:haha: Yeah. I'm very disappointed.

It's not even a meaningful argument, just a throwaway point. Oh well.

AC upgauging YUL-NCE next summer to a mainline A333, and increasing overall frequency to 5x weekly. This year the route was 4x weekly Rouge B763.

YUL-BOD will also be returning as 3x weekly Rouge B763 next year, AC sources confirming the success of the route this year. (BOD was supposed to be served by the 737Max.)

Combined with their mainline A333 service to LYS and Rouge service to MRS, as well as their recently announced TLS mainline A333 service, AC seems to be doing pretty well on YUL-France. Amazing to think that a few years ago, their lone destination in mainland France was CDG.

Virgin Atlantic named YYZ, YVR and YYC as possible future destinations. https://thepointsguy.com/news/virgin...n=thepointsguy

....along with 80 other cities across the globe......lol

Dont hold your breath. Or do, but you're going to have to hold it until 2026, at the earliest. Honestly, reading past the first sentence of that thing is waste of time.

Also, they tried LHR-YVR a few years ago. It failed.

I think you're just butthurt that YUL is nowhere on that list... lol

Speaking of YUL, AC is adding year-round YUL-BOG from June 2020

https://aircanada.mediaroom.com/2019...ogota-Colombia

My comments would have been the same with YUL on that list. Besides, YUL is not a “virgin”. We like proper airlines here, like Austrian or Brussels, especially when they walk on over from YYZ...;)

That is why I said "possible" destinations. I know that it is a long shot.

It is nice to see at least one foreign carrier has some interest in YYC though. :haha:

Great add. Avianca had applied to start the route, but their recent financial troubles prevented them from doing so. AC adding it is even better. I guess the frame is coming from NCE going mainline.

YUL keeps gobbling up new airlines/destinations ! We are definately passing ATL this year in terms of international passengers handled, and at this rate, we are bound to overtake YVR in a year or two. We're not far off. We already handled more international passengers than YVR in March 2019.

Well, one thing is for sure, YUL is good at stealing traffic and carriers from YYZ... both Austrian and Brussels were squeezed out by AC starting their prospective routes, which sucks for spotters at YYZ, although the amount of lift actually increased with the AC adds.

The same thing happened with Swiss, many years ago. Again, very disappointing for spotters at YYZ. AC would love to have YYZ all to themselves.

I think that YVR will surprise you with their resilience as number 2 gateway into Canada. Traffic to China is way down right now due to political issues, but that should rebound one day, and YVR is the natural transpacific gateway.

Well, um, yay?

I'm sure that an airport several thousand kilometers away is hugely concerned that another airport several thousand kilometers away serving a completely different market beat it in the number of passengers it served.

What do I care if ATL or YVR are concerned or not. I'm just going up the list. Could have been any other airports above YUL. It happens to be ATL and YVR.

Speaking of YVR, there is no denying that Craig Richmond desperately wants a South American flight.

YVR should be concerned, not by international passenger numbers, but by the fact that, once again, AC chose YUL for such a flight, and not YVR. You guys keep knocking down on Rouge over on the YVR thread. Look at what they have helped achieve at YYZ/YUL in terms of long haul destinations.

You should be concerned...

Maybe there's less demand for South America from YVR?

The narrative of AC favouring a market seems to be one of maximizing profits, not making airports jealous of each other.

Nobody makes hay about YVR destroying YUL from a trans-Pacific point-of-view if I'm not mistaken.

Where did I say YUL is destroying YVR?

All I'm saying is, I'm pretty sure Craig is in his office right now, saying "fuck, I wish we had gotten that flight to BOG" ! He probably said the same thing a few months ago too, when YUL got GRU.

Or consoling himself with his six-figure salary.

:shrug:

$100,001? Higher?

Hearing on another forum that WS wants to sell their 763s PDQ and all aircraft could be gone by next summer.

This summer has the 763s on the following routes:
- YYZ-LGW
- YYZ-BCN
- YWG-LGW
- YEG-LGW
- YVR-LGW

YYZ-LGW converts to Dreamliner service this winter. Safe bet that YVR-LGW can handle the dreamliner w/o tanking yields. BCN and YEG/YWG to LGW are low yield routes.

IF the 763s are gone this will be a low growth year for WS on International front.

about YVR this came up in a recent article

“We are expecting a couple of new ones,” he said. “I cant tell you exactly what they are – possibly inter-continental. We would have more new routes within the U.S., I think, if it weren’t for the 737-Max issue.”

Cathay Pacific to cut Vancouver-New York route next spring

Frequency on Cathay Pacific's Hong Kong-Vancouver route will also be reduced

By Glen Korstrom | September 13, 2019

https://biv.com/article/2019/09/cath...SjDTY34UmzdAgk

Why is that concerning at all? Montreal is nearly twice as close to Bogota as Vancouver. It's barely further to fly from YUL to BOG as it is to fly YUL to YVR. It's well within MAX range and I wouldn't be too surprised to see YYZ and YUL go MAX once this whole kerfuffle is sorted out.

If YUL-BOG was mainline widebody and not Rouge then maybe it would be concerning, but as it stands YVR-BOG would require a 787 and that's a lot of expensive plane to put on a route when there are probably bigger fish to fry with that dreamliner. This wasn't a point where they picked YUL over YVR, the flight as it exists from YUL isn't possible from YVR.

And for the record, I'm one of the ones who laments the closure of the Rouge base at YVR, but that ship has sailed so the airport needs to focus on high yielding mainline routes to grow. Maybe they bring it back in the few years and YVR can score some easy routes for growth, but we'll have to wait and see what happens there.