https://www.airport-technology.com/news/aci-europe/

Several airport, including LGW, aren’t too happy though. As it prevents competitors from entering the market on a permanent basis.

https://www.airport-technology.com/n...location-plan/

'Delta is more than doubling the number of daily flights between the U.S. and Canada starting in September, eight to 19, resulting in a 150% increase in available seats. Customers will enjoy nonstop, easy access from multiple U.S. hubs to Canada’s largest business and leisure markets, including more flights to Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal, as well as restarted service to Winnipeg. Toronto will see the largest increase, growing to 10 daily flights in September.'

https://news.delta.com/delta-doubles...s-us-travelers

I guess YOW no longer on Delta’s radar

Neither is YEG:shrug::(

It's a bit surprising that Alaska and United are the only ones left. I believe that at one point Alaska, United, Delta and American all flew to YEG. A shame

Surprising the focus on Toronto-LaGuardia especially given WestJet has slots their that it is going to have to start using fairly soon.

Disappointing destinations like YXE are not getting their Delta flights back so soon, however not unexpected. It is going to take time for those secondary markets to build back up. There is also the possibility as the Delta - WestJet partnership grows they may not re-enter those secondary market at all.

This actually is a concern.

A number of US airlines are retiring their 50-seat CRJ200 fleets, or reducing them markedly. Why? They're too inefficient given the passenger loads they carry and they're not young planes anymore.

If the market can't support 76 seat aircraft - which would be CRJ700/900 or E175 sized - it's unlikely to get service back.

Delta's hubs aren't badly positioned for YOW and YEG service (DTW and MSP or SEA), but I'm wondering if the company wants Westjet to take care of their secondary and tertiary Canada flying, given that it probably has challenges ramping back up.

There are some routes well suited to the Q400 especially on the coast. SEA-YVR and SEA-YYJ are two examples. WestJet Encore would be a better fit on these than anything Delta has access to.

The same for some of the DTW routes into Ontario. They pulled out of London some time ago, but that would be more well suited to a Q400.

Beyond that WestJet does not have small jets. The C-series would have been a great fit for WestJet but they chose to go 737 instead.

Ditto YQB & YHZ.

Same with YOW. Only UA and AA and committed to returning. I remember back when YOW had AA, UA, DL, US, CO & NW.

Boeing wouldn't have dealt Westjet as a good a deal on their 787s had they not been loyal 737 MAX customers.

I agree that the CSeries/A220 would have been a good fit to replace Westjet's 737-600s. Oh well, I guess they'll just make do with their somewhat larger 737-700s/MAX 7s.

I'm just thinking that Delta is pretty much counting on Westjet to get passengers from Regina/Edmonton/Ottawa to the next larger Canadian airport that has Delta service. So, that would be Winnipeg/Calgary/Toronto. I don't think Delta is really hoping to pick up many passengers except to secondary US destinations those people can't reach directly. Transiting the US for international travel isn't really a thing except for a handful of destinations.

There is still time to go buy the A220.

I think the issue is going to be where are these passengers going. Out of a place like YXE, the major US destinations are places like Las Vegas, Phoenix, LA, San Francisco, Miami, New York etc. If you have to connect through a WestJet hub you might as well continue on to your destination on WestJet. The only point of transiting through a second Delta hub would be to reach secondary destinations in the US.

Exactly.

I don't think Delta really cares to play against the Canadian carriers for leisure destinations. The US carriers generally fly to their nearest hub city, which is often not generally that much of a destination for Canadians. I can't imagine that Detroit, Salt Lake City or Minneapolis are huge draws.

Delta's probably aiming for American customers, not Canadian ones. If they can get a few Canadians who don't want to transit Toronto or Vancouver that's fine, but I don't think it's their bread and butter.

I also think Westjet will stay cozy with Boeing for awhile. They had a chance to walk away from the MAX 7 order, but didn't. Running only one narrowbody type does keep training/staffing/maintenance costs down.

Guys, it's only been a week that the Canadian government added these airports to the list of airports capable of receiving international flights. Give it time. US carriers will return. Maybe not all of them, and maybe not on every single US-Canada route pre-pandemic, but most will.

Bread and butter of US carriers on Canada runs is Canadian passengers.

I agree with you and believe most, if not all of those “suspended indefinitely” as they were announced a year ago, will be back eventually. I was merely adding the two additional ex-DL stations at the start of the pandemic that haven’t been brought back yet. I really think YWG was first to come back thanks to the 90ish year history of DL/NW at YWG.

Ironically in Ottawa’s case, DL was going to grow YOW capacity by 50% in summer 2020. When traffic returns to even say post 9/11 traffic levels, there will be a lot of traffic, especially out of YEG (via MSP) and YOW (via DTW and maybe LGA back too) that will no longer want to double connect to get to the plethora of secondary US destinations WS doesn’t serve via YYC and AC doesn’t serve via YYZ. I can’t imagine DL will want to hand all that traffic over to AA and especially UA. They might be alright with WS taking some of their former hub feeder traffic and letting WS do the flying. The 4x daily YYZ-LGA DL just announced is setting them and WS up for the JV attempt 2.0 as when they now have to relinquish slots, they’ll still have WS’ 8 daily slots which will then become metal neutral.

NW service on the route started in 1928. I hope someone (airline? airports? cities?) do something to mark the occasion when the centennial comes up in a few years!

Eventually they will have a slot in their schedule that fits a MSP-YWG-MSP turn. It's too close to not have a route eventually

YYC-YYZ on a 320 was 90%+ filled.

Security (no Nexus:() was about 57 seconds.

About half of the stuff in wing C was closed.

A couple of Canada's cl-215s just landed at Castlegar to join the forest fire fight.
As well as a second Electra.

No way in hell are DL/WS getting a more favorable outcome with their JV 2.0 attempt. It will be the exact opposite. WS will still be forced to give up their 8 daily slot pairs into LGA, as those slots originated from DL in 2011, when they were forced to give them up as part of the US Airways slot swap. Those slots are not going back into DL's hands.

Biden's agenda is pretty clear. Take an aggressive stance against antitrust immunity. They want to increase competition. Not diminish it, which is what JV's do.

https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/co...eased-3294645/ (July 1, 2021)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...am-takes-shape (March 9, 2021, article moreso about Tech giants, but still relevant about their mindset vis a vis corporate consolidation)