Boeing Soars on Letter of Intent for 200 of its 737 Max Planes

https://www.thestreet.com/markets/bo...n-air-14994495

it's skytrax, so I disagree.

Anything skytrax says is rubbish.

Seems like "rubbish" is my word of the day, because that is what a LOI (letter of intent) is. There is no deposit, no guarantee the airline will actually order the planes. Heck, with an LOI, the airline doesnt even need to choose the engine manufacturer. This is simply Boeing being desperate to show some positive news ref. MAXgate.

Boeing: " Here, look ! A top airline alliance told us they intend, maybe, eventually, on ordering 200 Max planes! How exciting !"

Now I'm not saying IAG wont follow through on their LOI and make this a firm order, but until that happens, this is a non-event.

Transport Canada has approved the merger of First Air and Canadian North. The feds have already approved it.

may effect operations in Edmonton Winnipeg and Ottawa.

Jean-Lesage Airport (YQB), in Quebec City, can finally (!) be reached by transit.

Quebec City travellers can now take the bus to get to airport

Service will run every 30 minutes from Jean-Lesage airport to Ste-Foy and eventually downtown

CBC News · Posted: Jun 15, 2019 5:30 PM ET

Passengers who land at Quebec City's Jean-Lesage Airport will now have a more affordable option to get downtown.

As of June 15, public buses will regularly service the airport, linking the main terminal to the Ste-Foy bus and train stations.

The 76 bus line will run every 30 minutes from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Another bus route will also be added in August to bring passengers directly downtown, to the Saint-Roch neighbourhood. The 80 bus line will also run every half-hour.

Ongoing demands for a public transit route from the tourism and business industries pushed the transit authority, the Réseau de Transport de la Capitale (RTC), to offer the service.

President Rémy Normand expects both routes will be in high demand.

"When you add on a new service like this — the impact is pretty much immediate," said Normand.

Competition for taxis

Prior to the change, only a few buses made the trip on weekdays, mainly for airport employees during morning and evening commutes.

This left a large piece of the pie to the taxi industry.

Taxi driver Kader Drareni isn't however too concerned over the competition.

"The bus won't take people straight to their homes or to their hotel," said Drareni.

Transport minister 'confident' he can secure funding for Quebec City tramway
"There are still customers who will want to take the taxi to get from Point A to Point B."

The standard $3,50 fare for the RTC buses will apply to both bus routes — the flat fee for a taxi ride to downtown costs $34,50.

Never really understood the reluctance cities tend to have for running transit out to the airports. (Well, the taxi industry campaigning against it is obvious). Airport transit isn't really for the passengers though that seems to be what the media hooks onto.

Instead you need to look at the airport workers, and the workers of the industries that tend to cluster around said airport. They're the ones who will be using it daily, and every worker that takes the bus or train instead of driving is one less parking spot needed for employees (and eventually one more parking spot available for Long Term parking rates)

The UP Express at YYZ was originally priced to accommodate their “premium airline passengers” but within a few months, those fares were reduced substantially, as airport workers who wished to use the service couldn’t afford those initial fares. The one time I used it, it wasn’t a packed train by any stretch of the imagination, and I didn’t see any visible airport workers on it. But the majority of the travellers didn’t look very “premium” to me (not a lot of business suits, but rather shorts and flip flops).

One of te reasons would be that work schedules don't often compliment transit schedules very well for airport workers. Very early mornings, evenings and late nights are typical shift start/end times. Transit schedules typically peak during the day and either disappear or are greatly reduced in evenings, early morning, and at night.

Not an excuse but you would need to find cities willing to run transit with good frequency at times most of their fleet is not in order to make it work for employees.

Taxi is one, but threatening parking revenue is bigger.

Do airports really get that much net income from parking to matter?

Parking structures aren't the cheapest things to build or maintain.

2019 YTD April international numbers (unless otherwise noted) for North America's busiest airports.

1. YYZ 10,657,685 (+4.8%)
2. JFK 10,166,639, (+6.5%)
3. LAX 7,975,009 (-1%)
4. MIA 7,712,227 (+5.2%)
5. CUN 7,594,936 (+1.1%) (YTD May 2019)
6. PTY
7. MEX 5,537,565 (+2.9%)
8. SFO 4,477,398 (+8.1%)
9. EWR 4,346,151 (+4.3%)
10. YVR 4,303,979 (+3.9%)
11. YUL 4,165,117 (+7.9%)
12. ORD (hasn't posted April yet)
13. ATL 4,044,496 (+1.3%)

Managed to find MEX (YTD April) and CUN (Q1 and YTD May) numbers, so added them.

EWR overtook both YVR and YUL. Simply means April is a weak month for both YUL and YVR for international travel, even though both airports had healthy increases.

SFO leads the pack in terms of Y.O.Y Intl growth %, with YUL in close second. LAX is interesting, as it is the only major airport on the list (barring PTY) with a decrease in traffic for the first 4 months of the year.

So at long last mainline returns to YXY. Are these all winter 2019-20 schedule changes?

PS: Feel free to go into detail. :)

Toronto Pearson Revenue (in Millions) for Q1 2019

Landing Fees: 78.4 Million
Concessions & rentals: 67.6 Million
Parking and ground transportation: 49.6 million
General terminal charges: 47.8
Other: 9.1 Million

(page 10 if you are looking, 2019 report)
https://www.torontopearson.com/en/co...ns-and-reports

WS has updated its schedule through August in regards to the Max8 grounding.

https://blog.westjet.com/westjet-upd...-max-schedule/

Noteworthy: YHZ-CDG remains suspended until August 29.

Skeds are now live for Air India's return to YYZ. From routesonline.com:

3x's weekly with 777-300ER, effective Sept 27

AI187 DEL0300 – 0845YYZ 77W 135
AI188 YYZ1145 – 1230+1DEL 77W 135

YYC MAY 2019 STATS: Domestic/Transborder's growth was likely partially slowed by the MAX8 grounding.

International had the highest increase.

Domestic: 1,040,708 +3.4%
Transborder: 269,013 +2.2%
International: 132,544 +7.6%
May overall: 1,442,265 +3.5%
2019 Year to Date: 7,025,575 +4.58%

Last 12 months (May 2018-May 2019) 17,651,246. (+6.02%)

Full details: https://www.yyc.com/en-us/media/fact...tatistics.aspx

I was always surprised that PIA could always make Toronto work, but Air India never could. Good to see them trying again in Toronto.

More WS winter changes:

YYC-PUJ *NEW* 1x Weekly 763 Eff Dec. 13
YYJ-SJD *NEW* 1x Weekly 737 Eff Nov. 5
YYC-CUN - 763 replaces 738 on various days.

That is an abysmal departure time out of DEL. When AC42/43 returns, AI will have a tough time competing.