Where did Icelandair say they will return next year?

I can just imagine some 50+ year olds sitting around talking in the upper lounge of a 747 in 1970, guessing at where the aircraft industry was going. I can guarantee that neither said "Gee, I really hope we come up with some kind of really great precision approach method to allow me to land in Castlegar in a thunderstorm" lol. I can just see them lamenting that they probably won't live long enough to see the coming 3 hour flights between New York and Australia or whatever. After all, we just put a man on the moon and only 10 years earlier, almost all passenger aircraft had propellers. One can only imagine what the next 50 years would bring. Just imagine their disappointment that they don't even get to sit in a 747 upper lounge anymore lol.

Sometimes technology plateaus due to physics. Or economics drives technology in a different direction than is expected. Or the hundreds of little improvements that make life easier today don't really alter life in such a dramatic fashion.

I mean, cars still have 4 wheels, a steering wheel and foot pedals to operate the gas and brakes. However, a 1958 Impala and a 2018 Impala are quite different underneath, despite being similar from a user perspective.

My 'lament' as it were is that economics drives things to lowest cost, which kind of leads to homogenization. It truly is a first-world complaint, but there is a little place in my heart for those who dare to be different. For instance, Mazda was the only automaker who used non-piston engines in their cars; they used a rotary engine. Or the 747 being a daring piece of machinery.

Unfortunately, I realize I'm part of the problem. For all the interesting things that are produced, I've never owned a rotary-engine car, nor have I paid more to fly on a 747.

Similarly, when aviation first took off, there was a huge diversity in wing designs. Everything from one wing to more than you can count, wings in the shape of circular wings, and three sets of wings...

AC released their Q2 results today. The airline reported a loss of C$1.75 billion, compared with a profit of C$343 million, a year earlier. The company has $9.12 billion in liquidity as of June 30.

Total revenue for the quarter was $527 million, half of which was from cargo. Air Canada projects a net cash burn of $15-$17 million per day, on average, in Q3 2020, compared to $19 million a day, on average, in Q2 2020.

Passengers carried was down 96% in Q2. Capacity in Q3 2020 will be 80% lower compared to the same quarter in 2019.

Some interesting comments by Rovinescu.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-a...KCN24W1HB?il=0

Now threatening to cancel A220 orders. Let's see if that will hit home with Trudeau.

Yeah, they only announced cancelling flights this summer. After further digging, no flights are bookable in S21 so far. So they belong in the uncertain category. Thanks.
Copa also pushed back their resumption date to October 5, 2020.

a look at air canada during covid

• Video Link

It's a cargo flight.

PEK is currently not a port of entry airport for China, so the return flight YUL-PEK must be a cargo flight.

Right now there are 2 Canadian flights to PEK
CA YVR-SHE-PEK
HU YYZ-XIY-PEK


Here is the list of YVR

• Japan Airlines (never stopped service)
• All Nippon Airways
• Korean Air
• China Airlines
• EVA Air (never stopped service)
• Air China (never stopped service)
• China Southern (never stopped service)
• Sichuan Airlines (never stopped service)
• Xiamen Airlines (never stopped service)
• Cathay Pacific (never stopped service)
• Philippine Airlines
• KLM
• Lufthansa
• Aeromexico

Many of the airlines run very low frequency (some were every 10-14 days for a month or so I believe). Anything beyond that I put them in the stopped service category.

Planned to resume/new service:

• China Eastern - August 4, 2020
• British Airways - September 1, 2020
• Turkish Airlines - September 2, 2020 (new service)
• Air France - October 25, 2020
• Air New Zealand - October 25, 2020

Anything beyond Oct 25 I'll throw them in the questionable category:
Qantas, Beijing Capital Airlines, Hainan Airlines, Interjet, Condor, Edelweiss Air, Icelandair

The list does not include the following airlines with fuel stop and crew change at YVR:
Air France, Air Tahiti, French Bee

^

The fact they used the regular passenger flight numbers threw me off. Are all Chinese carriers doing that?

The only other major carrier (besides Chinese) that I’m aware of doing that is BA. BA98/99 to YYZ never stopped running, but it was solely a cargo flight for a month or two.

I like AC’s and other majors’ system better. Cargo flights have separate flight numbers. Regardless of route. Makes it easier to figure out what’s what.

Actually, a lot of the Airlines in Asia are doing that. The cargo flight numbers are only used on cargo planes, while passenger plane carrying cargo uses passenger flight number.

For instance, CZ used to run almost daily CZ329/330 to YVR. Only 1 of the flight carry passenger while the others are cargo. There are a few instance where passenger and cargo flights were operated on the same day at almost the same time. The passenger flight was CZ329, and the cargo one was CA329A.

Even for AF, the first flight for CDG-YVR-PPT was merely for reposition, crew, and maybe cargo and was not opened for sale. Flight number was AF74, the same as other passenger flights to start on the following week. If it was AC, it would have been AC70xx or AC22xx.

I'm curious about how much of AC's loss was aircraft writedowns. They dumped their Rouge A319s, Boeing 767 fleet and E190s. Not that the rest of the financials look good, but Q2 will likely be the worst from that point of view.

I view aircraft cancellations as inevitable. The Boeing 737 MAX has the greater risk of being a pariah in the current climate, given the poor perception of the plane and AC's previous cancellation of 11 of them in 2020. Given that Boeing has to work out compensation for the grounding still, a pain-free exit from several more orders may be AC's strategy.

The A220 probably will suffer from reduced orders as well, but I'm not sure it'll really hold much sway with the Trudeau Liberals. The airliner industry is already a bloodbath and Bombardier's basically out of the business now, so the benefit of handing cash to AC won't really change the outcome of what happens to the A220.

That being said, I'm not hugely surprised at the attempt for shaking the government down for some money.

$295 million.

Page 8.

https://www.aircanada.com/content/da...020_FSN_q2.pdf

If I was the government I would play hardball with AC. The main reason is AC is playing games and that is waste of time for everyone.

The government should remind AC the deal was they buy the aircraft and the government lets them out of the requirement to do heavy maintenance in Canada. They want out, so they now need to present the plan for bringing heavy maintenance back to Canada.

The government then needs to go the other airlines, and say "Interest free loan to buy Canadian made A220; who is interested?"

AC (and WS) are in a fight for survival. Why would you play hardball with them?

Lots of other countries, including the USA, have given aid to their airlines. Why Trudeau, after handing out money left and right, is reluctant is a mystery.

A 767 to a 787 is not merely a step forward or 'refining', but a radical new approach to how an aircraft is engineered.

Yeah, but you are missing the last line of that quote, which is the point. Capturing the public's imagination. It wasn't that long ago that the A380 first started flying into Toronto, and people used to line up on the sides of the highways around the airport to see it. A 787 might be light years ahead of a 767 in technology, but the general public aren't lining up on 27 to see it, or particularly caring whether they have one on their flight.

Fair.

When I went to Australia last fall we had a 380 and it was a wonderful experience.

One might argue the wage-subsidy program is a form of aid.

I think the government is trying to avoid favouritism by aiming the relief packages wide. By giving each industry an arbitrary package, the government would encourage everybody to come to the them and cry 'bail me out!'.

To be fair, that's not true of only them, and not only in an economic sense.

Both AC and WS have benefited from the wage subsidy program that is paying anywhere from 75& to 100% of their front line employees salaries until December 15th. That is without any strings attached requiring them to fly.

If AC was upfront asking for help I would say the government should try to help.

If AC is publicly suggesting canceling the A220 order (for jets made in Montreal) as a way of generating political pressure for a better deal from the government then they are playing games and should be treated as such.

I would harbour a guess that AC is bluffing. They know that the A220 is a excellent fit in their fleet plan and really couldn’t make do without it.