The government shouldve done the same kind of thing with CN. Maintain ownership of the infrastructure but sell the operation and charge rent on the use of infrastructure.

Considering that it will take several years for passenger counts to rebound to pre-covid levels, I would have to think there is going to be a freeze on airport construction/expansion projects that haven't already broken ground. Seems to me that excess capacity will be the bigger issue in Canadian airports for the next while as compared to the bursting at the seams situation that was more common 5-10 years ago.

It's also a good chance to do a lot of the airside development that might have been put off and to re-evaluate broader plans. For example, if Hamilton is to be developed into something bigger, they really need to start planning for better road and transit links and star building the fuel pipelines in. Pearson could (and should) get started on the airport transit hub and the sixth runway. Montreal could substantially accelerate their development plans given that the airport operating at capacity and financing was a major obstacle to doing the work quickly. There needs to be better planning on how air and rail fit together too. For example, is it worth investing substantially in Edmonton, if a proper rail service can be built to Calgary that connects to YYC. The same could be asked for YOW, if HFR and REM facilitate an easy departure from YUL.

New Aeroplan to launch Nov 8, 2020

https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/home/aeroplan.html



As predicted by many others... points will now earn based on the ticket price, instead of the actual mile.

That's logical. Also looks like families can share points which is also nice.

Sad. This sounds to much like the WestJet rewards program. A program designed to reward WestJet not its frequent flyer. We will need to wait and see what this brings.

I was looking for WestJet and AC in this time of COVID to try to win over passenger with better loyalty programs and service. It apears airline executives are not than the direction I want them to go in.

Unless somebody flies AC a lot domestically they probably aren't using Aeroplan/Altitude to accrue anyway.

The glory days of FF programs are well behind us. Most of these are moving to spend based earning.

At least it's a fairly incremental change over the existing system. Even though moving from distance based to spend based accrual seems like a significant difference, that was basically happening anyway to some extent given the varying earn rates among fare classes. People flying on a domestic deep discount fare were getting few if any miles before and it'll be no different under the new system.

I know people used to game the system for a lot of FF programs.

Fly nowhere to get miles/points. The dollar spend thing makes more sense.

In general, most people don't fly enough to really get benefit from them IMO. I've always had a wariness for programs that used points, as they could be devalued at any time.

I earn a lot of Aeroplan and Air Miles points by not spending any money at all by doing online surveys. But on e-rewards I find it ‘rich’ that you earn fewer Aeroplan points per e-rewards redemption than you do for any of the US carriers. 1/2 the time I funnel them into my UA account as a result.

AC has begun updating its Transborder schedule for September. Doesn’t seem much different to August aside from frequency reductions.

A few things i like with the new Aeroplan.

1. No fuel surcharge
2. All open seats will now be available for redemption
3. Family points pooling.

The province of BC did the same thing when they sold BC Rail to CN. It retained ownership of track/land.

In the 2000 to 2015 most years I would end up getting 35k or what every they called at that year.

I would not say I gamed the system but I probably benefited more from the program than others. With my travel pattern I would usually have meeting in secondary cities in Europe (Barcelona, Madrid, Zurich, Copenhagen etc.). The secondary cities usually oversold economy and would fairly regularly get bumped into Business. Almost never happened at London or Frankfurt. If you asked to get upgraded at some of the outstation in South America they never looked to closely at the rules on using upgrade vouchers.

The computer systems back then were less sophisticated. The rules on getting points and using them were simpler. It was not the highly optimized system it is today.

Last five year I mostly travel on RBC avion points, get almost nothing in aeroplan points and spread my travel more evenly between WS/Delta, AC or Alaska. I am far less loyal that in years past. I have only been 35K for one year in the past five. I think as AC makes it hardware more people are giving up on the loyalty and doing the same.

Didn't that deal turn to a fiasco?

Aeroplan is/was one big game. You just had to know how to play it. I'm not a frequent flyer but was able to pay at best $200 and at worst $700 for a Business Class ticket to Europe from Alberta. I probably got around 15 of these tickets for my family over the last 10 years plus some Economy Class tickets as well.

The new program will be a little worse but it will probably have some sweet spots as well. We just have to figure out the sweet spots for Aeroplan 2.0 and go from there.

Exactly! They learned their lesson from the Feds stupidity.

In my experience if you get upgraded by the airline you accrue the miles based on the ticket you purchased and not what you ended up getting bumped into. Happened to me a few times on BA.

Yes that has always been the case with Air Canada and Aeroplan. The one exception was in IROP where the airline reissues the ticket. In principle they are expected to code things so you don't the extra points, in years past that was frequently not done corrected and you ended up with more points.

My point was status in the loyalty program determines the order that people get bumped from Economy to Business. In years past I did fairly well. Today AC does a better job of matching aircraft to routes and in pricing tickets to fill those seats. That is harder today that in years past mostly because of more sophisticated software.