Connections in a lot of those airports really suck compared to Pearson. From much of the US, Pearson is on the way to Europe. That's especially true for cities that don't have a direct link. At Pearson, the connection process is simple, and the options on Air Canada and other Star Alliance carriers is ever growing. Pearson has gone from ~30M passengers less than a decade to more than 40M today.

Pearson is on the way but travellers are not going to connect through an airport if they don't have to. You honestly think someone from St Louis, or Omaha, Toledo will connect through Toronto over New York, or One of many other airports?

Let me see, I'll go St Louis to Toronto on Air Canada Express then on to Europe or via Chicago on American or United then on to Europe or via New York on American, Delta, or Southwestern then on to Europe. Maybe through Boston, Detroit, Atlanta, Cleveland, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington, etc etc etc.

No brainer Americans will fly US airlines before they fly Air Canada.

Well that's exactly what American passengers are doing.

And yet that's where Air Canada's major growth is coming from.

People buy on price, ease of connection, and time, for the most part.

True. The lower Canadian dollar has considerably helped in that regard. A 35% bonus for each US dollar spent is not insignificant. It's smart for Air Canada to take advantage of that to fill their planes. It does expose them to currency fluctuations, on the downside.

Services like Google Flights have made "unusual" connections much more prevalent these days. There is a fair bit of money to be saved by this method. So, that bodes well for Pearson for traffic from states like Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, upstate NY, and upstate Pennsylvania. They're close enough that connecting flights run relatively often to Pearson (or are within driving distance) and since people from that area have to connect somewhere anyway, why not save a few bucks and fly via Canada, which tends to be in the direction they're going.

I think the market from the Northeastern US seaboard would be much smaller though - there's tons of competition on the US East coast for flights (and airports) and I can't see people adding several hours of travel onto an intercontinental flight unless it was an absolutely screaming deal.

I completely disagree, The average traveller, not just an American is looking for the cheapest and fastest way to travel. If that means doing LAX-YUL-CDG for 550 USD you bet they'll book with Air Canada.

AC even increased flights from YUL to the US this passed summer with the addition of 1 daily Houston (showing 2x daily as of April) and Denver, 2x daily Philly and extra flights to EWR, LAX, SFO and LAS. Not to mention MIA went year round.

I lost count of how many European flights out of YUL this summer I worked where the American passport count was over 50% of the flight, especially to destinations like CDG, VCE, CMN and BCN.

I feel totally disillusioned, I have travelled to 6 of the 7 continents on this planet, have met American's on bus tours, cruises, train travel, on safari, scuba excursions, river boats, outback hikes, on ferry boats, mountain gondolas, in hostels, at hotels etc. and I have never ever heard of even once an American that has traveled via Canada on route to another country. The only thing that is remotely close is someone that said he considered going to Cuba (if it didn't expose him to American criticism) via Canada & a friend from NYC that flew to Hong Kong via Cathay Pacific with the stop in Vancouver on same plane.

It is very novel indeed to think that while Canadians are crossing the border to get cheap Allegiant flights in USA, American's are crossing over border to Canada to get 'cheap & convenient' Canadian flights aboard :haha:

I wonder if there are even any Canadian airports that haven't increased traffic by 33% in the last decade.

The original argument put forward was that EU flights are dispersed "largely" between YYZ, YUL, YVR, and YYC, not that YVR handles what it should or should not for a city its size. "Largely dispersed" implies some form of equal distribution which is not the case at all and is a flawed argument.

Most of the non hub airports are far below that.

Then you're not understanding catchment area. For an airport, especially a hub, a catchment would be any area whereby a connection can be easily achieved on a relatively short flight. 2 hours or under is a short enough flight to be considered within a catchment.

YVR went from 15M to 21M in less than a decade AFAIK so that is a 33% increase.

Much of that because of the same strategy.

And most of that was in the past two years. Between 2005 and 2013, the average annual growth was abysmal.
It also wasn't 15M to 21M in less than a decade. It was about 17M to 21M in that time.

Last time I flew AC's YUL-CDG run, almost 3 years ago now, there were a ton of Americans on board. Including two girls connecting from Orlando about to start a backpacking trip across Europe.

Guess why they flew through YUL.......

:yeahthat:

Huh?....Ok...where do I start.

First, YWG only has 1 weekly summer seasonal non stop to LGW. Hardly worth mentioning.

Second, if you are going to mention YWG for western Canada, YUL and YOW should definitely be mentioned for Ontario and Quebec. AC has non stop flights from YOW to both LHR and FRA. And if we are going to talk about the Maritimes, then you are also forgetting about YYT and YHZ, which have numerous non stops to Europe.

So your reasoning as to why YYZ sees the traffic it does is not accurate. YYZ sees the traffic it does because of 1 thing.....Toronto.

You have to understand that YYZ, YUL and most likely YVR as well are heavy O&D airports. 70% of passengers at YYZ are either originating or terminating their trip in Toronto. Same for YUL, which has an O&D of 80%.

So YYZ and YUL have the number of flights they do to Europe, not because they are perfect connecting hubs, but because people from each of these cities wants to go to Europe. So the demand is there, and when people are willing to pay a premium for the non stop, airlines will more often than not do the market research and start the route.

Now AC's new strategy is to leverage what it already has in YVR, YYZ and YUL and build up the 6th freedom traffic (US-Canada-Europe/Asia), which up until now represents only a very small percentage of total passenger count at any Canadian airport.

Connecting pax are now 30% of traffic at Pearson. They want to raise that to 50%.

The growth between 2005 and 2013 was bad (strange years to pick) because of 2008 - 2009, when traffic fell everywhere.

Perhaps, but YVR had quite exceptionally slow growth during that stretch.

YVR got hit by the double whammy of the downturn in the global economy and the boost in the Canadian dollar.

YVR, and the Vancouver economy in general, seems particular sensitive to a high CAD and it really hampered growth during that time.

I suppose that's one way to read it. I read dispersal as being per-capita, but that's an assumption either way of the intent of dispersal.

Either way this is getting a bit silly, bulk of Europe flying goes out of YUL and YYZ, no question.

I have meet many Americans who transit through Toronto. It is not uncommon at all. This especially true with cruise traffic that is often price sensitive and booked by the cruise line.

As United, Lufthansa (with it's subsidiaries) and Air Canada continue to expand their joint venture I think you will see more and more of it.