It's worth adding to this discussion that in spite of all the ties that have been mentioned, Toronto/Ontario and Montreal/Quebec are more "independent" of each other in economic and other ways than Sydney/New South Wales and Melbourne/Victoria are.

On a lot of fronts Quebec is very self-contained to the point where most Canadian (non-Quebec), U.S. and other foreign companies based in the Toronto area usually have a mini "pseudo-national" office in Montreal to serve the Quebec market.

This means you're probably much less likely to have people flying from Toronto to Montreal and other points in Quebec to meet and serve clients than you are from Sydney to Melbourne or vice-versa.

And as mentioned before a lot of that "servicing" out of Montreal in the southern Quebec region where most of the population lives is done by road (and to a lesser degree by train) as opposed to flying. (The exceptions being more far-flung places like Baie-Comeau, Gaspé, Rouyn-Noranda, etc.)

It's actually not uncommon for large corporations to have a Montreal office headed up by a Senior VP that manages Quebec from A to Z (but subservient to occasional higher-level decision-making in Toronto) and a Toronto office that manages the rest of Canada. In some cases because of this relationship there may be more traffic out of the Toronto office to far-off places like Vancouver and Halifax than there is to Montreal which is only 600 km away. (Though it's true that due to Canada's size some corporations also replicate the regional head office set-up in various regions, but the Quebec vs. rest-of-Canada model is nonetheless extremely prevalent in corporate Canada.)

Yes, which helps explain the uniqueness of MEL-SYD and why it’s so huge compared to YYZ-YUL.

What's that saying...........everybody has a plan until they get a punch in the mouth!;)

Impressive.

Edmonton International Airport
Passenger Statistics for December 2017 --

Highlights:
§ Terminal Traffic: 626,377 passengers (7,377,630 Year-total)
Q Domestic 487,934 passengers (6,023,658 Year-total)
Q Transborder 82,221 passengers (879,833Year-total)
Q International 56,222 passengers (474,139 Year-total)

§ FBO Traffic*: 28,408 passengers (429,754 Year-total)

§ Grand Total: Overall 654,785 passengers (7,807,384 Year-total)


Growth%:
§ Terminal: 6.0% (5.0% Year-total)
Q Domestic 6.1% (6.9% Year-total)
Q Transborder 3.0% (-4.0% Year-total)
Q International 9.1% (0% Year-total)

§ FBO Traffic: 7.4% (-13.6% Year-total)

§ Grand Total: Overall 6.0% (3.8% Year-total)

Impressive... but still well below 2015 and 2014 figures.
International and trans border for 2018 will probably get off to a slow start.
The international increase is due to slightly more sun flying. With KLM reducing to twice weekly and Icelandair taking a two month hiatus international will struggle in Jan and Feb. Transborder has been stripped to skeletal levels so even the small boost by AA to PHX will be noticeable. However this will probably be offset by fewer YEG-SEA flights and WestJet looks like they are flying more of the smaller 737-600s trans border ex YEG as well.

Now i agree that MEL-SYD is a larger market than YUL-Toronto, even when you factor in road/train traffic. However, I believe the difference is not that much, everything considered, and I certainly dont buy the business argument that Johnny Aussie is pushing, at least not to the extent that he is pushing it.

For one, for the business minded person on a 1 hour., 1.5 hour flight, frequency is the most important thing, and for that a Q400 is just as good as an A320 or A330.

===========================================================================

Here's a breakdown of the frequency for each city pair for monday, January 15. (these are one way figures)

QF SYD-MEL

29 flights. 24 on B738, 5 on A332

JQ SYD-MEL

13 flights. All on A320/A321

JQ SYD-AVV (avalon airport)

5 flights on A320

(note: Avalon airport (AVV) is the furthest airport to downtown Melbourne, and clearly not what business travellers would take, unlike YTZ which is in downtown Toronto, and where the majority of business travellers destined for Toronto would fly. YTZ, even though it sees no jets, is 3 times busier passenger wise than AVV, btw.

VA has 23 flights from SYD-MEL, all on B738

TT has 10 flights from SYD to MEL, all on A320

So that's a total of 80 flights for SYD-Melbourne, of which only 5 are widebodies. (one of which is the last flight out from SYD at 10 pm. So therefore clearly meant to catch the overflow from possible misconnects) Also of note is that most of these flights are on LCCs. (VA, TT and JQ)

=====================================================================

AC YUL-YYZ on monday Jan 15

19 flights. 1 E175 (departs at 5h30 am, first flight out, restricted in gauge due to curfew for heavier jets til 7am), 16 A320, 2 A333

YUL-YTZ on monday Jan 15

AC 15 flights, all Q400
PD 14 flights, all Q400

WS on YUL-YYZ on jan 15

14 flights, 13 Q400, 1 B737

TS has 1 B738 operating YUL-YYZ on Jan 15.

So overall, YUL-Toronto has 63 flights on monday January 15. Granted, the majority on Q400s, but still an impressive number.

So in terms of frequency, which for a business traveler is key, there is only a 21 % difference in frequency on these city pairs for next monday. Let's not forget that it is peak travel season down under. Not so much here in Canada. Also, a good chunk of those flights in Australia are on low lost carriers. (VA, TT and JQ). That is not the case for Montreal-Toronto. AC and PD are premium carriers, especially out of YTZ, where they offer complimentary alcohol and such to all passengers.

Basically proving my point that in terms of a business aspect, Montreal-Toronto is not lightyears behind Sydney-Melbourne.

I still believe the main reason why Montreal-Toronto's passenger numbers are far lower than SYD-MEL is due to one thing and one thing only, proximity of both cities and therefore, other means of transportation. If the two Canadian cities had been further, we would have seen more competitive air numbers.

The main reason why YUL-YYZ doesn't figure on OAG's list of busiest domestic routes by frequency is because the traffic between YUL and Toronto is split more evenly between YYZ and YTZ than Sydney's between MEL and AVV.

Edit: Added JQ numbers on SYD-MEL.

Not sure where u r getting your info from?

1 Jetstar flight between MEL and SYD? There are 13. QF is closer to 34 - perhaps you were looking at bookings and not timetable? Also 2/3 of the flights between YYZ\YTZ and YUL are on smaller Q400s. Also note JQ and TT fly high density A321s and A320s as well. And believe it or not cost conscious business travellers also utilise those flights. VA is also now a full service carrier as well not a LCC. So a vast majority of MEL-SYD flights offer J Class whereas YYZ/YTZ-YUL would not.

Regardless looking at just one day is pointless the OAG analysis is based on annual figures. Mondays are a slow business travel day. Mid week is busier like Thursdays for example. Some peak business days QF gets up to 40 and VA about 30.

Anyway. I'll let this go. Despite the volume of frequencies etc. Like I said MEL-SYD has over 9 million pax per annum that doesn't include AVV. I'll let that figure speak for itself. Based on your unscientific guesstimate analysis YUL-YYZ/YTZ would be well under half of that total.

My bad. You are correct about JQ. When I went on the JQ website, I only used the AVV numbers. Forgot to add the MEL numbers for some reason. That one JQ flight that was listed on the QF website must have thrown me off. It is now corrected.

However, QF doesn't have 34 flights on monday Jan 15. They only have 29. I used each airline's respective flight timetable from their website. So the rest of the info is 100% accurate. No guesstimates.

AVV handles around 600,000 passengers, no more. And not all of that is from SYD.

http://australianaviation.com.au/201...r-flights-end/

Swoop is hiring flight attendants, captains and first officers in Abbotsford and Hamilton.

Looks like we are going to have Swoop, Canada Jetlines and Flair all vying for the LCC market and seeming to focus on YXX and YHM. This should be fun. I'm sure AC will deploy rouge more domestically to make this truly a bloodbath.

Flair have also started flying select routes from YYZ as well as YHM. I'm intrigued at their logic for this if they want to be a true LCC. Landing fees and handling expenses at Pearson aren't cheap, it seems counter intuitive to fly from there and focus on making Hamilton a main base.

Yes. And YVR as well out west along with YXX.

Having three new LCC entrants all in a short period of time is going to be brutal all going for the same markets. How low will they be able to undercut each other.

Jetlines route map has them flying from YXX to Red Deer and Lethbridge on 180 seat aircraft. yikes.

Bombardier wants to sell Downsview. The facility employs 3500 people. The company says it wants to maintain a presence in Toronto, with a possible move to YYZ.

http://business.financialpost.com/pm...ew-up-for-sale

On another note, Air China will increase PEK-YUL to 6x weekly, from March 25 til October 27. YUL-HAV-YUL remains 1x weekly.

http://www.aviation24.be/airlines/ai...treal-beijing/

This was supposed to happen last summer, along with a change of aircraft to the B789, but the route went from 4x weekly to 5x weekly only, albeit on the B77W. The B789 eventually did come along in September, and now CA seems like they will follow through with their plan for a 6th weekly summer frequency.

What is weird is did the not just pull down the old Douglas plant that was a YYZ recently? Perhaps a new built facility makes more sense.

I miss that building, it always welcomed me in from the north.

A wee bit of fog here at YVR.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DThke1OVoAA501L.jpg
www.twitter.com/ianoyeg

It's kind of funny how anti-Vancouver you are in almost every post, masking this one as trying to downplay YVR's numbers is the mnost laughable. First of all, if it was the other way around and YUL had great US traffic figures, you would never mention it as a downplay. Secondly, claiming China and US dominate is entirely false. Proportional to it's polulation, our international numbers are way higher than YUL without transborder. And we have daily (often multiple daily) flights to Tokoy Haneda & Narita, Osaka, Nagoya, Delhi, Seoul, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydey, Auckland, Mexico City (will soon be 5 daily), London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris, Munich, and more. I agree Montreal has some distinct destinations, it hardly counts as much more diverse, and definitely means YVR is not dominated by China

I might add YVR also has the lowest “sun destination” international traffic per capita of any of the major cities in Canada. The flights I am referring to of course are those flights where Canadians flee the bitter cold temps in the winter. I’m not saying I blame them and I’m not saying Vancouverites don’t travel to warm sunny destinations but on a much lesser scale. Just look at the never-ending list of destinations for some cities and you get my drift. These make up a HUGE amount of international travel from other Canadian cities... those international numbers aren’t to just European or other global destinations. YVR is the best globally connected city of its size in North America in fact better connected than many cities much much larger too.

Here in Halifax…there’s no snow on the ground (might get 5cm tonight)…and it was 16C 60F last Friday but the winter schedule from YHZ to Sun Destination is ramping up with an additional 50 flights a week:

https://halifaxstanfield.ca/wp-conte...un-Summary.pdf

Fredericton YFC also gets into the act with flights to: Cayo Coco, Cayo Santa Maria, Cancun, Puerto Plata, and Punta Cana

https://www.frederictonairport.ca/sun/

As well as Moncton:

http://cyqm.ca/wp-content/uploads/20...017-2018-1.pdf

Even the smaller maritime airports at Charlottetown YEG and Saint John YSJ have flights to the sun.

And now head over to Newfoundland and St. John’s International Airport YYT:

http://stjohnsairport.com/sun-destinations/

Even Gander International has flights to Cuba this winter which harks back to a time in the Cold War era when Aeroflot, Cubana, Interflug (East Germany) and CSA-Czechoslovak stopped for fuel on their way to/from Cuba and many travelers got their first taste of freedom there when they defected during the stopover in the Gander Terminal.

http://articles.latimes.com/1985-07-...-6066_1_gander

You might see it that way, but I'm not anti-YVR. I was just stating several facts. I wasn't downplaying YVR's numbers. I was dissecting it and showing you where most of the people that fly intl are going.

No it isn't. China and the US make up almost 60% of YVR's international passenger count. That is a fact.

Same way 50% of YUL's international traffic is made up of people going to the US and France, or maybe even the US and Mexico, or the U.S and Cuba.

And you dont need to list me all the intl destinations that YVR has. I'm aware of all of them.

definition of diverse: showing a great deal of variety; very different.

YUL has non stop service to more destinations in more countries in more continents than YVR. So again, by definition, YUL has a more diverse list of destinations than YVR.

These are not my opinions. These are facts.