I'm fucking cursed. Just booked a direct return trip to Dublin over the weekend (for next year), and today WestJet announced they're moving it to Halifax. It's not as bad as having to fly to Toronto, but damn... this one hurts. It was such a joy and peace of mind to have it.

Will the connections between YYT and YHZ work out for that flight?

For mine, yes. I assume so in general as well. I remember hearing radio ads about 6 flights daily to Halifax with connections to X last summer. I think that was Porter alone, when they were around. I imagine we have a lot of flights to YHZ. But it's expensive.

I'm mostly pissed about the time. It's two hours to fly to Halifax from here. So that pads an extra four on your travel time, basically doubles your trip to Dublin.

Can you cancel your ticket and fly via London on Air Canada? That might be easier (though I'm not sure how connecting in Heathrow is).

If you have to connect anyway, I don't see how connecting in Heathrow could be any easier than connecting in Halifax... whatever gains you have from a shorter flight LHR-DUB would probably be offset from requiring more time to navigate long walks and long lines at LHR.

Brutal. Travelling via Halifax would be vastly easier, istm.

Air Canada is too expensive for me hehe. It's fine. I'll just have to get there a day later and leave a day earlier. I'm going for a wedding (I'm in jeddy1989's bridal party, haha) that is right in the middle of what I booked so should be fine. I'm just going to miss the ability to hop over to Europe and then go anywhere. We haven't even booked our flights to Edinburgh yet. We will do that when we get there. Then they go to Spain and I'm going to try to get over to the east.

News is getting a lot of coverage here.

http://i68.tinypic.com/s3d9h2.jpg http://i68.tinypic.com/71gp4j.jpg

Article mentions the St. John's-Dublin route was Westjet's most successful route launch ever. Notes it's being cancelled for not meeting expectations. It probably is doing fine, like the St. John's Maple Leafs, and the cancellation isn't so much for the bottom line as for some sort of logistics or ease for the company or whatever.

Ugh. Florida. Is that what we're becoming? A place that can have a flight to Florida but not Dublin? SAD! :haha:

I don't know. Florida sounds pretty nice to me right now (it was -20C overnight where I live).

Funny enough we actually have direct flights to 3 Floridian cities but to get to Europe which is just right there, we're struggling to keep flights? :shrug:

Is Florida really any further away than Europe?

Had to check out of curiosity.

St. John's NL - Orlando FL = 3253.12km
St. John's NL - Dublin IE = 3293.54km

To Jacksonville FL = 3124.62
To Galway IE = 3110.02
To Halifax NS = 897.95
To Toronto = 2110.99
To Winnipeg = 3224.37
To Victoria BC = 5069.06

EDIT: CBC nailed this thumbnail :haha:

http://i66.tinypic.com/dnkoio.png

EDIT 2: So it definitely wasn't an issue of use. Flights were consistently full with most passengers originating at YYT. Media rumours here are that YHZ was simply more aggressive and offered more (lower landing fees, etc.). They also noted almost none of YHZ's passengers on direct flights to Europe are from Halifax. That doesn't necessarily mean anything, they could be connecting from farther west or be driving in from around the Maritimes. City, airport authority, and stakeholders like Irish government are going to be meeting soon to strategize how to play hardball :haha: Bit late now. And YHZ makes more sense as an Atlantic flight hub... But I suspect we could get something back if we fight hard. It was definitely not an issue of not having enough passengers.

YUL winter 2018/2019 highlights

https://www.admtl.com/sites/default/...3%A9al_eng.pdf

The 9 Mexican destinations the article talks about are:

MEX, CUN, CZM, PVR, SJD, HUX, ACA, ZIH and now MZT.

I wonder if this is another case example of hub-and-spoke where our beloved two main airlines slash flights from smaller and mid-sized cities and force people to funnel through their focus/hub/whatever cities for whatever bullshit reason they have, despite those routes they slash being successful, and screwing over cities like St. John's, Winnipeg, Edmonton from expanding their non-stop flight capacity internationally.

Sounds like it to me.

Rumors of Avianca to YUL in 2019, as per skyscrapercity's Avianca page.

The airline seems to have made a request with the Colombian aviation authority (Aerocivil) to launch 4x weekly non stop service on BOG-YUL.

https://www.skyscrapercity.com/showp...postcount=4609

If they intend to launch in time for S19, we should be hearing something official pretty soon.

Still waiting on TAP to make their announcements which seemed to include YUL.

I wonder if they are waiting to see if their A321LR arrive on time.

Or was it ambitious to start 15 new routes.

Swoop interested in certain Quebec airports to expand its network into La Belle Province.

YRQ and YHU are the front runners. YMX and YSC are also mentioned, but unlikely.

Link in french only.

https://www.tvanouvelles.ca/2018/11/...trois-rivieres

YRQ and YHU are lobbying the federal government in order to join the list of designated airports, which will enable them to get CATSA and if required, CBSA for commercial operations. The last airports to join the list were Red Deer and Tremblant, back in 2004. The list hasn't been modified since.

Although YMX is a designated airport, it no longer has a terminal building, nor does ADM have plans to build one. As for YSC, it's runway is only 5,900ft, not long enough for a 189 seat B737-800.

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/...80/page-2.html

YHU seems like the most logical choice for Swoop. It's the closest of the 4 to Montreal. Canada Jetlines is also on record about starting service to YHU around 2020, which is the earliest the new terminal building could open.

https://www.nsnews.com/canada-jetlin...ort-1.23491744

Flair will be wet-leasing 2 B738s from Travel Service (Czech Republic). Both planes will be used on flights to the US.

One is a short term lease (30 days or less), from Dec 1 to Dec 30, and the other is a long term lease, Dec 1 to April 30.

https://www.otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/ruling/a-2018-248

https://www.otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/ruling/a-2018-249

With only a fleet of 7, Flair is restricted in the number of planes it can wet-lease for more than 30 days: Only 1, as per the CTA's cap of 20%. Explaining the reason for the short term lease on the second aircraft. Wouldn't be surprised if Flair does the same for the months of Jan, Feb, March and April, that is applying to the CTA for short term leases on that 2nd Czech frame.

Flairs first Boeing 737-800 is expected to be in service in January however I’m skeptical if it will happen on time. Flair is suppose to have a fleet of 12 aircraft by the end of 2019 (don’t quote me).

They are currently sending aircraft to receive their D checks ahead of being sold, C-FLHE (the newest 737-400) is currently in Miami going through it right now. 2 of their older planes got checked over the summer.

I also thought they got a short term lease with one Air Transat 737-800 but I may be wrong.

Didn’t know there were laws regulating the number of leased aircraft allowed. Nice to know!

For foreign crew leases, yes.

Flair could wet lease however many planes it wants from the likes of TS or WS. The rule is about protecting Canadian jobs.

WestJet at Halifax is building up a nice little transatlantic bank.

22:20 Dublin
22:35 London
22:50 Glasgow
22:55 Paris