 1x daily, or YYZ will go from 4 to 3x daily this summer...

This will depend on the timing of the slot. If the landing and take off slot are 4 or 5 hours apart, then there will be a super long layover at LHR...

From JakeLRS from the YOW, forum, Swoop are expanding at YOW before even launching service in April:

Note: YXX on W0 is 1-stop thru YEG. F8 fly YOW-YXX nonstop.

Interesting not surprising.

Basically with Swoop doing more flying for Edmonton,Ottawa & Winnipeg etc
will free up some WestJet planes ✈️ to use at its 3 busiest Hubs in Calgary, Toronto and Vancouver & when WS officially announces its Summer 2022 schedules YYC, YYZ,YVR are going to benefit from it with additional frequencies/ new seasonal routes too.

Swoop as of today does not fly to Ottawa.
Westjet 3 busiest hubs are Calgary, Toronto, and Vancouver. What are the others?

YEG would be 4th, YWG 5th, then YLW and then probably YHZ, YOW, YUL, YYJ, YXE, YQR, then all the rest. I doubt any US station has more capacity than YQR, even LAS and MCO.

My point about Westjet 3 busiest hubs yyz/yyc/yvr is that they only have 3 hubs.
Everything else is focus city’s and destinations.
Sorry for any misunderstandings 🙂.

I have to wonder how long Flair can last at this rate, I have been their getting ads for free airfare; now it looks like you can travel with your sports equipment for no cost. So not only no revenue off their ticket, but giving away their ancillary revenue also.

I find it incredible that Flair has survived to this point in the pandemic. I thought they'd have been toast by May 2020.

Agreed, really makes me wonder how they will make it in the long run with the huge debt load they will have once things really pick up again.

Interestingly on the airliners.net thread for Flair there's people saying Flair is very successful due to its rapid growth and its cancellations/delays are exaggerated :haha:

See my post upthread. Flair seems to be less an airline than a scheme to pay huge interest on loans to a private equity firm:

https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/sho...ostcount=12501

But therein lies the catch 22. They (777 Partners) as a lessor need a place to put some of those MAXes. Time will tell if they survive in the long run.

Now that you mention it, rumours about foreign control have been dogging them from the start. I recall when they were still called NewLeaf, they brought on board a group of First Nations as investors and there were wild rumours around Winnipeg about foreign money being funneled in through FN casinos.

It kind of reminds me of the crazy startup era for Flair/NewLeaf. The local law firm that had NewLeaf as a client somehow convinced the airline to handle all their startup regulatory work despite the fact that they had no airline clients and no real experience in the area, leading to lengthy delays to the planned start of their operation as the lawyers figured out what to do. And yet somehow they are still around.

Flair says they're now 58% domestic owned I remember reading a few months ago. I think a lot of the myth of foreign ownership is their foreign creditors (i.e., debt). Debt is not equity and does not = ownership.

The problem is 777 loaned them their massive high interest loan and is leasing them all their planes also; so its hard to imagine they are not calling the shots.

I don't think it would be hard to find somewhere else for those max's if flair did fold, especially with the price of fuel going the direction it is.

Started compiling 2021 passenger stats on wiki.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...in_Canada#2021

Good to see some airports post YOY growth. YYC will most certainly be one as well. YEG will be close, but should as well.

Not surprisingly YWG has temporarily surpassed YOW's traditional #6 spot. Also, look at how YYJ, normally 2-3 million pax behind YOW, YWG & YHZ is 400-600K behind. Weird times, but clearly shows the western airports have fared the least bad, largely due to geography and so little rail service.

WestJet has started to make some changes to its Summer 2022 schedule already & signal it will be announced/ released in the coming weeks!!

It looks like Calgary YYC - Austin,US seasonal routing has been suspended/removed indefinitely.
WS YYC- Denver resume date pushed back to May 19.
WS YYC- Boston its start date pushed back to June 30.

WS Vancouver to San Diego route has been pushed back to May 19.

Currently no changes yet to WS Europe schedule flights & with delays to deliveries of 787 planes ✈️,some changes to Europe flights out of Calgary, Toronto & Vancouver are quite possible eventually.

Flair has released its core schedule all the way until April 2023

This is... interesting...

I think it's also interesting to see flair start to establish multiple flights a day on some routes. An example YYZ-YVR.

Also it looks like (UA) United Airlines has pushed back the Edmonton YEG,Canada to Denver & Houston,US Nonstop flights✈️from May to into June 2022. More changes could be *possible* & will see as it gets closer.

Good that Flair updated its schedule to April 2023, but with pandemic still on going & travel demand not the greatest, there will be some changes eventually to its Fall 2022/ next year Winter schedules & with possible cuts to it as “Nothing is guaranteed” currently on alot of things and including for the Airline sector lately since mid March 2020.

Flair will need luck as they competing against Air Canada & WestJet Canada’s 2 busiest airlines still✅!

AC and WS are still updating its schedule few months at time & pretty sure both of their Fall 2022 /Winter 2023 flight schedules are not yet finalized & there will be changes along with some cuts too.

This happened even in pre-COVID days.

Two ULCC's in the States are merging. Frontier and Spirit.

Complete opposite of what we are seeing in this country.

Bigger market. Heavily subsidized aviation infrastructure.

Bigger market, and they are still merging ! That should tell you all you need to know about all the challenges these ULCC upstarts will face in this country.

Yep & currently (if) Canada were to see Airlines mergers at some point.

Air Canada merger with Air Transat is the most likely 1st✅.
WestJet merges probably with Sunwing,(as they already work closely together selling vacation packages for flights).
Porter with 1 of Flair or Lynx?

So Flair's flight numbering scheme is now clear... Seems like for most of the new flights, it is number as

1xx - flights to/from YYZ hub
2xx - flights to/from YVR hub
5xx - YKF
6xx - YXX
7xx - YEG

Still not clear for the other hubs...

Second daily flight add "1" in front, third daily flight add "2"

So for YYC-YXX, it's flight 602, 1602, and 2602.