YUL welcomed it's 19 millionth passenger yesterday.

https://www.admtl.com/sites/default/...19Mpax_ANG.pdf

With an average of 50-55,000 passengers a day in December, total year end traffic should be around 19.5 million. Next year, with all the increases announced, 20 million should be surpassed with ease.

Edit: Added link to press release

Enerjet will relaunch as an ULCC in 2019.

Some strong backing for this one....

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/enerjet-...2019-1.1186553

Dang. That's a big number. Congrats.

On a similar note, Kelowna (YLW) just welcomed its 2 millionth passenger.

https://www.castanet.net/edition/new...-1-.htm#245070

Musician likely mistaken for active shooter at Calgary airport, police say

Report of someone with a rifle prompts lockdown of part of international terminal
CBC News · Posted: Dec 20, 2018

https://i.cbc.ca/1.4949326.154507060...al-airport.jpg
Portions of the international terminal at the Calgary International Airport were locked down on Thursday after reports of an active shooter, later dismissed. (Mike Symington/CBC)


Police say a musician carrying an instrument seems to have been mistaken for an active shooter at Calgary International Airport Thursday prompting a lockdown of part of the international terminal.

The airport said some parts of the terminal were put under lockdown after a report that someone with a gun had been spotted.

Airport employees got an email saying two threats had been made toward the international terminal — by way of two phone calls — on what was expected to be one of the busiest travel days of the holiday season.

...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...Ayp3KKeOCWbNXc

interesting article from anna.aero about domestic markets around the world.

The US still leads the way, with 958 million one way domestic seats in 2018. Will surely pass the 1 billion mark next year. China is in second, but still a ways to go to catch up. The numbers fall off a cliff thereafter, with India now in third spot (fastest growing domestic market in the top 15, with a 15.7% increase over 2017).

Canada is the 9th busiest domestic market in the world, with nearly 66 million domestic seats in 2018, with a healthy 5.2% increase over 2017.

Australia is stagnant in 7th (no growth), and Japan dropped 2 spots to 5th.

https://www.anna.aero/2018/12/19/dom...astest-growth/

"He's got a guitar everybody down!!"
I mean come on!

That would be the second lockdown of CBSA arrivals at YYC in less than 2 weeks.

Wow Air's fleet will go down to 11 aircraft.

AC bought 4 of their A321s. Deliveries expected next month.

https://newsroom.aviator.aero/wow-ai...to-air-canada/

The four aircraft are msn 6232 (TF-DAD), 6210 (TF-MOM, currently wet-leased to Aruba Airlines), 5733 (TF-SON), and 5681 (TF-KID). They are between 4.5 and 5.5 years old.

Will be interesting to see what AC will do with these frames. As they already have 200 seats, maybe a fresh coat of paint and straight to Rouge ?

Rouge expansion? Rouge has several newer leased A321s, so it makes sense to put them there.

Mainline is getting new Boeing 737 MAXs, so I don't see them going there, unless they're shuffling mainline A321s out to wherever and replacing them.

Definitely planned for Rouge at this point.

https://www.planespotters.net/produc...tStatus=future

Rouge was supposed to get 3 A320s in 2019. If these 4 A321s do indeed go to Rouge, then those A320s could stay with mainline. That's one possible scenario.

YUL November stats

1,315,016 +6.3%

Domestic 527,373 +0.7%
Transborder 328,803 +2.2%
International 458,840 +17.3% (3rd straight month of double digit growth)

YTD total for 2018: 17,920,306 +6.9%

https://www.admtl.com/sites/default/...et_2018_EN.pdf

I'm guessing the 19 millionth passenger date was a random one, as YUL should finish closer to 19.4 million passengers for the year.

YYC also posted November

1,286,016 +4.0%

Domestic 889,931 +4.0%
Transborder 267,490 +12.3%
International 128,595 -10.3%

YTD total for 2018: 15,919,263 +6.8%

http://www.yyc.com/Portals/0/MEDIA/M...r_paxtotal.pdf

20 million for Montreal next year?

That chart clearly shows how much potential goes unfilled in the Canadian airline industry. If our domestic airline industry was as developed as Australia's we'd have roughly 120 million one way flights instead of the 65.6 million we currently register.

Canada is a laggard amongst wealthy developed nations.

No surprise there.

By and large we are a resource based and branch plant economy.

Our R&D figures are frankly appalling.

By most metrics, our vaunted health care system is merely mediocre at best, and increasingly difficult to access.

Our military is frankly an embarrassment (no offence to our brave servicemen). Procurement, equipment quality and combat readiness are the issues.

By why does this metric matter?

Would we be a greater nation if we had as many one way flights?

Australia's cities are relatively far apart. The air traffic between Melbourne and Sydney is 9.2 million people per year, simply because they're close to 900km apart - a distance inconvenient to drive. Toronto and Montreal are merely 550km so more people drive.

We have a large nation of French speaking people who live within driving distance of Quebec, the centre of that population. They've no reason to leave that particular island, so why fly anywhere, especially to see family?

Canada has 3 major clusters between which the bulk of air travel takes place. Within any given cluster, most people travel by car, bus or rail.

Cluster 1: Greater Toronto Area-Ottawa-Montreal
Cluster 2: Calgary-Edmonton corridor
Cluster 3: Vancouver/Lower Mainland BC

Other regions in the country are minor in comparison.

To travel between any major city in Australia (exception: Canberra), you're talking 725+ km distance. That will inherently lend itself to a larger number of people flying.

I don't think we should emulate Australia economically either. They're hugely dependent on coal and iron as exports and to a housing bubble. They've a tiny manufacturing industry which is wilting - auto production has ceased in the country fairly recently.

The real world isn't SimCity. Country X doesn't have the same things as Country Y because they both have the same population.

While I somewhat agree that we're an extension of the US economy, Canada has a much better track record than other English-speaking nations. Australia and New Zealand are very dependent on natural resources - much more than us. We've developed aircraft, smartphones, nuclear power plants and hydro dams on a scale that would make them both green with envy. Certainly we're not Germany or the US (and indeed going the wrong way IMO), but I still think there's some spark there.

Our health system is mediocre, but it's not fair to compare it to ones in densely populated European nations. Ours has to provide the same levels of service (or some facsimile of) to places like Hearst, ON and Flin Flon, MB as it does to Calgary and Toronto. Not many European nations have to cope with that except maybe Sweden, Norway or Finland - all of whom have much higher tax rates. Servicing a relatively small and dense country like Denmark with health service is a much easier prospect.

I do agree about our military. It does need funding and a concentrated rebuilding effort that lasts at least a decade. We've simply stretched out equipment until it is completely worn out and it's getting embarrassing.

However, this is the airport thread, so I digress on this matter.

If french Canadians traveled across the country to the same extent as people from other provinces do, our numbers would be closer to 80 million+. Which would put us in 7th spot, ahead of Australia and Russia, and behind Brazil.

Then we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Numbers would still need to jump 50% from 80 million to 120 million to match Australia. Our population (customer base) is 50% larger. :)