I dont think it’s puzzling. The vast majority of Canadians don’t want to see public money go to private companies.

Trudeau has been dishing out CEWS for a good while now to all these companies.
That’s not nothing.

However, I agree that now, things are becoming desperate for these airlines and further measures are necessary. But I think Trudeau has handled the situation correctly thus far. It’s now time to step it up to 3rd gear and start dishing out cash.

They’ve been conservative. The vast majority of Canadians most likely agree with the way it was handled.

Of course if you go to avcanada and hear some AC pilots, they think Trudeau should have acted sooner, but it’s not like the feds dishing out billions in aid will bring back all those pilot jobs. Let’s be realistic. The capacity has to adjust to the demand, with or without federal aid.

The US also mandated service on certain routes for that aid. So, basically the US airlines were flying around near empty planes for a chunk of their network.

It wasn't until the CARES act expired that thousands of airline jobs were lost. Essentially, it was a subsidy in the hope that airline travel would rebound very quickly. That didn't happen and even the US airlines had to admit that it was necessary to furlough thousands.

The federal Liberals aimed the money hose wide at individual citizens versus targeted sectors. The wisdom of that is more a topic for another thread.

Another argument for AC and WS getting help could be they are being put in an unfair disadvantage against foreign carriers, who did receive government aid.

WestJet's December update has been filed in OAG, and looks like they're planning to add back at least 8 international/US Destinations. They're also more then doubling it's YYC Presence as well.

Routes they plan to add back. Most resume in the middle of December (around the 17th-20th). The YYZ routes resume December 5. All of YYC-Hawaii is operated by the 789.
YYZ-PUJ - 1x weekly
YYZ-LIR - 1x weekly
YYZ-MCO - 1x weekly
YYC-HUX - 1x weekly
YYC-MZT - 1x weekly
YYC-HNL - 1x weekly
YYC-OGG - 2x weekly
YYC-LAS - 2x weekly
YYC-MCO - 1x weekly
YVR-HNL - 3x weekly
YVR-OGG - 3x weekly
YVR-PHX - 2x weekly

Increased routes:
YYC-PHX - 7x weekly
YYC-PSP - 6x weekly
YYC-PVR - 5x weekly
YYC-CUN - 6x weekly
YYC-LAX - 4x weekly (from December 20)
YYZ-MBJ - 3x weekly (from mid-December)
YYZ-KIN - 2x weekly (from mid-December)
YYZ-FLL - 2x weekly (from mid-December)
YYZ-RSW - 2x weekly (from mid-December)
YVR-PVR - 2x weekly (from December 19)

Decreased routes:
YYZ-CUN - 2x weekly

Unchanged:
YYC-SJD - 2x weekly
YYZ-LGW - 2x weekly
YVR-PSP - 2x weekly

At the rate things are going, YYC will be the 2nd busiest airport in the country next year.

Looks like I've missed a few.

YVR-LAX
YVR-CUN
YVR-SJD
YWG-CUN
YWG-PVR
YEG-CUN
YEG-PVR
YEG-PHX

All planned from mid-December. WS tripling its international/US flights compared to November.

That's way too far ahead. I'm only somewhat trust the schedule until Nov 29...

Now I don't even bother scanning and posting AC schedule updates. For their planed December Transborder/International operation, probably about half of them will ever materialize...

Edmonton to Halifax also resuming

WestJet has resumed every route they announced they would so far. They haven’t behaved like AC where they announce a optimist schedule and cancel half of it 2 weeks before. Typically their schedules have been more conservative, but this one is pretty damn optimistic, 4 times what they’re flying in November. I expected the YYC/YYZ increases but the YEG/YWG and YVR ones were a bit of a surprise.

AC have already done their major whack job to December. It now looks a lot like November.

It also depends on where you look. On this page on their website, there's a bunch of stuff posted that a) isn't available for sale and b) won't be happening: https://www.westjet.com/en-ca/book-t...-flights/index. Looking at YOW alone they're showing YWG, MCO, RSW, CUN and MBJ operating as of early December. Not gonna happen.

^ Almost like the airlines want money that they can get in exchange for near-useless travel credits!

ACL has released the initial slot coordination for S21 and the only thing that really jumps out is

DXB - WS requested and obtained 14 weekly slots. Could YYZ/YYC-DXB really be in the cards shortly?

https://www.acl-uk.org/latest-airport-info/

Edit: Looks like they made the same request for W20 and were too granted the slots. So this is probably nothing.
The "direct flights" page is almost never updated. It's best to look at their COVID scheduling page, which is far more accurate/updated more frequently. The only routes they've announced to resume that were cancelled before starting is YYZ/YVR-LAS. Everything else has operated in some capacity, even if cancelled shortly after.

Does the bilateral even allow 7 passenger flights a week? I'm not sure. Purely cargo flights are restricted to 4x weekly flights I think.

Maybe it's part cargo, part passenger, or maybe it's what it was with their LHR application, meaning, hocus pocus, with nothing at the end of it.....

Upon further looking I see they also made the same request & were granted for W20. It doesn't list any route information either, while most "new entrants" have where they intend to serve.

What would be the point of requesting slots that they had/have little or no intention of ever using?

Your guess is as good as mine. If there is one thing their LHR slot approval and subsequent non-commitment to it has thought us, is that applying for slots is one thing, actually operating them is something else entirely.

It doesn't cost anything to apply for slots.

I'm not saying they wont operate. I'm simply saying that might be what happens. Could be they want to copy what AC is doing with YYZ-DOH. To tap into the pax demand on Canada-South Asia, and a bit of cargo demand as well. WS would need to interline, or better yet, codeshare with EK for that to happen.

Who knows. With the lack of international flights from YYC, they might be on to something.

ACL has now published the LHR S21 slot report, and WS tried and failed again to gain slots.

Looks like AC also tried to obtain an additional 28 weekly slots, but also denied.

https://www.acl-uk.org/wp-content/up...ion-Report.pdf

As for DXB, I've asked around and apparently there were rumours of its planned launch for Winter of this year. COVID got in the way of those plans. The slots they obtained for W20 were returned.

Guess we will see if they choose to utilize those slots next summer.

Also for comparison sake, AC also requested and obtained 14 weekly slots as well.

https://www.acl-uk.org/wp-content/up...ion-Report.pdf

AC-QR codeshare now official.

https://www.breakingtravelnews.com/n...odeshare-deal/

The FAA today has rescinded the order that grounded the 737 Max, and published an AD (Airworthiness Directive) specifying design changes that must be made before the aircraft returns to service.

https://www.faa.gov/news/updates/?newsId=93206

Here is a copy of the AD. The quote below is the summarized requirements that need to be met before each plane can fly again.

https://www.faa.gov/foia/electronic_...9-NM-035fr.pdf

Marc Garneau issued a statement, highlighting the more stringent strategy Transport Canada will take before certifying the plane here in Canada.

https://canadianaviationnews.wordpre...-max-aircraft/

It's going to take more than a pandemic for airlines to actually get permanent LHR slots. Specifically for new entrant carriers from North America, we have Jetblue, Westjet, cargojet and Eastern airlines, which all want slots at LHR.

1394 slot requests overall, only 4 slots granted. That's a 0.3% allocation percentage.