TAP is the next airline eyeing Montreal. Link in Portuguese only, but use google translate.

https://jornaleconomico.sapo.pt/noti...imo-ano-352378

If it materializes for summer 2019, they will be the 29th foreign carrier at YUL. The A321neo and 737 Max are proving to be ideal for the smaller markets between YUL and Western Europe.

If this happens, YUL and YYZ will both have 4 carriers on their LIS route which I find a bit over kill for YUL.

SATA
AC rouge
Transat
TAP

As far as YUL is concerned.....

SATA is 1x weekly via Ponta Delgada, summer seasonal
AC is 3x weekly summer seasonal
TS is 4x or 5x weekly during peak summer only, the rest of the year it's 3x weekly (Nov-April)

Between the three of them, it's just 8x or 9x weekly flights at peak. If TAP launches, it will most likely be year round (all of TAP's routes are year round), so the only other player in winter is TS, and considering it will most likely be an A321neo as well, will not add that many seats during the summer. The route looks crowded, but in fact it isn't.

Considering TAP is Star Alliance, it should have an advantage over TS and SATA, as connections will be possible on both sides of the pond.

Air transat wants to start YYZ-Dubrovnik and possibly YUL-Zagreb. 140,000 Canadians visited Croatia last year, up 24% over 2016.

https://www.exyuaviation.com/2018/09...h-air.html?m=1

There was a closed door Hamilton council meeting last week about the airport and now word is out that an expansion plan will be unveiled shortly.

Hamilton International Doubling Winter Flights For Coming Season

AIRLINES & AIRPORTS JIM BYERS SEPTEMBER 13, 2018
https://ca.travelpulse.com/news/airl...ng-season.html

Ontario’s Hamilton International Airport has a full slate of winter flights on the way and twice the winter capacity as last year.

John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport is happy to announce that its winter seat capacity is twice the size of last year, thanks to the return of several popular destinations, as well as the launch of some new routes this winter. Whether passengers want to fly to destinations in Canada, Florida, Las Vegas, Mexico, the Caribbean and Europe, Hamilton International wants customers to know ‘we fly there’.

Year-round service continues from Hamilton to Abbotsford, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Montreal and Halifax with partners Air Canada, Swoop or WestJet. In October, Swoop will also introduce service to the popular U.S. destinations of Las Vegas, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale and Tampa Bay. Returning sun destinations in Cuba, Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Mexico will be served by Air Transat, Sunwing or Swoop.

At the end of March, Norwegian Airlines will commence non-stop, daily service from Hamilton to Dublin, Ireland. This new route will be the Airport’s first and much-anticipated transatlantic service from Hamilton in 10 years.

Here are some additional details providing more information about the exciting 2018/2019 winter program for each airline flying from Hamilton International Airport:

– Air Canada will introduce a third daily flight from Hamilton to Montreal on October 29. This mid-day flight will offer fantastic options to passengers looking to travel from Hamilton to additional connecting destinations in Canada such as Ottawa, Quebec City and St. John’s through Air Canada’s Montreal hub. In addition, ideal connections are also available to the U.S. destinations of New York, Chicago, Boston; the Europe destinations of London, Paris and Frankfurt; and the destinations of Tokyo and Shanghai in Asia.

– Air Transat will bring back weekly flights to Cuba (Varadero – Saturday and Cayo Coco – Sunday), Dominican Republic (Punta Cana – Sunday and Puerto Plata – Monday) along with twice weekly to Mexico (Cancun – Tuesday, Saturday).

– Norwegian launches daily direct service from Hamilton to Dublin, Ireland beginning March 31, 2019. This new exciting transatlantic service will offer customers more connections throughout Europe via Dublin to destinations such as Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Helsinki.

– Sunwing will also offer weekly flights to Cuba (Varadero – Wednesday) and Dominican Republic (Punta Cana – Friday) along with air service to Jamaica (Montego Bay – Thursday).

– Swoop will offer a robust winter schedule for passengers looking to travel across Canada with daily frequencies to Abbotsford, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Halifax as well as popular U.S. destinations in Florida such as twice weekly flights to Fort Lauderdale (Friday, Saturday) as well as three times weekly service to Orlando (Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday) and Tampa Bay (Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday). Swoop will also operate four weekly flights to Las Vegas (Monday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday) from Hamilton. In addition to this list of destinations, today Swoop announced that this December it will begin service to Montego Bay, Jamaica twice weekly (Wednesday, Sunday).

– WestJet will continue to offer daily direct flights from Hamilton to Calgary which will offer travelers great connections to destinations in California, Hawaii and beyond.

Hamilton International remains your low-cost airport option for the busy winter and holiday travel season. Not only does Hamilton International host low-cost airlines, it offers low-cost parking options for as low as $15 a day. Easy access to Hamilton with minimal traffic congestion, and a short walk to the terminal and your gate make this an exciting time to fly from your low-cost airport.

Do you mean a physical expansion of the terminal?

oh Man, why just before I have to fly...:runaway:

I'm never generally nervous about flying but, when incidents like this happen on the exact same route i'm flying in a couple days (just in the reverse, Calgary to London), I get anxious :help:

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1879/...21bab2648e.jpg

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1898/...6de0a294b6.jpg

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-new...lgary-13236220

In more positive developments, i get to try out the new
SKYxe Maple Leaf Lounge in Saskatoon that opened this weekend :) Apparently, Saskatchewan Ontario & Alberta are the only 3 provinces in Canada to have multiple Maple Leaf Lounges (two each). :tup:

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1853/...c6962fa479.jpg

https://www.newswire.ca/news-release...693235961.html

YUL and YVR each have 3 maple leaf lounges, so technically, no.

I think you meant provinces with 2 or more airports with maple leaf lounges. In that case yes, it's 'Berta (YYC and YEG), Sask (YXE, YQR) and Ontario (YYZ, YOW).

As for your upcoming flight, don't be nervous. Flying is the safest way to travel, by far ! You'll be fine. Enjoy your trip !

^^ Yes! that is what I meant, 'airports' with Maple Leaf Lounges.
(YUL has one of the first Maple Leaf Lounges I had ever been to, last time I flew from Montreal a few years ago).

As far as flying goes, I fly fairly frequently between London & Calgary & Saskatoon these days & I'm almost never nervous about flying, I can sleep though taking off & landing generally. But I've had family & friends with close calls on certain airlines: Alaskan, WestWind, Malaysian (first time I ever had to check facebook for a friends last appearance/post to see if his Kuala Lumpur flight landed in the EU safely after flying over Ukraine) :(

While we are on the subject of Maple Leaf Lounges (MLL), its worth noting that the only airports that have more than 1 MLL are YYZ, YVR and YUL, with 3 each.

The fact AC is content with 1 MLL in YYC should tell you all you need to know about the importance of that airport in their network, at least as far as international travel is concerned, as it's the intl terminal that doesn't have a MLL.

The busiest airports in the country with no MLL are YTZ, YYJ, YLW and YQB.

YTZ has 2 Porter lounges. AC passengers have access to them.

YQB does have a very nice VIP lounge that opened a few years ago, which is available free of charge to AC J class passengers, Altitude Elite, Super elite, Star A Gold and ML Worldwide cardholders. So technically, Quebec also has 2 airports with AC lounges (so to speak) available to their highest tier passengers.

The YQB lounge was ranked No. 1 airport lounge in all of North America in 2015 by members of the Priority Pass Program.

https://www.aeroportdequebec.com/en/...-north-america

They probably saw an aircraft zoom by their window and thought it was a close call. In reality, those so called "close calls" are business as usual.

I'm sure it is business as usual, but seeing another aircraft on an intercept course with yours at a closing speed nearing 1800 km/hr, but at a flight level only 500 feet below your own is still kinda unnerving.

I've witnessed this a number of times, but it's a surprise every time.......

That's not the kind of 'close calls' i'm talking about, seeing planes flying in close proximity especially when on approach or flying after take off from airport is business as usual.

Booking a flight & saying 'mmm, maybe I should take the Wednesday flight instead of the Thursday flight' and then finding out later that the Thursday flight is shot down by a Russian missile could be a little more concerning especially next time you decide to fly. :(

500 feet would be an incident (and a close call) between two airliners. The minimum is 1000 ft. ;)

Yeah, the chances of that happening to someone are insanely rare. That would definately be a close call. But you understand my point that the average flyer has no clue what the rules of the air are, and therefore has no clue was constitutes a close call (2 planes seemingly on a collision course) or not.

You can tell by the facial expressions of the flight attendants if it's a close call or not.

Ya, i understand your point about what constitutes close calls/near misses on flights, it just has nothing to do with what I was talking about.
My 'close calls' makes one think more about what flights one books & what areas of the World are safe to fly over.
The only times I had ever thought of it before was flying out of Seoul and knew that flight paths never cross N Korean border, & flying from Capetown to Amsterdam, I must say I was a little nervous about flying over places like Algeria.

↓ exactly esquire :cheers:

^ Now that you have a MLL at your disposal in YXE, you can easily "self medicate" before takeoff :)

In reality, you have no control over who can/will shoot down an aircraft, no matter which airline/route you take. False sense of security, really. As esquire said, just self medicate beforehand and all your troubles will go away. And if something were to happen, getting blown up in a plane isn't all that bad. It'll be over instantaneously. There are worse ways to go.

And Algeria out of all places? Why? AC flies there. They wont if it's deemed unsafe. Airlines nowadays cancel routes at the first sign of trouble in a city/country.

Brussels Airlines will cancel BRU-BOM in January. Let's see how that affects YYZ, which was also rumored to get cut.