When Purolator bought Gelco Express from Air Canada, part of the deal was AC taking a small ownership stake in Purolator and operating their air network for 10 years, unless Air Canada wasn't able to maintain service. It was only 4 or 5 years later that Purolator switched to Kelowna Flightcraft, so either AC willingly walked away from this deal or wasn't able to service it. I suspect that AC, which already had a bad experience in the overnight courier business with their shortlived ownership of Gelco, probably didn't want to keep in that space. Kelowna ended up taking AC's ownership position in Purolator around the same time Onex sold most of their majority stake to Canada Post.

Edit: wrong thread.

Thanks for filling in the blanks.

A Calm Air ATR-42 in full freight config went off the runway at Naujaat in the Kivalliq region of Nunavut.

https://i.cbc.ca/1.5818520.160643390...0/calm-air.jpg

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north...dent-1.5818062

That's going to probably sit there till next summer and they can bring in the equipment to get it up and out. Unless they fly a Herc in with the required equipment.

Section 2.1.11 of today's Fall Economic Statement includes several areas of support to regional air carriers and airports. This is noted to be separate from ongoing discussions for financial assistance for major airlines.
Summary
Full Description

It might depend upon if the gear was damaged or if it’s just buried in snow. If it’s the latter, can probably drag it out and fly in any needed replacement parts so that it can get basic repairs and get a ferry permit to YTH.

YUL October 2020

https://www.admtl.com/sites/default/...et_2020_EN.pdf

Total: 163,464 -89.9%
Domestic: 89,164 -85.8%
Transborder: 15,972 -95.7%
International: 58,328 -90.7%

YTD total: 5,021,450 -71.1%

Most communities don't have the proper equipment to move it with out more damage.

Remember seeing one sitting off the runway at YRT for more than a year.

And I think the Buffalo cargo at Ekati was just pushed off the runway then stripped down.

Somewhat surprised the government's fiscal update didn't include much detail on airline relief.

Groups representing the airline industry say they're disappointed the federal government's economic update failed to offer the sector — hit hard by the pandemic — new aid to help it survive the crisis.

The federal government said it's prepared to spend $980 million on supports and rent relief for Canadian airports. It did not, however, explain how it aims to help air carriers struggling with a drop in demand of up to 90 per cent that has caused them to cancel dozens of regional routes and lay off or furlough thousands of workers.

Mike McNaney, president and CEO of the National Airlines Council of Canada, represents the country's largest carriers, including Air Canada, WestJet and Air Transat.

"While other countries around the world have moved forward months ago to provide sectorial support, we remain a global outlier and are ostensibly stuck at stage zero in the government planning process," said McNaney...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/fis...d-19-1.5822203

AA re-launched it's PHX-YYC route today. The inbound appears to be almost 100% full. Runs daily on a CRJ for December, and its currently planned to be upguaged to a 319 in January.

Air Canada also resumes that route tomorrow bringing the total number of airlines flying on it to 3. This also marks AC's first commercial flight outside of Canada from YYC since March.

Not that it really matters, but this means YYC officially surpassed YUL in October in terms of total number of pax this year.

I wonder how long before the Alberta media catches wind and runs with it.

It’s interesting to see how YYC handled over double the traffic of YUL. YUL did slightly better than YOW in terms of percentage drop. There’s got to be more to it than YYC being chosen for rapid testing. I think one reason is the vast distances Western Canadians to get to population centres for essential travel. Another is no rail option. I read in Q3 how VIA with 1/4 the capacity, still managed a 51% load factor.

The reasons are pretty obvious.

YYC is a domestic powerhourse. YUL isn't. YYC has handled more domestic passengers than YUL for as long as I can remember. This is no different during the pandemic.

With COVID restrictions affecting mostly international travel, it should be no surprise that YUL's number are harder hit than YYC's.

Of course, in the grand scheme of things, all of this is meaningless. Hopefully with the vaccines coming online early next year, international restrictions will be eased by summer or fall 2021, helping Canada's big 3 international airports rebound quicker.

Also, the 2 week quarantine requirement upon return to Canada needs to go, asap. Hopefully, the YYC rapid testing trials will help in that regard.

On a related note, I wonder if the relatively high YYC passenger numbers has any correlation with Alberta's recent spike in COVID numbers. BC and the prairies have a decent spike as well. Cross provincial travel might be a factor.

I was thinking the exact same thing about the higher pax numbers and the COVID spike. WS are putting all their eggs into YYC right now. They have more than double the daily YYC departures than they do out of YYZ. Good analysis about how YUL is more an international hub where there's been a gigantic hit. YUL's domestic hubbing is mostly intra-Quebec and Atlantic Canada, whereas YYC covers the whole country.

Personally I think winter 2021-22 is when we'll start to see a substantial rebound in traffic. The PM is 'optimistic' that Canada can hit 70% vaccination by September, meaning that 90% 'herd immunity' is probably this time next year...and that's if the looming anti-vaxers don't slow things down. Expect a very vocal anti-vax campaign to come by Q2 2021.

Can't speak for BC, but the spike in Alberta is mostly because of A. Bad leadership and B. Private gatherings. Edmonton has been hit harder than Calgary has so flights alone can't be responsible. Though I believe there was something like 30 or so flights in the past week that carried at least 1 positive case. Those numbers are also before the testing pilot began.

On another note, Air Canada finally operated its first non-domestic flight from YYC, departing for PHX. There is now 3 carriers on that route. Well WS & AA both had nearly full flights today, AC carried about 24 people.

Also Sunwing announced it will resume flying to CUN from YVR/YYC and YEG beginning January 9 along with additional flights from YEG to PVR & MZT beginning Dec 26.

In other words, some of this will be Swoop flying with WG buying a block of seats. Prudent move.

Probably YEG-PVR/MZT as both of those routes are currently flown by Swoop on Saturdays already.

Yesterday, Québec city airport (YQB) presented its recovery plan to grow and recover in the next years.

In 2019, it had 1.9 millions of passengers but one of the main problem is that around 1.3 million passengers to/from the region did the 3h drive to depart from YUL instead of YQB. The airport now wants to convince people in Québec to use their own airport.

The airport plans to build a freight centre in YQB in April next year. Currently, only 1% of air cargo of the province passes by YQB, while Montreal has 96%.

As a comparison, Montréal region has about 4 million people and Québec has a bit under 1M.

The airport also plans to pay travel agency to sell tickets from YQB instead of YUL and to lower a lot parking prices.

Building preclearance facility are still part of the plan, however 1000 daily transborder pax would be needed for the project to be self-financing. Pre-pandemic, there were 300 pax to the US every days.

YQB expects to keep its 4x weekly flight to CDG in summer 2021 and a direct flight to London is expected to be announced for summer 2022. As a comparison, in 2008 YQB had direct flights to 5 airports in France.

The new terminal was completed in 2018 and now the airport wants to build an industrial park in the unused land that it owns to get profit from something else than air traffic.

Lastly YQB wants to become the new hub for regional airlines that now fly the routes that were cancelled by Air Canada. The only AC flights remaining are YYZ 2x daily and YUL 3 daily for December. WS left the airport.

Here's the full announcement: https://www.newswire.ca/news-release...887165733.html

1M population for Quebec City is a big stretch, which would stretch out to Trois-Rivieres. Greater YQB is more like 850k.

YQB had certainly grown into the size airport it should be for a city the size Quebec's. YQB's best prospects for getting a cargo flight beyond the FedEx/Morningstar ATR, would be a CargoJet tag onto a YMX terminator, followed by an eventual YQB-YHM nonstop 757.

As for the current boat YQB's in, pretty much all Eastern Canada airports are the same. Down 85-90%.

I feel as though a proper cargo facility was long overdue for YQB. Better late than never i guess. Who knows, maybe FedEx and UPS might fly direct to YQB a few times a week as well. It's going to be an uphill battle to attract the big freight companies though. Quebec is only a 2.5 hour drive from Montreal. Most of the freight is easily shipped in by rail, road and sea.

As for YUL leakage, it's not as if travel agents aren't selling packages from YQB right now. They are. The price point will always be the deciding factor. As long as it's cheaper to fly from YUL, YQB will always lose out. it's hard to reverse that trend. You see it everywhere. YOW, YEG, etc.

As for pre-clearance, the chances of YQB getting it are all but dead now. There was very little hope of getting it even before the pandemic. US passenger numbers simply aren't there. I've highlighted this fact a few years ago when the news was announced that YQB will get pre-clearance. It's not gonna happen.