Months ago, I said the most important stats for this year (to tell how the recovery is going) would be to see 2021 passenger numbers over 2020.

Congrats Calgary.:tup:

Super. I entered the contest. :tup:

YTD Domestic is 4,676,647 (+13.9%). 1.2 million is the quarterly tally.

Impressive stuff by YYC, I must say.

Man, WS really needs to get those additional 787s in house to boost those international numbers a bit. YUL handled more international passengers in November (272,000) than YYC did all year until that point.

Yes. Pretty impressive stuff by YYC. They will finish the year well ahead of YUL in terms of overall passenger count. Neither YVR nor YUL will beat their 2020 numbers. By my estimates....

YVR should finish the year with anywhere from 6.7 to 7 million passengers.
YYC around 6 million.
YUL around 5 million.

YYC's domestic powerhouse status is pretty evident in these numbers, and so is the lack thereof for YUL. YTD International numbers - even with suppressed demand- tells a story as well. Somewhat different though.

Intl+transborder

YUL 2,194,637 (until October)
YVR 1,142,081 (until October)
YYC 715,392 (until November)

Intl only

YUL 1,515,022 (until October)
YVR 605,933 (until October)
YYC 260,917 (until November)

China and most of Asia essentially being closed off is really hurting YVR's numbers.

Interesting that YHZ has only a single windebody flight each day (the Eurowings or Condor flights alternate each day except Sunday, when there are no widebody flights out of YHZ). AC used to run widebodies on some YYZ flights, but now it is all 737 Max. The 737 has really been good for YHZ, they are perfect for its use on Transatlantic routes, and allows more destinations than would have been possible when long distances could really only be done on widebodies).

Transborder sevice is still quite limited there though. On July 10th (just chose a Sunday because they tend to get more flights) for example, YHZ had 4 international flights (WS to DUB, LGW, and CDG), as well as AC to LHR. All four of these are on 737 Max.

For transborder, there are two AC flights (to Boston on DH4s), one WS flight to Orlando), and an AA flight to Philadelphia. So four flights total. Was pre-pandemic service more extensive, or is this fairly common? Domestic service seems to be great and improving, but transborder seems lacklustre

Air France just announced a new direct flight between YQB-CDG operated 3x weekly with their A330-200. Very good news after years of rumours. AF won't be alone on that route with Air Transat 3x weekly.

https://corporate.airfrance.com/en/n...ination-canada

Excellent news, and long overdue, in my opinion. Seems to be summer seasonal. Hopefully this service will stick around for a long time to come. And who knows, with Club Med now open at Le Massif, could maybe even go year round, as Quebec City and the surrounding areas have what it takes to be a year round attraction, especially to people from France. This will open up a plethora of one stop options for Quebecers as well.

I'm surprised this hasn't been a constant flight since the invention of the airplane. An Air France flight from France to the most French part of New France.

That's because Dorval airport is taking all the place in this province.

Oh I see.

YYZ-YHZ used to regularly see B763s on AC. With those frames gone, the Max seems a natural fit. The A330s/B787s would be too big on a regular basis. I know AC ran A330s on YUL-YHZ briefly before the pandemic for the lobster, but that didn't last long.

It's the same everywhere. Hub and spoke is the name of the game.

YUL is a hub, YQB is a spoke.
YYC...............YEG
YYZ................YOW

Still, it's nice to see AF go off the beaten path with this route. They ran a bus service between YUL and YQB, so they know very well how many people want to go to YQB. It should be an easy winner. 3x weekly A332 isn't a ton of capacity. Will be interesting to see how TS reacts to this announcement.

I wouldn't be surprised if Air Transat would react by relaunching their YQB-BOD and YQB-MRS direct flights that they use to fly around 2008 with their A310. Also, from what I recall, TS has codeshare with SNCF TGV train service to 18 cities in France.

It's not the first time TS has competition on this route. Corsair used to fly 3 weekly YQB-ORY with their 747-400 in 2008, the same year they also tried YQB-NTE with their A330.

Direct flights to 5 french airports from YQB might have been a bit too much back then in 2008 when it barely had 1M pax but now things have changed and the terminal has significantly grown 3 years ago. Let's see how YQB's 3 direct routes to Europe will play out.

Also, it hasn't been mentioned in this group but AA decided to accelerate the relaunch of YQB-ORD in may instead of June and TS announced a new flight to Puerto Vallarta, which will compete with Sunwing. As opposed to Cancun, PVR is not yet a popular resort destination in Mexico but I guess things will start to change.

Say what? Or do you mean not popular with people from Quebec City?

I was saying that if there are more Air Transat Vacations and Sunwing Vacations flights and all-inclusive plans available directly from Quebec city, the demand for Puerto Vallarta will probably be higher than if there are no direct flights options.

That makes sense. Previously it sounded like you were saying that PVR in general was an unpopular resort destination.

I do have to say it's quite surprising that there still hasn't been a return of Edmonton flights to Winnipeg or Ottawa. Everything to the east of Saskatchewan is either via Calgary or Toronto still, with a handful of Montreal flights.

Edmonton does have nonstop flights to Winnipeg currently nonstop on WestJet/Swoop & while Edmonton to Ottawa is currently mainly nonstop on Flair Airlines/Air Canada. Yes its still limited but Flair is starting Edmonton to Winnipeg in mid April 2022 & Swoop Edmonton to Ottawa in mid June 2022.

But Swoop/ Flair Airlines has done its job at YEG &
forcing Air Canada to focus more on its Domestic flight routes out of Calgary YYC & AC's 4th busiest hub where there's currently great competition going on between AC, WestJet, Flair & soon Calgary based Lynx Air starting up domestic flights within Canada sometime in 2022.

^ Oh really, when I've looked at YEG-YWG recently, nothing showed up on WJ/AC (maybe it's just Swoop right now?) so maybe it's recent.

I agree that Swoop and Flair have done YEG well, and Westjet has considerable share of YEG traffic. Air Canada truly could not give a shit about Edmonton, though.

Yep & currently it’s only Swoop Airlines operating the Edmonton- Winnipeg route 2x weekly flights ✈️,but Swoop is part of the WestJet Airlines group & I’m not too surprised WS cut YEG - YWG until March 2022.

As it will free up a WestJet Boeing 737 to operate at its 3 busiest Hubs in Calgary, Toronto & Vancouver.

With that the Canada - Paris CDG France flights✈️ this upcoming Spring/Summer 2022.

From Eastern Canada:
Air Canada, Air France & Air Transat doing Toronto & Montreal- Paris
Air Transat / Air France doing Quebec City YQB- Paris

From Western Canada:
Air France Vancouver- Paris & WestJet Calgary-Paris.

There’s also YHZ-CDG on WS scheduled too.