Actually YYT-YUL was upped from 3 E75s to 2 mix 319/321.

What? What will you do?

Sure looks like YYT passenger numbers are decreasing at the same rate the NL population is. I'm only half-serious of course but there's some correlation.

The article mentions seat count is down something like 8% while passengers are down 4% so presumably the flights we've managed to keep are fuller.

I'm not really worried yet, assuming those totals include the commuter workforce that travels to/from Alberta every couple of weeks. That's like, what? 10,000-30,000 people? They're not going to Alberta much anymore, so that alone could be most of the decline.

However, we're seeing crap in related areas also. Our own economy means corporate hotel stays are down and vacancies have been WAY up. Our tourist season is still a narrow strip of spring (icebergs/whales) and summer, and the summer tourists are mostly just North Americans, so likely with some family connection here.

It's been a rough few years, for sure.

Anyone has St. John's airport numbers for 2018? I can't find them anywhere.

Wikipedia's page for the busiest airports in the country could then be updated to include St. John's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...orts_in_Canada

^^Looks like Saskatoon airport increases and St. Johns airport decreases have translated into a switching of positions over the last year on List-of-busiest-Canadian-airports, maybe even Regina airport bumping up a notch as well this year or next year...


Wait..What? Loss of Dublin flight and grounding of Max has left Newfoundlanders stranded out of Province?

That St Johns airport is probably the main way for Newfoundlanders to get off the island. Since most airlines use the hub-&-spoke system, having more direct flights to Halifax or Ottawa probably does make most sense.

You would think though if Condor can have 9 hour non-stop flights from Whitehorse, Yukon to Frankfurt, that Newfoundland could somehow coax a RyanAir or IcelandAir to have a 6 hour flight to Europe but maybe there isn't enough demand. Newfoundland has 0.1% of North America's population, if an European airline is to add another flight across the Atlantic it's probably going to go to a higher population/tourist centre. :shrug:

https://www.condor.com/eu/flights/canada/whitehorse/

MAX probably had something to do with it, yes. There just weren't as many flights. And we had a storm Christmas Eve. But for example my parents' neighbours had their kids and grandkids coming home from Alberta. They were stuck in Toronto for a day, then finally they spent Christmas in Deer Lake, by the time they arrived in St. John's they had less than a day before they had to go back to Alberta.

I'm sure that commonly happens to a few people, but just in the circle I know of, there were lots this year. I mean, Deer Lake volunteers had to organize a Christmas dinner for hundreds stranded there.

^^ oh geez, i'm sorry, I wasn't even thinking.. yes it's winter and snow, looks like St John's got like half a meter of the white stuff, looks pretty though.
Hope you had a Merry Xmas :cheers:

https://www.thetelegram.com/news/loc...-johns-391726/

It'd have to be a more popular way to get off the island than the ferries. They hardly ever run this time of year, so many delays.

I think if we can support three seasonal direct flights to Florida, we can swing one to Europe. We just need one for us regular folk. The London direct flight from Air Canada is too expensive.

Just one. The flying to Halifax or, when I was a teenager, Toronto, before turning around and flying twice as far west KILLS me. I'm sure it's a personality defect. Like if I leave work at 4 p.m. and I have a family event or something at 7 p.m., those three hours might as well not exist to me. I can't enjoy them, can't do anything, until I'm truly done and home for good. Flying west forever when I want to go east is the same lol It just kills me. I know I deserve it, but I spent it just sitting there fuming. Like in September. Leave St. John's, sitting on a plane for 2 hours, layover in Halifax, sitting on a plane again... you're at least 5 hours travelling before you move a single inch closer to Europe. Then, four and a half hours later, you're there. It's so annoying.

Yes, Christmas was wonderful. :D And same to you!

I think it's safe to say almost all of YYT's declines have been due to:
-Losing LGW on WS
-Losing DUB on WS
-Losing YOW on WS
-Having LHR on AC suspended until the MAX gets back in the air, will mean at least a year
-Having YOW on AC periodically suspended this summer due to the MAX
-Seeing PD reduce from year-round at YYT to summer seasonal only
-Seeing AC reduce YOW from year-round at YYT to summer seasonal only

Add all that up and you can see why YYT's lost about 150k passengers from their peak.

The gains in that time have been
-Gaining 3x summer seasonal weekly to YEG on WS
-Gaining a bit more capacity to YUL in summer thanks to switching from mainline to Rouge

Gaining the 4x weekly to YHM next summer, plus if LHR comes back later in 2020, meaning YOW should have a full E90 summer should get YYT back up to at least 2018 numbers.

Apparently YUL surpassed the 20 million pax mark on December 20th (symbolic 20 on 20): https://www.newswire.ca/news-release...888918160.html

YOW's November pax stats are out:

Sector / Nov-18 / Nov-19 / % Change
Dom: 317,088 / 310,590 / -2.0%
TB: 54,845 / 47,522 / -13.4%
Int'l: 19,818 / 22,572 / +13.9%
TTL: 391,751 / 380,684 / -2.8%

Sector YTD 2018 / YTD 2019 / % Change
Dom: 3,688,959 / 3,680,278 / -0.2%
TB: 654,606 / 627,661 / -4.1%
Int'l: 342,945 / 379,228 / +10.6%
TTL: 4,686,510 / 4,687,167 / +0.01%


12 Months Rolling % Change vs Year End 2018
Dom: 3,993,528 / -0.2%
TB: 693,825 / -3.7%
Int'l: 424,105 / +9.4%
TTL: 5,111,458 +0.01%

So for 2019, it looks like domestic will again fall slightly below 4 million, while transborder is back below 700,000. On the other hand, international will have its best year since 2015 and the question will be whether YOW can finish 2019 above 5.1 million.

YYC November stats are out:

Domestic: 881,896 -0.7% (2019 to date: 11,507,660 +2.28%)
Transborder: 275,274 +2.9% (2019 to date: 3,239,418 +5.51%)
International: 136,833 +6.4% (2019 to date: 1,750,897 +9.40%)
November Total: 1,294,003 +0.8%

2019 Year to Date Total: 16,497,975 +3.62%

https://www.yyc.com/Portals/0/MEDIA/...r_paxtotal.pdf

Will probably end up falling just short of 18 million. International still leading impressive growth despite losing HU, and AC reducing capacity on LHR.

YYZ hasn't noted anything yet, but I imagine numbers crossed 50 million passengers for 2019 over the past 14 days or thereabouts.

Refueller strike at YUL today as of 11am. A lot of delayed and cancelled flights. (Cancelations mostly on domestic short haul runs from what I can see on admtl.com).

https://montrealgazette.com/news/loc...l-go-on-strike

Good time to be sitting on a beach in Florida, which is exactly where I’m at currently.

2019 was quite a good year for YUL, and 2020 looks promising as well. We should get close to (or maybe even surpass) 21 million next year, what with all the new airlines/routes coming online in summer 2020.

Happy new year from Trump country!

Don't know if this has been shared...but YXX (Abbotsford) passed the 1 million passenger mark in 2019. A milestone for sure, riding high on 18.7% growth yoy.

YXX had fewer than 500k PAX in 2015 and could be nipping at the heels of YQR in 2020/2021. Growth would seem to be led by Westjet/Swoop.

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-...engers-in-2019

Good to hear for YXX! I always used to think of YXX as big competition for YVR but I think the valley is getting so big now, that airport really serves that region moreso than for "bargain hunters" from Metro Van who would otherwise choose YVR. YVR's domestic numbers aren't bad at all, and really most of YXX's traffic is domestic, so I'm not sure how much additional demand is created by YXX being there, or if all of those pax would otherwise have driven to YVR. I'd say a lot would fly less if YXX wasn't there with good service options, And also it makes the lower mainland seem pretty substantial to have two busy airports so close together, it is typically something only seen by much much larger regions like the Golden Horseshoe, Chicagoland, Greater LA, NYC, etc. Not really something you see in smaller-medium sized areas.

I did not know YYC lost its PEK flight.

It was reduced to summer seasonal. Presently its planned to resume in late March (similar to what happened with BA / AC's NRT last year).

A Boeing 737 just overshot Runway 14 at YHZ. Does not appear to be any injuries.