I think its a targeted move towards government as well.

Airlines seldom announce route cancellations. It's simply not a thing they do, as it's bad PR. Unless they have something to gain from it.

Let's see if its going to work.

There’s probably some truth in that but it says a lot that none of the regional routes in the west where the liberals are nonexistent havent been touched. My guess is they wont be touched either. Make no mistake. This was a political move by AC and theyll use covid as an excuse.

They did axe Lethbridge and Medicine Hat at the start of the pandemic.

It's not an "excuse" they have every right to be pressuring the government:

Airlines need aid or ability to fly to escape ‘catastrophic territory,’ Air Canada CEO warns
'This is hundreds of times worse than 9/11, SARS, or the global financial crisis — quite frankly combined'

....Rovinescu said “broad brush” blanket travel advisories were appropriate in March and April when little was understood about the virus and how COVID-19 was transmitted, but that jurisdictions such as the European Union have since moved to create “safe corridors” or “travel bubbles” based on science and virus tracking, with “bio-safety” measures put in place in airports and on flights.

“In my opinion, that’s the way to go,” he said, adding that there has been “dialogue” with government officials, but no significant movement to ease global or domestic restrictions for Canadian airlines. Those include mandatory 14-day quarantines that Rovinescu described as putting “the cold shower” on business travel. He said the blanket approach has persisted even as Canada’s virus reproduction rate has been contained below a key threshold that was understood to be the key to easing some restrictions.

“Right now, we’re closed to business by government decree,” he said.

Meanwhile, while Canadian air carriers such as Air Canada have had to raise funds to offset their high fixed costs and cash burn, their global counterparts including American Airlines, United, Southwest, Singapore Airlines, Air France and KLM in the Netherlands are receiving billions of dollars and euros in government aid and rescue packages, he said.

That aid “is something of a recognition that airlines are a key driver of economic activity,” Rovinescu said, adding that while Air Canada generated nearly $20 billion in revenue last year, it is estimated to have enabled spin-off revenue at other companies — from food service to aircraft maintenance — of around $50 billion....(bold mine)

https://hub.united.com/2020-07-01-un...646305172.html

United released it's August plans. Additional flights at YYZ/YUL/YVR & YYC plus resuming flights to YQB. UA resumes flights to Canada beginning July 6.

Will operate the following from August 3:
ORD-YYC 1x daily
ORD-YUL 2x daily
ORD-YYZ 3x daily
ORD-YQB 1x daily
DEN-YYC 1x daily
DEN-YVR 1x daily
IAH-YYC 1x daily
EWR-YYZ 1x daily
SFO-YVR 2x daily
IAD-YYZ 1x daily

YQB is an odd choice of a secondary market to resume first over say YOW or even YEG.

Yeah I was referring to back in the YYZ triangle days when you could actually travel both ways on AC within Saskatchewan.

As for UA, that would have been cabotage = not allowed.

Once Porter get up and running again, they will still be flying to all the Southern NB cities from YOW. Notice how they didn’t cut YOW-YYG or YOW-YQB, where they have a virtual monopoly. YOW-YXU will probably return when traffic picks up. It had been served continuously since the 70s.

The YGK and YYB cuts show how AC want every route to YYZ with a decent amount of O&D traffic. It’s why YZR is gone too. I could see FlyGTA expanding to all of these places once biz travel returns. I could even see Porter taking another crack at YYB with AC out of the picture.

QR launching Toronto, in 3 days time no less.

https://www.qatarairways.com/en-ca/o...ntolaunch.html

That is patently absurd. Little Qatar's COVID number are already very high for it's population and are continuing to soar.

Are we suppose to put the health of Canadians and our economic on the back burner to appease some airlines? AFAIC we shouldn't be allowing in ANY international flights except from countries that have shown that the virus has almost be completely eradicated like NZ or Iceland. All it takes is one new case to start the whole situation all over again.

QR has been operating almost at full capacity during this pandemic. "Full steam ahead" has been their motto it seems. They are trying to take advantage of the situation and launch key routes will little no no competition at the moment.

EK, by comparison, has grounded most of its fleet and is only now slowly resuming routes, similar to pretty much all other major airlines. QR is very much the exception.

On another note, here is a nice video with good overviews of all the parked planes at YUL and YMX during this pandemic. Video was taken on June 18.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU-P...youtu.be&t=780

It is an excuse! Valid or not!

Biman Bangladesh just announced Dhaka-Toronto flights starting October:

https://www.thedailystar.net/biman-b...flight-1924513

Wow, is really all I can say, between this and Qatar the other day.

AC had identified YYZ-DAC as a potential route. Pandemic or not, a VFR route like that will be full come the winter season, once border restrictions are eased.

Biman, like QR, is taking advantage of the fact that YYZ is underserved to South Asia at the moment.

Doesn't Qatar only have permission to operate YYZ for just July? Doesn't look like it's available beyond the end of July for now.

Biman is also very sketchy, I wouldn't put a ton of faith in it necessarily. Their NYC flights have been riddled with issues for years, and has been rerouted thru many cities over the years. They operate it as a prestige route but they have a really hard time with it. Not too long ago (up until end of 2017) they were still operating the ancient DC-10 on pax flights until basically every country stopped them from using it. Also the indefinite start date is concerning. This isn't really filling a South Asian void, that really would need to be AC resuming, which would be more real than this

Actually that is mostly incorrect. The FAA did prevent the DC10 from landing at JFK once. The flight was diverted to YUL where the aircraft was thoroughly inspected and given a clean bill of health. The FAA admitted they were wrong and that was the end of it. No country banned their DC10s which were retired in Feb 2014 and not 2017. Thats hokum. They operated one of the last DC10s to come off the assembly line. There were still lots of Cargo DC10s flying all over the world in the early 2000s and im pretty sure Northwest still operated their pax 10s until 2007 or around there.

While their ability to maintain their flight schedules has been lacking in the past, it was mostly due to lack of aircraft especially during the Hajj. With the government running the airline and the acquisition of 4 777s and 6 787s i think those issues are largely in the past.

Id give them a shot. Plus that livery is one of the best is the sky right now. Ill be happy to go watch that arrive into YYZ.

I think Kelowna Flightcraft still has a couple DC-10's in service now, running to South America or Europe. They had 4 or 5 when they had the Purolator contract but scrapped a couple at Hamilton after they lost that contract to Cargojet a few years ago.

KF’s 10s were retired a couple of years ago.

All I said was they had a spotty record, and given the circumstances, not sure this is a slam dunk. Also it wasn't even a formal release by the airline, which always seem weird. And considering in January 2020 (even prior to the pandemic) they had issues with keeping NYC going, the fact they are going to be a go for YYZ out of nowhere is suspicious. And the DC-10 issues weren't BS, and they have had scheduling issues even recently. It would be cool to get it, but I am just saying it should be taken with a grain of salt. If AC can't even keep Mumbai but you think Biman is a slam dunk seems baselessly optimistic. These are some excerpts from their issues:

New York and Manchester

As of January 2020, flights to New York remain suspended due to a shortage of aircraft.[110] From 1993 to 2006, Biman operated flights to John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City, from Dhaka via Brussels. New York was Biman's farthest and most prestigious destination, and was kept operational, despite heavy financial losses towards the end, to maintain a landing slot in the US which, if cancelled, could be difficult to regain. To curb the losses, Biman reduced the service to one flight per week and re-routed it through Manchester Airport, UK, capitalising on travel demands from the expatriate Bangladeshi community in the north of England. On 8 April 2006, Biman's inaugural flight to Manchester landed at Manchester Airport en route to JFK. However, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had placed the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) into Category 2 (does not meet International Civil Aviation Organization standards) according to its International Aviation Safety Assessment Program, which placed additional restrictions on the country's airlines when flying to the US. For Biman, this meant that it could continue flying to the US, but could not expand or make alterations to its routes, such as changing the transit from Brussels to Manchester. The FAA fined Biman for breaching its rules, and flights to New York were again re-routed through Brussels.

The FAA had already warned Biman to replace its ageing DC-10s by December 2005. According to experts, these aircraft were inadequately equipped to safely cross the Atlantic. On 13 May 2006, the FAA refused permission for Biman flight BG001 (Dhaka–Brussels–JFK) to enter its airspace, citing safety concerns over the ailing DC–10 aircraft used on the route. The flight was diverted to Montréal–Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in Canada, where the passengers were provided with alternative airline options to complete their journey. Canadian authorities inspected the aircraft and gave it a clean bill of health after which the aircraft returned to Dhaka without any passengers. The FAA eventually admitted it was mistaken and apologised for the error. The incident put an end to the route, which had been losing US$80,000 per flight, owing to its use of obsolete DC-10s. Biman decided to axe the route along with a number of other regional and domestic routes to curb the huge losses being incurred by the airline each month. However, in October 2007, Biman was directed by the then caretaker government to resume flights to New York. Biman was given until 25 October 2008 (extended from an earlier deadline of 23 March 2008) to resume flights to the airport by the JFK airport authority, after which it would have lost the landing slot permanently.
London
On 4 March 1972, Biman started its first international operations with a weekly flight to London using a Boeing 707. As of January 2020, Biman Bangladesh Airlines flies directly to London Heathrow, from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka, four times a week transporting both passengers and cargo, using its newly purchased Boeing 777 aircraft. Under its new management, the airline has seen a marked improvement in punctuality as well as in on-time flight performance in recent times. Back in 2007, Biman faced strong criticism from major international airports including London Heathrow Airport and Dubai International Airport for its failure to maintain flight schedules. Heathrow Airport operator BAA wrote to Biman providing evidence which showed Biman had not achieved the minimum 80% usage of its allocated landing slots at Heathrow, as required by EU and International Air Transport Association (IATA) regulations, during the summer of 2007. Biman should, therefore, not expect slot allocations at Heathrow for the summer of 2008 and should look to Stansted or Gatwick airports if it wished to continue serving London. Following discussions with BAA, however, Biman obtained landing slots for the summer of 2008 on condition that it achieved 80% usage. Delays continued unabated and in September 2008, Biman's Dhaka–London direct flight utilising a DC-10 aircraft was diverted and landed at Gatwick when it did not have sufficient fuel to remain in a holding pattern over Heathrow following arrival over three hours after the scheduled time.[131] In 2008, the United Nations advised its staff not to fly with Biman, citing both safety and security concerns and Biman's unreliable flight schedules. It was made clear that UN staff who flew with Biman did so at their own risk, and would be ineligible to make claims on insurance. Biman's then newly appointed managing director said he was unaware of the UN directive, but admitted that Biman did face problems in managing its flight schedules. He expected the situation to improve with the procurement of aircraft in the coming months.

Not just July, but they may still be updating their schedule.

You just copy pasted wikipedia lol. But it basically says exactly what i said. The FAA made a mistake. There were no issues with the DC10s ability to cross the Atlantic.