Watch out if your contemplating hidden city ticketing on United. See this article from Gary Leff @ View from the Wing: https://viewfromthewing.boardingarea...hased-flights/

Hidden city ticketing, for those not in the know on inside baseball practice, is where you ticket YWG-MSP-LAX at $450 all in when YWG-MSP is $500 all in. Book one way ticket and then without checked bags walk out of the airport in MSP.

^ I'm familiar with the practice but I wouldn't engage in it personally. I can see why the idea is tempting in some cases.

From what I understand airlines tend to go mainly after serial offenders. You can probably get away with it once in a while, though.

Exactly - I don't know anyone who flies YYJ airport - YVR airport as origin and destination - they are almost always connecting to points onward - with similar connecting airfares as the rest of the country. The point to point cost YYJ-YVR would be very high from a main airline, even with Q400s.

If your are going TO Vancouver from Victoria the main options are:

1. Ferry - walk on and use transit from Delta or drive on/off.

2. Victoria harbour airport (YWH) to Vancouver harbour airport (YHC) using harbour air or Helijet (most business/government employees do this).

I think there are 18 daily departures via Harbour Air and 13 dailies via Helijet harbour to harbour. It is one of the busiest air routes in the country - by frequencies. Last I saw YWH had over 300k PAX a year - on small planes. Really convenient connection too - way faster gate-gate than going through the international airports.

You can also fly from Victoria Harbour airport (YWH) to various points in Seattle via Kenmore Air.

I am curious - can you fly from YWG to other Manitoba cities via WestJet or AC? What is the cost of a return flight point to point (YWG-Brandon) vs. connecting Brandon-YWG-YYZ?

What is the cost of flying on a direct flight return on Westjet or AC between YXE (Saskatoon) and YQR (Regina)? Can you fly YEG-YXE-YQR for less than YXE-YQR direct on Westjet for example?

You could fly from Winnipeg-Calgary-Brandon on Westjet

That's the only flight that serves a city other than Winnipeg in Manitoba from outside of it.

There is no flight from Brandon to Winnipeg.

You could fly Saskatoon-Regina on Air Canada seasonally.

As for cost, use Google Flights

AC has only ever flown to YWG in Manitoba for as far back as I recall. Maybe at some point they ran something to Brandon or Northern Manitoba, but that would have been well before my time. I believe that PWA/Canadian flew to Brandon for a while, though.

WS did a trial run to Thompson from Winnipeg a number of years back, but not surprisingly a 737 was tough to fill to a town of under 15,000. (Interestingly, back in the 70s Transair used to fly some larger jets on northern milk runs before being taken over by PWA.)

WS had a couple of fits and starts to Brandon, but finally began regular service to Calgary a few years back. They tried adding Toronto but it didn't last long. The Calgary flight seems to be working out... there is a fairly large geographic catchment area that YBR serves, so for anyone heading west or south it's probably an appealing option.

I have never known any major airlines to run YWG-YBR service, but I think local airlines ran that route and possibly still do. From what I can tell, the WestJet website won't even let you book a YWG-YBR ticket... you'd have to book two completely separate tickets via Calgary. The drive is only about 2 hours.

OK - so if you're flying in from YYZ to go to Brandon - you are likely driving from WPG.

In Sask - if you use Westjet - to fly from YXE to YQR you need to connect in another province (Alberta or Manitoba I'm guessing). If you use AC you can occasionally fly between the two Sask airports, but mostly have to connect in another province.

I thought there would be enough demand (government/business travel) for at least a couple of year-round dailies on a major airline between YXE-YQR.

WS will sell you a ticket to YBR from YYZ via YYC, and the price is actually pretty reasonable, I saw flights as low as $377 return in November on a basic fare.

If the destination is Brandon then this beats flying to Winnipeg and spending 2.5 hours on the road, especially if you have to pay for a car rental. I'd rather spend that time dozing or reading in an airline seat, especially if the additional cost is marginal.

Google flights will let you do such a booking. The cheapest flights are about $700 and up to $1300 for the most expensive in the next few weeks.

It will take you about the same time to fly from Winnipeg to Calgary that it will take you to drive from Winnipeg to Brandon.

For $700, you could probably rent a limousine and travel to Brandon in style should you feel like living it up.

They're relatively close - about 250km. They are both relatively small cities too (~300,000 for Saskatoon and ~240,000 for Regina) and don't have a major hub airport at either end.

It is about the service level I'd imagine for those two cities.

Short connecting flights (YYJ-YVR for instance) are totally "subsidized" by the onward connecting flight. Ie. when AC has promotions for big international destinations like Hong Kong, Rome, Sydney etc. you can select your "Departure" city as Windsor or Nanaimo or Lethbridge and then the international city, and the cost is almost the same as if you were departing from YVR or YYZ directly. It is not like they add the advertised price of YYJ-YVR onto the price of YVR-SYD, the price is virtually the same as if you were leaving right from YVR. Hence the 'subsidy'. But ya almost no casual travellers would fly just that route, there is so many other options available as people said. Not sure if that is also the case in other close city pairs across the country, or if the network carrier flying is the norm there (ie how much of YEG-YYC is OD and how much is connecting?)

Also Transwest Air operates an ExpressAir 45 min flight between Regina & Saskatoon 6 times, each direction, each week.

https://www.westwindaviation.ca/express-air/

It operates with a 20min checkin time before flights at its own terminals at each airport. With the efficiency of 65mins between the two cities (think Harbour to Harbour as in Vancouver & Victoria's case) & cities are only 2 hour drive apart, it beats the price & travel time of the major airlines.

I can generally make it to Minneapolis in 6.5-7 hours from my house in east Winnipeg, depending on the traffic at the border. And true, no one in Winnipeg that I know ever flies to Minneapolis, even in winter.

Westjet Swoop forced to cancel all 24 flights to the US lacking regulatory approval.

WestJet's Swoop forced to cancel 24 U.S. flights as regulatory approval held up
'We are focused on doing what is right and are working directly with those affected travellers'
CBC News · Posted: Oct 19, 2018

WestJet's new discount carrier Swoop is apologizing to travellers for cancelling 24 U.S.-bound flights.

The airline says it had hoped to have all regulatory approvals in place to operate south of the border — but one of those has not yet been approved.

That means all Swoop flights to the United States have been postponed until Oct. 27.

Swoop says it was able to operate some flights to the States using a leased aircraft from WestJet.

"We apologize to our travellers affected by the cancellations for the inconvenience and for their disappointment," said spokesperson Karen McIsaac in an email to CBC News.

...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...zH1PxqH7HxOUXA

It is actually quite cost effective. If you hit a seat sale or book early you usually do Helijet or Harbour Air for between $100-200 each way.

Something I recently observed
 

Doing a flight on United from Denver to Portland OR, I noticed that the cleaning crews were using what seemed to me like a new approach. There were probably 8 of them, and as soon as the first class passengers left, they poured into the plane. They already had their vacuum cleaners, and as soon as a row of passengers would depart, they would swoop into the next row and start cleaning it. It held up passengers a little bit from leaving the plane, as people would have to pause as they advanced row by row, but probably dramatically sped up the plane's turn around time. By the time the last passenger had left, they were probably at least 80% done cleaning.

Is this common practice and just the first time that I noticed it? Was very interesting to watch.

Can't say I've seen cleaning crews do that before, but I've not flown with United in over 25 years. That being said, I am flying through DEN with United later this month, I will look out for this practice.

If you are flying with United then I propose you should have extremely poor expectations so you won`t be disappointed. Every time I have flown United I dislike it more than the last. The 2018 SkyTrax airline rating system of the top 100 put Air Canada at 30, Delta at 37, and United at 87 which was 3 points behind Kenyan Airlines...……...enough said.

Usually I fly SkyTeam airlines, but this particular time the price with United was substantially lower than any others. I'm not expecting fantastic service, just hoping not to get bumped or any significant delays.