AC flew a seasonal mainline YHZ-YVR daily 319 back in the early 2000s.

As for YXU-YVR, WO also flew it as part of their pre-pandemic YXU expansion.

F8 if successful will be in it for the long haul. I wouldn’t mind seeing them try YXU-YOW as there’s a route that has no hope of returning on AC until they have more than 15 50 seaters in the fleet. Will be interesting to see if that would be an electric airliner route for AC…if the hybrid range of the end product will be long enough…but that’s 2028 at the earliest.

Does AC have an order in on a 50 seater aircraft and/or the eclectic aircraft?

WS flew YXU-YVR, WO flew YXU-YXX.

So if YXU-YXX worked for WO, I don't see why YXU-YVR wouldn't work...

Don’t think WO (Swoop) fly’s into YVR. I do believe for the same reason they don’t fly into YYC. An agreement with the WS pilots? I could be wrong in that though?

So the last schedule update, looks like AC moved YHZ-LHR back to AC862... I'm very sure it was AC900 last week.

I guess we'll see if both YVR and YUL still maintain 2x daily or YYZ with 4x daily next summer or S24, or maybe they'll move one of the flight to YOW or YYT instead.

If YOW were coming back before the XLR, I think AC would have announced it a couple of weeks ago with all the other transatlantic changes.

With the 789s gone from YYZ, I wish WS would shift a LGW slot to YOW. A MAX from London out of YYZ is completely uncompetitive and likely weight restricted frequently. A MAX to London with zero nonstop transatlantic competition and little to zero weight restrictions would be very competitive.

The flight number move mentioned previously was for W23, so possibly for upcoming change planned for S24. If there's any LHR change, any announcement is still a year away.

By S24, AC should already have a few XLRs. Not sure if they will be ready for TATL service at that time though.

As for S23... there are still a few unannounced changes, so probably a few changes are still not finalized yet. They also missed a lot of announcement for W22 changes also...

The XLR is not scheduled for delivery before 2024, right? I don't see YOW-LHR on AC coming back before then. Unless AC has the fleet/pilot slack for MAX 8 across the pond? They seem disinterested though.

WS doing YOW-LGW might work as a summer seasonal thing until AC gets back in the act, but I don't know how much slack they have in their fleet/crew either. WS is not the preferred airline of government traffic (LGW is not great for connections, WS is more leisure-geared airline), so I'm not sure they could clean up on that business angle, either.

I'm curious why a MAX 8 would be restricted out of London to YYZ, but not London to YOW. Does the extra few hundred kilometres makes that much difference?

WS has added it's code to JL's YVR-NRT flights. Doesn't look like this is bookable through WS website just yet, but shows up in the GDS:

WS5907 YVR-NRT
WS5901 NRT-YVR

NRT will become the 2nd Asian destination that's bookable directly through WS after ICN.

Yep they are.
_______________________________________________________

WESTJET BEGINS JAL CODESHARE TO TOKYO FROM NOV 2022

WestJet and JAL from November 2022 is expanding codeshare partnership, which sees WestJet’s “WS” coded flight numbers being displayed on JAL’s Tokyo Narita – Vancouver route. Planned codeshare service to commence on 10NOV22. Tokyo is WestJet’s second destination in Northeast Asia, through codeshare agreement.

JL018/WS5901 NRT1840 – 1045YVR 767 D
JL017/WS5907 YVR1235 – 1630+1NRT 767 D

https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/221106-wsjlcodeshare

Yeah that shorter distance would make a difference. Great circle mapper shows 5,394 km vs 5,756. Gatwick would be mostly about O&D. Ottawa's no different than anywhere else outside of Quebec in that London is the biggest transatlantic O&D market.

WS make 3 month commitment to using SAF fuel on SFO-YYC route: https://www.newswire.ca/news-release...863520764.html

It's a good start. The biggest barrier is the capacity both globally but especially within North America to produce SAF. SAF reduces emissions by up to 80%.

Even with the XLR Ottawa may not get the route back. If you listen to Air Canada's quarter release statements with their finances they are saying business travel is way down (last minute travellers, people paying for the front, paying for seats etc etc etc) all are way down. If this does not recover it may make more sense financially for AC to push everyone through Toronto/Montreal where they have a much better deal with the airports.

Similar to Ottawa, Calgary lost Tokyo, I doubt Air Canada ever brings that back.

AC is shrinking in a lot of markets, Calgary, Ottawa, Edmonton, Winnipeg - much of this is probably because of lower business demand.

I think it'll come back, but it won't be until at least 2024. St. John's though not so much unless AC at some point ETOPS a pair of 223s. AC have a LHR slot leased out to a Euro LCC. I can't imagine they want that to be the case long-term. The XLR is closest in capacity to the retired 763. While it's true biz travel is nowhere near leisure's recovery, in the case of government travel, the place that actually is recovering is the transoceanic travel.

For summer 2023, AC are restoring all pre-pandemic YOW routes save the two Londons and the seasonal Saskatchewan triangle route that now flies out of YUL (probably future PD E95 destinations). The London in Ontario loss is the legacy of losing the Dash 8 classics (maybe that'll return post-2028 if the electric hybrid prop has the range - probably a good future 3x weekly ULCC summer seasonal route); the London in the UK almost certainly isn't lost but still suspended to beyond 2023 awaiting the delivery of the correct aircraft type for the market in the current environment. The fact that of the few 800 series flight numbers not assigned in summer 2023, that AC888/889 which were YOW-LHR's traditional flight numbers remain unassigned, is indicative that there's the placeholder there for a future return. If those were to get reassigned then yeah it's likely toast. Once the XLR is on property, YHZ-LHR would also almost certainly get the XLR too vs the current MAX offering.

Sounds like Porter will start their western expansion this Spring.

Glad to hear it, and I'm curious how this whole airline mania thing plays out in Canada.

It won't be boring.

They should just rename the airline Air VanTorMon. I mean honestly, those are the only cities the airline truly cares about anymore.

AC can go pound sand :tup:

Jetlines adds YYZ-LAS 4x weekly starting in January.

That route is already saturated. Flair struggled with it when they started, and I can only imagine the difficulty jetlines will have with it when fares start at $215.

YYZ-LAS will now have 32* weekly departures (based on YYZ website)

WS appears to be ending all YYZ-Europe as DUB/GLA and EDI are only selling full fare W / Y class fares.

Interestingly YVR-LGW is presently unaffected and still fully for sale.