And the average Via Rail trip from Montreal to Toronto is 4:30 hours long, downtown to downtown.

On VOCM News, WestJet said the following:

85% of 11,000 seats on its direct St. John's-Dublin flights were sold out within 24 hours.

They definitely plan to expand their European offerings out of St. John's, and are looking at Paris and Scandinavia.

:D

Isolation IS a big reason for Calgary and Edmonton's high numbers. You really can't drive anywhere quickly except between those two cities, there is not close by American airport to use, and there is no convenient rail traffic.

If that is not the case, what would explain Montreal's significantly lower domestic traffic when Montreal has 4 million people in its metro, equal to or more than all the possible feeder regions into Calgary.

I guess by being isolated, you are automatically becoming a hub for the large swaths of rural areas around and everybody from all the small towns have to fly through Calgary by small planes before transferring to their flights to their final destination. All that adds to passenger count.

so it makes sense. Supposing the 4 million in the western prairies (except Edmonton) use Calgary as their airport to get anywhere...only 1 live in Calgary area, so 3 million need to fly in. In Montreal, all 4 million just drive in. Suppose Montreal has 4 million domestic flights from these 4 million people (just for simple calculation)....at YYC, if the 4 million have similar travel patterns, those 4 million would automatically generate 7 million flights.

I'd say out of that 4 million for Calgary, about 2 million would drive, 2 million would fly. We get a lot of Edmonton's air traffic driving to Calgary to fly out. We also get the majority of Red Deer (100 000), Lethbridge (100 000), Medicine Hat (70 000), and the entire Calgary metropolitan area (1.4 million). So possibly even more than 2 million would be driving in. Basically from a driving radius of 3 hours or less.

God love ya, WestJet. :D

They threw a lovely party for the inaugural St. John's-Dublin direct flight yesterday. Via YYT on Twitter:

http://i.imgur.com/YoqKJt2.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/OCJx7Mz.jpg

Éire & Talamh an Éisc, together again!

http://i.imgur.com/stokxbX.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/sUA6iVJ.jpg

And today:

http://i.imgur.com/5z5sUaU.jpg

Almost home:

http://i.imgur.com/P7SNOjs.jpg

The flight time from St. John's to Dublin is just over 4 hours.

Previously, flying from St. John's to Dublin would take, at minimum, 11 hours (3.5 to TO, 3.5 back, and then the distance from St. John's to Dublin).

AND Dublin is a hub for air travel to Europe. Once you're there, you can pick up a flight anywhere on the continent for pocket change.

And all of this for half the price of Air Canada's direct St. John's-London flight.

I love this! :D I can't wait to go! :D

This is awesome news, Scandinavian destinations would be really cool. I would also like to see Iceland as a destination.

:previous:

Excellent stuff. My wife and a friend of hers are going to use the new WestJet service to Dublin in a couple of weeks.

It is conceivable that St. John's might become an important WestJet hub for European destinations. :tup:

Now, if only we could convince WestJet to inaugurate a new Moncton-St. John's service and everything would be golden. If St. John's ever became a WestJet hub for Dublin, Glasgow, London, Paris, Iceland and Scandinavia then I could definitely see this contributing to the success of a Moncton-St. John's link (for connections).

WestJet just might be the best thing that ever happened to St. John's International Airport!! :yes:

Only until they acquire a fleet of widebodied jets capable of flying directly from larger markets. That isn't to say that Westjet won't continue to run a flight to Europe from St. John's, but I doubt that a big St. John's hub with multiple overseas destinations is part of their gameplan... they're likely doing it because of the limitations of their existing fleet. (i.e. you can't fly one of the planes currently in Westjet's fleet to the UK nonstop from Toronto...)

Yeah, I hope they keep some sort of connection in the future. Cutting 7 extra hours of flying time and expense for us is worth a quick stop for mainlanders.

Porter's flights from St. John's to Toronto are up to 12-hours long with stops in Halifax and Ottawa - but people take them, in both directions. There's no reason a quick 30-min to 1-hr stop in St. John's should be such an inconvenience for flights originating in larger markets.

But WestJet seems to treat its airports quite well if the demand is there. And it clearly is, at least for now. I would be surprised if they don't continue to serve/expand the local market to Europe even when flying from Central Canadian airports become a (hopefully additional) possibility. There's also already flight options for these larger markets, so WestJet wouldn't be the only boat on the sea.

And if not, then just throw air travel open to proper competition. There are lots of airlines around the world that would love to serve smaller markets in Canada.

In reality it isn't inconvenient. But it becomes very, very hard to compete with other carriers who sell the ability to get from Toronto to [insert European city] quickly and without stopping. As a vacationer I'd choose based on price and Westjet was cheaper without being unduly inconvenient, I'd opt for the stop in St. John's. But it's business travellers that are the bread and butter of most international routes and if my company is paying for it, then I'm taking the non-stop flight no matter what.

For sure... the demand is clearly there given that what we might consider smaller markets (relative to other Canadian cities with transatlantic service) like Halifax and St. John's have sustained flights overseas for quite some time now. I sure wouldn't expect those flights to disappear.

Agreed. I think Canadian travellers would benefit from more competition.

Even just mixing it up for a bit.

Take Porter. They have at least one flight every day that is:

St. John's-Halifax-Ottawa-Toronto and returns via the same route.

Why not do that Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Why not have Tuesday be:

St. John's-Moncton-Ottawa-Toronto.

And Thursday be:

St. John's-Charlottetown-Ottawa-Toronto.

*****

Though most flights between Toronto and St. John's from the major carriers are direct these days, plenty still drop down in Halifax. Now, if I understand it correctly, this is primarily to serve the St. John's-Halifax market, much like the stops on Porter's St. John's flights are mainly meant for business people who want to fly to/from Ottawa out of downtown TO. Most people on the flight when it lands in TO don't know or care it originated in St. John's.

That said... surely there's enough demand for even one of those flights each week to stop in, say, Moncton instead.

Mix it up a bit.

Air travel today is becoming a necessity, like high speed internet. In a developed country, there should be a better strategy for ensuring a certain level of service at least for one major city in every province, especially for ones already on major, very busy air travel routes (such as the Maritimes and NL).

I agree with all of this, and if WestJet really wants to compete head-to-head with Air Canada on European routes from Montreal and Toronto, then they absolutely will acquire widebodies so that direct routes can be established.

My point is that there is an underserviced market for European travel from Atlantic Canada. I agree with Signal, it is a pain in the ass to fly two hours west to Toronto just so that you can backtrack on your way to Europe (waving at your house as you fly overhead). If a full day odyssey (with connections and the risk of lost luggage) can be avoided and replaced with a four hour direct flight, then I think a lot of Atlantic Canadians would opt for this.

Obviously direct connections between Atlantic Canada and Europe would be heavily slanted towards the leisure traveller rather than the business market, but this would actually work in favour of a business model like WestJet's, where you would be using a standard 737 with few added amenities. The business traveller from TO might want his "pod" on an Air Canada 777, but John from Come-By-Chance would be more than happy with standard steerage seating for a short 4 hour hop over the pond.

There is a market for more direct European flights from Atlantic Canada, and this does not conflict with the pre-existing business traveller driven market based out of Pearson and Trudeau. The hub-and-spokers at Air Canada HQ in Montreal may not realize it, but it is true nonetheless.

Choice #1

• St. John's - Toronto (2.5 hours in the wrong direction)
• Wait for connections at Pearson (another 2 hours)
• Toronto - Dublin (7 hours in the proper direction)

Total: 11-12 hours

Choice #2

St. John's - Dublin direct (4 hours)

This seems like a no brainer to me. This service will survive, and regardless of whether or not WestJet acquires widebodies and begins to service Europe out of Pearson, there will still be the opportunity to maintain and expand European service from Atlantic Canada using their standard 737s. :yes:

I agree (obviously, vested interest, :haha:). But just one thing... it's 3.5 hours to fly from St. John's to TO direct, not 2.5.

Some planes do it in 3hr15.

In the other direction, it's faster. 3hr to 3hr15 for TO to St. John's.

*****

And, just to compare...

Most WestJetters heading to Dublin this week out of St. John's got their tickets for $400 or less and it's a 4-hour trip.

With Air Canada, it's about $1,500 more and the flight options are:

St. John's-Toronto-Dublin: 11h15, $1,877
St. John's-London (UK)-Dublin: 9hr35, $1,903

Yes, I should have known that, it's 2 hours from TO to Moncton so 3.5 hours to St.John's seems about right. :)

So, if its 3.5 hours from Toronto to St. John's, and 4 hours from St. John's to Dublin then this means that you guys are pretty much half way there. It's absurd to think that Newfoundlanders would be happy backtracking so far (to Toronto) just to make connections to Europe. :haha:

The hub-and-spokers at Air Canada have their heads stuck up their ass so far they must be able to see daylight from the other end!!! :hell: :yes: :haha: :hell:

Yeah,it's annoying. I understand we're a small market and we can't have it all... but it would be so easy to provide better service. And we have 200,000 in the city, and at least 425,000 for whom St. John's is the most convenient airport (Halifax is probably just as easy for the west coast of the island, and Montreal is probably easier for Labrador).

Most non-private flights between St. John's and Europe are for leisure. That means airlines can offer very minimal service and people can simply book their vacations around that.

Stop one of the thousands of planes flying between TO and Europe every week in St. John's. 30 minutes on the ground, fill up her seats for cheap, and away you go.

Or even do it in Halifax. It's only 1.5 hours for us to fly direct from St. John's to Halifax. Even that is a break on going all the way to TO, and only adds 3 hours flying time to the trip to Europe.

^ You're not alone. Winnipeggers routinely fly out of their way to destinations. For example, I have flown to Toronto to get to Japan, to Chicago to get to California, and Calgary to get to Florida. All 3 of those trips ended up being faster and/or cheaper than flying in the "right" direction.

I was pretty lucky with flights when I lived in Winnipeg. I only ever had to fly to Calgary first once (and that was my own fault, it was a last-minute decision to come home), and only ever had to land in Halifax on the way once.

The rest of the time it was WPG-TO-STJs or WPG-MTL-STJs.

MTL generally had much shorter layovers so I preferred that one.

Once I managed to hook into a WPG-Ottawa-STJs flight. That was beautiful. Even stayed on the same plane. Only took about 7 hours to get home and it didn't land in the middle of the night (as was always the case with my TO/MTL flights).

YEG Tower....

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2926/...7922798a_b.jpgIMG_4715 by BLACK STAR III, on Flickr

Oh, gorgeous! :D

New runway tunnel at YYC

http://i.imgur.com/q9dqFMn.jpg
Photo by David Polsom.