TC gives green light to the MAX allowing it to return to commercial service starting January 20th (Wednesday).

WS resumes service first on Thursday with three weekly flights YYC-YYZ, and AC on February 1.

https://www.canada.ca/en/transport-c...-737-max1.html

Here is a video on what going on with AC and WS to reintroduce it to service.

• Video Link

Looks like WS first commercial flight is YYC-YVR on Thursday instead of YYZ.

A few of the reasons for the shift to non-stops:

1. People actually prefer the non-stop and will pay a slight premium for it.
2. You get more market share if you have more times for flight options. Bigger aircraft need more people to justifiably run, which means that you're limited to peak travel times in small markets for them.
3. The CRJ was operated by AC Express, which is cheaper labour-wise.

I can hardly think of any triangle routes these days. They really are a relic of the past. Same with fifth-freedom flights - AFAIK, Air China's Beijing-Montreal-Havana is the only one left in Canada.

The seasonal YOW-YQR-YXE-YOW triangle route would be one on the CRJ.

The COVID-19 testing program from YYC expands to YEG on Feb 1.

https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/covid-19...port-1.5271682

The weirdest (and now gone route) was Saskatoon-Regina-Chicago on United Express. They ran that for a few years, on a CRJ-700 if I remember correctly.

United had no rights to sell the Saskatoon-Regina segment on its own. You would clear customs in Saskatoon on the return.

I believe Vancouver currently I still getting the CDG-YVR-PPT several times per week on Air France and Air Tahiti Nui. The French bee flight would by ORY-YVR-PPT. Unless those have switched back to California.

:yuck::yuck::yuck:

Though it was always expected WS would buy these there was no excuse for AC choosing this piece of rubbish when they had decades of good service from the better A320 family. This was strictly a cheapo deal that lead AC to buy this outdated platform. What a shame they didn’t use Boeing’s shocking negligence as an excuse to offload it.

They went halfway. The canceled orders for the aircraft that had not been built yet. They will have far few max than originally planned.

I'm curious about how long the MAX stays in AC's fleet to be honest.

It looks like the immediate future of the narrowbody fleet is the A220, MAX 8 and A320/321. Given the cash crunch airlines are facing, big fleet changes aren't likely to happen in the near future.

The A220 makes sense as there's a fair number of routes in Canada that only need ~140 seats or less. The A321 makes sense, because it covers the 190-seat market, which I'd imagine the cancelled MAX 9 was to cover prior to the MCAS debacle.

The A320 and MAX 8 cover the 145-170 seat market. While I get the idea to hedge your bets by not betting on a single fleet type, 3 seems somewhat excessive. AC has the option to kick the can down the road, which is what it looks like to me right now.

My guess: AC waits until A320neo demand softens and can ask for better pricing in a few years. It unloads the MAX 8 to another airline that likes buying used but well-maintained planes (Southwest, maybe?). It runs the A220 and A320neo in parallel for their narrowbody fleet.

Interesting. I thought both had direct service from YOW. Admittedly, the exception that proves the rule. I mean, I think the best parts of a flight are takeoff and landing so I don't mind up-and-down, but I like airplanes.


Oh yeah, I forgot about those. I didn't know if you could actually book on them or if they were just technical stops.

At first you could not. Air France recently started to see the Vancouver-Paris leg on its own.

There's another 5th freedom coming soon with Eastern's (still getting used to that) planned MIA-GEO-YYZ.

Yesterday Trump announced the end of banning arrivals from UK / Europe and Brazil but it sounds like Biden will keep those restrictions and possibly implement additional ones.

https://www.reuters.com/article/heal...-idUSL1N2JU00C

Additionally WS has listed the 20+ domestic route suspensions occurring in February:
https://www.westjet.com/en-ca/travel...estic-schedule

Many of their international routes are operating just once weekly with YYZ-PUJ/POP both ending February 6th.

Surprised to see YYC-HNL & LIR survive.

Why does WestJet always misspell Grande Prairie?

YEG handled 2,628,891 passengers in 2020, a 67.7% decrease.

I expect this to be one of the smallest decreases out of the top 10 airports.

https://flyeia.com/corporate/media/passenger-stats/

Maybe "Grande" is too french, and they deliberately avoid using it..;)

Most likely, with YYC a close second.

While Central Mountain Air are suspending YKA (YKA-YXS) until April 5th, when they return to YKA, they're going to launch YKA-YVR, but only 2x weekly.

https://www.radionl.com/2021/01/19/72500/

It could be, but YYC might be slightly smaller. We'll also see whether YOW will take the cake for the biggest decline among the large airports. Here's YOW's year-end numbers:

Sector / Dec-19 / Dec-20 / % Change
Dom: 313,275 / 44,664 / -85.7%
TB: 58,636 / 0 / -100.0%
Int'l: 47,409 / 0 / -100.0%
TTL: 419,320 / 44,664 / -89.3%

Sector YTD 2019 YTD 2020 % Change
Dom: 3,993,553 / 1,032,037 / -74.2%
TB: 686,297 / 163,093 / -76.2%
Int'l: 426,637 / 168,382 / -60.5% - smallest decline even with zero int'l pax since late March.
TTL: 5,106,487 / 1,363,512 / -73.3%

Month-Over-Month Change
Sector / Nov-20 / Dec-20 / % Change
Dom: 31,742 / 44,664 / +40.7%
TB: 0 / 0 / #DIV/0!
Int'l: 0 / 0 / #DIV/0!
TTL: 31,742 / 44,664 / +40.7%

KLM is cutting its long haul flights starting Friday following new government restrictions.

https://www.reuters.com/article/heal...nLEih-sgA6EhM4

This leaves Alberta with no non-stop service to Europe once again.