I thought they would use some A321 too? If not, this is not a capacity increase on a daily basis. It's just bigger aircrafts and reduced frequencies.

I think this is strategical more than anything else.

The Rouge widebody fleet is maxed out at 25. Only the narrowbody fleet can grow, but that requires growth at mainline as well. So if mainline gets a Max 8, Rouge can get an A319 or A321. Same for when mainline will get the CSeries.

The only way Rouge fleet can grow without mainline growing as well is if Rouge is used to replaced AC regional routes. (i.e AC Express B190, CRJ, E175, Q100/300/400).

Cue YUL/YYZ-YQB going Rouge (5x daily for YQB, 1x daily for YUL). I suspect more high frequency regional routes will follow, much to the displeasure of the flying public. Not that it matters.

Also, when AC receives all of its B787s, Rouge narrowbody can grow without restrictions.

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/ai...form=hootsuite

Also confirmed, AC will lease 4 A333s from 2019 onwards. The A333 is ideal for East Coast - Europe/Africa flights, has a cheaper "cost per seat mile" than the dreamliner on shorter routes, and will most likely be used to replace routes currently operated by Rouge 767s, as that fleet is maxed out, enabling Rouge to expand to other destinations.

YUL is currently the only pilot base for the A333, as almost all A333s fly out of YUL. Will be interesting to see if YYZ gets a pilot base for that type once again, with 4 more frames in the fleet.

anna.aero has an interesting seasonal variation in demand calculator. (SVID)

http://www.anna.aero/databases/

You download the spreadsheet, plug in the monthly passenger numbers, and it gives you a value.

0.0 - 1.9 = Excellent
2.0 - 9.9 = Good
10.0 - 19.9 = Poor
20.0 - 99.9 = Managerial and operational challenges
Over 100 = Why bother opening in the off-peak ?

Ex.

FRA 2.4
BCN 5.4
JFK 1.89
HKG 0.45
LHR 0.9
GRU 0.9

I did this for Canada's busiest airports, and this is what I got.

YYZ (2016 numbers) - 1.9
YVR - 2.0
YUL - 2.5
YYC - 1.1
YEG - 0.6
YOW - 0.2
YWG - 1.3

Would have been interesting to do YHZ as well, but dont have access to the monthly pax numbers. Interesting that out of the top 7, YOW leads the way.

Kind of ironic. We always say Canada is a very seasonal market, and yet it scores good to excellent at the busiest airports. Guess the winter sun traffic balances better than we think with the summer travel season.

So 4 more A333s by Dec 31, 2019.
Rouge will go up to 53 frames by then as well. 25 B767s, 6 A321s, 22 A319s.
1 B767 will be left at mainline by the end of 2019.

https://www.aircanada.com/content/da...017_MDA_q4.pdf

Page 42.

That one remaining 767 does not make a lot of sense. If AC owned it, you would think it would make its way on the market and be sold to Amazon or someone else interested in turning it into a cargo aircraft. Perhaps it is a lease they have that has another year or two on it before it gets returned.

More likely it'll be replaced by another 333, beyond the end of the chart.

I've always been perplexed as to why there are no direct flights to either Singapore or Johannesburg (busiest airport in Africa) from any Canadian city, two key international cities that I would thing would be vital connections for Canada, economically and culturally.

Singapore might work from Vancouver. The trip requires too much fuel/too little load for Toronto. Singapore Airlines couldn't make business-class only Singapore-New York flights feasible, so Toronto has no chance. If Singapore Airlines can make their upcoming A350ULR economics work, Toronto might be in the running. That's quite a bit in the future though.

Johannesburg is a hot-and-high airport, so there is problems with fully loaded flights making the trip to Toronto.

Air Canada used to fly from Toronto to Singapore in the past but it involved a stop in London and India on the way to Singapore.

Singapore airlines use to fly to Vancouver, but involved a stop in South Korea.

China Southern increasing CAN-YYZ to daily effective Jun 15....

Seems like something will be done to CAN-YVR-MEX...

Or transfer of Cargo flights to passenger.

What makes you think that? They were flying for nearly a decade. They stopped flights because they retired the A340. They still fly the A380 to New York and plan to resume non-stop A350 flights in the near future

Big capacity boost for CZ to Canada this year with the CAN-YVR terminator service going 773 and now YYZ going daily.

Hopefully the only casualty is cargo service and not PAX service.

If you are going to have a stop or two, may as well send them via someone in your alliance.

Makes more sense for AC to connect you somewhere in Asia and connect to Singapore, or connect you somewhere in Europe before heading to SA.

Seems to coincide with the finalization of AC and CA's JV in ~May 2018.....

Really interested to see what transpires. Even if the bilateral is unchanged the fifth freedoms have openess to them, only limited by what the goverment's transport agencies are willing to agree to.

I also wonder if this will allow CA/AC to shuffle routes, similar to how LH seems to have "first dibs" on TATL *A flights to germany from YVR. Could AC introduce new china service from another canadian city if (for example) CA service to YVR is enhanced and AC was to scale down and redeploy?

The New York Times seems to think the economics didn't work. The A340 isn't the most efficient plane.

"Aviation analysts blame economic realities. A barrel of crude oil has tripled in cost since the inaugural voyage of SQ 22 in mid-2004. (For four years, patrons could choose between business and coach class, which was still upscale enough to serve buffet meals.)

“Ultralong-haul flights like this are essentially flying jet fuel tankers,” said Robert Mann, an industry consultant based in Port Washington, N.Y."

New York Times Article on SQ21/22

The A380 makes a layover in Frankfurt - the route isn't non-stop. I presumed non-stop is what the poster was referring to.

SQ themselves have said the nonstop will come back soon with the A350

Alaska Airlines is ending it's agreements with Air France/KLM on April 30th, but maintaining agreements with most of the OneWorld members (AA, BA, CX, JL etc). Like how Westjet is codesharing with more Skyteam partners, AS is now formally cutting ties with a main Skyteam member and aligning with OneWorld. It's always been interesting to me that they partner with a "competitor" in their home turf (American Airlines). They codeshare with them quite a bit. Now that AS has merged with Virgin, I wonder if one day AA will just swallow them

It wouldn't surprise me to see Alaska merged with American in the not too distant future (<10 years or so).