Final numbers in for Quebec City Intl' in 2017

1,670,880 +3.4% which is a fairly small increase. Hopefully some new routes with the new international terminal that opened 2 months ago.

https://www.aeroportdequebec.com/fr/...s/statistiques

Montreal to Dakar can barely be done with a Max 7, but Winnipeg to London.. most likely will get hit by a payload restriction due to headwind and reserves.

The thing is, even though there are less passengers required to fill a plane, you still need 2 pilots...

So obviously Québec loses a lot of travelers to YUL, but it is farther away than Ottawa is. How come they lose so many more travelers than YOW?

People from Ottawa are scared of going into "French territory" plus people in QC, being so vast are more used to travel long distances. Even people from NB I know travel to YUL to grab a flight.

Literally every single YQB-YUL flight that AC operates is a connector flight.

78 seater Q400=78 outbound connection at YUL.

Same goes for YOW-YUL

Yes. There are two reasons for this:

- They want to offer a number of flights through the day. If they reduced the number of flights by half but switched to A320, I don't think YQB would be better off.

- Given the frequency they want to have, that is the biggest aircraft that profitably service the route. Victoria to Vancouver. Saskatoon to Calgary, Vancouver-Seattle are all examples of routes where the A400 dominates.

Exactly, Quebec City is a feeder airport to Montreal and Toronto. There are 12 flights a day between Quebec and Montreal on Air Canada (plus those on WestJet, Provincial Airlines, Pascan and others....) It's been decided a long time ago that frequency is better than big aircrafts...

Air Canada is adding Rouge 319 service between YUL-YQB this summer.

Same dynamics as Vancouver over the summer for the us airlines. There is a significant increase due to cruise ships and tourists

Indeed. 1x daily flight, as of July 1.

YUL-YQB will lose a frequency, however.

The move seems to be year round. I'm showing it in the schedules until next January.

AC1700 YUL1540-1640YQB A319 D
AC1701 YQB1725-1810YUL A319 D

Edit: Corrected AC 1700 arrival time in YQB

To delve into this a bit further, I've had at least a few unilingual Ottawans over the years tell me they don't like transferring in Montreal because the PA announcements are in French first, then in English.

As is often the case, people stop their chatter when the announcement begins, and when they've heard what they have to hear (in French for most people at YUL) they resume talking and it's more difficult to hear the follow-up message in English.

Anyway, I've heard this randomly from more than one person (all unrelated to each other from different walks of life), so it's obviously a concern for some people.

Doesn't make much sense unless they are using it to reposition aircraft. Does Rouge have any routes from YQB where the A319 is used?

No. And it does make sense. The flight leaves YUL at 1540, well timed for European inbounds at YUL to connect onto YQB. You're going from a 78 seat plane to a 136 seater, essentially doubling your capacity for that time frame.

The outbound from YQB is also well timed to connect onto YUL-Europe.

This has nothing to do with repositioning an aircraft, and everything to do with funneling more connecting pax to/from YUL.

That's a pretty stupid reason for avoiding YUL and backtracking to YYZ, especially if you're headed to the maritimes or Europe.

But then again, some unilingual Canadians (french or english) do stupid things like this often, so it doesn't surprise me.

I find this hard to believe. Especially for people heading to Europe where in most parts the first language spoken is not English.

Haha, I generally rarely pay attention to PA announcements. What is so important about those PA messages that it's a deciding factor in avoiding YUL?

Let's face it. Price and/or convenience drive the decisions.

I agree it's stupid and hard to believe. But I have heard it from three different people over about 20 years.

Anyway, in my experience most people who live in the Ottawa-Gatineau area but fly via Montreal simply drive and park there or take a shuttle (they're offered as part of flight packages by companies like Air France and KLM).

Obviously more people actually fly from Ottawa to Toronto to connect there due to the distance and also the larger number of potential flights.

If they're that parochial they deserve the inconvenience of backtracking to YYZ. Maybe they should just stay home, preferably in their basement.

...It's their personal preferences, damn. Live and let live, no?