It is? So our top 5 airports managed to post passenger traffic equal to Atlanta Hartsfield.

Using Air Canada average load factor I ran the numbers average over the month. This are some errors introduced by how I did the calculation since we are working with averages. We don't have real number and I don't think the airlines are going to release them. I also added in YYC and YEG. Clearly AC is more dominant in Central Canada.

^yeah because WestJet is more present in Western Canada

An 18 hour layover at YYZ and a night in a ‘room with a view’ at the Sheraton above T3…..gave me time to reflect on what we might have had at YUL.

Growing up in the late ‘60's and early ‘70's with frequent family visits to Montreal’s West Island would find me on the observation deck at ‘Dorval’.

Sure I’d been to ‘Malton’ (Pearson) but besides Air Canada, Canadian Pacific and a couple of US carriers, the only ‘International’ flights at YYZ were on BOAC (British Airways)......Just no comparison to what we had at Dorval!...... Air France, Iberia, Alitalia, Scandinavian, Sabena, Swissair and Lufthansa among others with their DC-8s and ‘707s along with Aeroflot and Czech IL-62s. What a fascinating place for a kid!

But how things have changed!.....YYZ is in constant motion today with carriers it seems from just about everywhere. T1 (1964) and T2 (early ‘70s) are long gone and replaced with the soaring roof structures and glass concourses handling passenger volumes more than 2 1\2 times that of YUL.

We’ve had some nice building additions in YUL….but peel back a couple of layers and the original 1960 terminal is still in there. Walk out the pier to Gate 15 or in what’s left of the old mid-field Aeroquay…. and you’d be more apt to envision a Viscount or Vanguard through the windows ready for boarding.

Sure we have some major carriers here at YUL but there are times through the day when frankly……there’s just not much going on!

Some of my ‘Kodak Instamatic’ shots for July ’71:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-r.../Scan10007.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-i.../Scan10011.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-w.../Scan10006.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-E.../Scan10005.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_.../Scan10009.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Z.../Scan10002.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-u.../Scan10010.JPG

And a couple of Postcards from a long ago visit:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_...Ic42/Image.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-V...282%252529.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-n...283%252529.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-c...284%252529.jpg

I have that last postcard in a scrapbook I made as a kid in the early 70's, thanks for the fantastic memories!! Great photos!!

Tweet from Airliner Route that China Southern has applied to CAAC for daily Guangzhou - Toronto on 77W from July 2016.

Indeed! Excellent news! :)

https://twitter.com/airlineroute/sta...39335515303936

Great to see strong TPAC growth at YYZ.

Awesome YUL shots.

Congratulations to the entire team!

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x...psxskxzxq0.png

NewLeaf to announce new 'ultra low cost' airline in Hamilton Wednesday

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilt...sday-1.3389064

Travel company NewLeaf Travel is set to announce its promised new "ultra low cost" airline in Hamilton Wednesday.

According to a press release, the company plans to share information about pricing, booking details and non-stop routes at the John C. Munro Hamilton Airport at 11 a.m.

The launch will come months after initially planned, as NewLeaf had hoped to be operational by last summer. It missed the travel season while it was getting off the ground.

"The idea is that we are trying to lower the airfares," airline head Jim Young told CBC News back in April. "We're focusing on secondary airports. We don't like high-cost airports like Vancouver, Calgary, (Toronto) Pearson." In the west, Young is aiming to fly into Abbotsford, B.C., instead of Vancouver International.

Young has said the company hopes to look like the budget Ryanair in Europe, or Spirit or Allegiant airlines in the United States.

The company will sell packages with hotels and rental cars to Canadian and U.S. holiday destinations. But it will also hope to fill a low-cost flight niche for bare-bones customers looking for "a seat and a seatbelt" for casual travel.

These kinds of carriers typically have fewer daily flights, as well as no bonuses like in flight entertainment or frequent flyer points.

The company is partnering with Kelowna, B.C.-based Flair Airlines, a private charter airline, for aircraft, maintenance and crews. Rather than buying planes from scratch, partnering with Flair will cut out some of the operational hurdles to getting a new airline off the ground, Young said previously.

When reached Monday, a company representative said all details on flight destinations and prices are being saved for Wednesday's press conference.

Passenger numbers at Hamilton's airport have been dropping for years. For years the bulk of its traffic has been cargo rather than passenger.

"Strategically we see Hamilton International as an Airport well suited to an ultra-low cost carrier model, and would welcome New Leaf Travel Co. or any other low cost carrier to Hamilton Airport when looking to enter southern Ontario," airport marketing director Lauren Yaksich said in April.

Air Canada delayed the launch of its similar "rouge" flights between Hamilton and Calgary after a plane crash in Halifax last March threw off the company's fleet numbers.

Wasn't Jetlines supposed to fly out of Hamilton as well?

^ Yep, whenever that happens I dunno. Seems like NewLeaf is ahead of the curve.

I think Jetlines is still a pipe dream. There's been a lot of talk, and some "hiring" of senior management, but other than that they're no way near becoming an actual flying airline. I'm interested to see what NewLeaf turns out to be like. Though for me they're flying out of the wrong side of the GTA...

No doubt there are more foreign tails at YYZ, but I count 33 foreign tails (not including sun flyers) at YYZ, with 23 at YVR and 15 at YUL.

Given that YYZ is well over double the Intl. passengers that YVR is and YUL is quite similar to YVR it stands to reason that significantly more of YYZ and YULs PAX are moved by AC or in the case of YUL Transat.

With YVR at about 40% of the Intl numbers that YYZ is, one would expect YYZ to have 58 foreign tails if the ratio were the same, not 33. So I'd imagine it's really quite significant the amount of AC intl PAX at YYZ compared to YVR.

Great news, surprised they're starting it with a 77W and not a 787 though. That's a lot of capacity.

NewLeaf unveiling cheap Canadian flights from 7 cities today
Airline will start in seven cities offering rock bottom fares

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/newl...ount-1.3391546

A new airline set to take flight today is offering ultra-low fares out of seven Canadian cities for as little as $89 for a one-way flight, starting Feb. 12.

NewLeaf will reveal its flight plans at joint events in Kelowna, Winnipeg and Hamltion starting at 11 a.m. ET on Wednesday. CBC is livestreaming a feed of those press events in the player above.

The airline's website, flynewleaf.ca, shows flights are available from seven Canadian airports:

Abbotsford, B.C.
Halifax
Hamilton, Ont.
Kelowna, B.C.
Regina
Saskatoon
Winnipeg

The airline will be partnering with B.C.-based charter airline Flair Airlines for planes, crew and maintenance work.

The air travel industry in Canada is dominated by two companies, WestJet and Air Canada, but is also served by many regional and charter companies that cater to small segments of the market.

Darcy Morgan, chief commercial officer of Calgary-based charter airline Enerjet, says Canada is more than able to handle competition in the industry.

"Canada is not well-served by airlines today, and as much as there's a duopoly of Air Canada and WestJet, Canada lacks the low-cost point to point service pretty much every nation has available," he said in an interview.

"If there's an opening in the market, we believe that's it."

YKF envies YHM for those flights to Halifax, Winnipeg, and Kelowna, if not all of them.

Route Map
http://flynewleaf.ca/site/assets/fil...h-routemap.jpg
http://flynewleaf.ca/travel-info/route-map-south/

Hopefully they'll expand in the future. I feel like secondary markets such as YQB and YQM are being left out...

Not sure if there servers are just busy due to interest from a number of people wanting to check NewLeaf out, but I've been trying to book for the past 20 minutes and can't get any dates or prices to load. I also find the select a dat option to not be very user friendly. Not a good first impression.

Hardly surprising given that with the media attention their servers are probably getting clobbered with 10x the traffic they'll ever get again on a single day.