^ I wonder if that Omaha flight is more about feeding connecting traffic into AC's transatlantic network than anything else? AC is really building that up in a big way.

Yeah... AC is being really aggressive lately about extending service into smaller American cities. Savannah, San Antonio, Omaha, Providence... for a lot of these cities Toronto is the first international destination.

^ Man, San Antonio... I looked it up and the only 'international' flights are to adjacent Canada and Mexico. That's a city of 2.5 million. Although I guess being in the same state as major hubs like DFW and IAH will do that.

I have been to San Antonio, I am surprised it has 2.5 million people. It seemed like a city along the size of Winnipeg or Quebec City, rather than Vancouver. AC must feel there is market or they would not. As for Providence, it is a much less of a bottleneck traffic wise from the SW Boston suburbs than to go to Logan so they may be factoring this in.

The city itself has about 1.5 million, but the MSA is around 2.5 million. So depending on how you look at it, somewhere along the lines of Calgary (city) and Vancouver (MSA).

San Antonio is actually one of the few American cities where most of the metro is in the city proper.. ie. a "unicity".

Both DFW and IAH as connecting airports have poor customer experiences. They are just very large airports that involves a lot of walking. Was in DFW yesterday, departing terminal E, using the AMEX lounge in terminal D. The people mover is at least air side. But the gate areas are tight, they don't have sufficient seating for the passengers. It looks nice but functionally is just a marginal experience. IAH also lacks seating the correct space.

The DFW security lines are poorly designed in terminal E. Not certain about the other terminals. They don't label the regular or special precheck areas with overhead signs. You get yelled at for going to the wrong area. In return as a passangers you might as well yell at the TSA people. Finally walk down to the area for the regular one. Get through empty everything into some of the smallest bins going onto a table. You then have to carry your bins from the binning table to the x-ray machine. You take turns with another line. End result is most couples traveling together end up being split and waiting on the other end. The two airport employees who push around wheelchair passengers get into an argument with the TSA people because the wheelchair going through the metal detector while the wheelchair passenger needs to be helped into the body scanner and cant quite stand correctly for the scanner. While that is going on the x-ray scanners are blocked with annoyes the TSA people. The TSA people then stop for 10 minutes to figure out how to rotate positions and discuss who does a break next. After nearly 40 minutes to get through TSA I was setup to hate the rest of the airport experience.

Now San Antonia airport is actually a fairly nice place to travel in and quite compact.

Overall Toronto is a much better connecting airport.

Does anyone remember when AC flew YOW-SJC with the A319s during the early 2000s?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/air-...-jose-1.257037

interesting, where does the petroleum comes from for this new oil terminal? surely not blood oil from the Middle East :sly:

There's also a pipeline planned for this new terminal to transport the fuel... I thought Montreal & its mayor was against pipelines? :shrug:

October numbers out for YUL, traffic is up 9.1% at 15.52 million

Domestic +7.4%

International +12.3%

Transborder +8.0%

Looks like a YUL will hit the 18 million mark this year.

Holy smokes. The good times just keep on rolling. 18M is an impressive # given how traditionally "weak" YUL's relative performance was. Now with the help of its resident carrier (and its many affiliates), they're going gangbusters. Soon it'll be time to firm up construction plans for Dorval 2.0 :cool:

Great news for YUL, yes it's about time it starts having figures like this, as it should. I did a summary of YTD to September for the big 4 YYZ, YVR, YUl, YYC (since only YUL has posted Octobe, it's not comparable to include it). YUL and YVR were either #1 or #2 in each category. YUL is top % gain for domestic, international (not incl. transborder), and overall growth. YVR is top % gain for transborder and international (including transborder). YYZ was 3rd in all categories, and YYC 4th. I'll be very curious where YVR stands by the end of the year for international traffic (incl. transborder) in North America. Already at 9.5 million with 3 more months to go.

Great to see all airports doing well and adding services!

YVR was at 18 million just 4 years ago. Impressive indeed. As the aircraft movement list that I posted shows, YUL also passed YYC in that regard.

They consulted us for input on where to put a new terminal and ideas on different designs. We'll see what they come up with. One thing is for sure, Runway 10/28 will be gone, and the de-ice facility will more than likely have to move. That is prime real estate for a new terminal.

Personally though, I dont think that is needed for another 15-20 years.

ADM will start work on each parallel runway/taxiway for the next two summers, building us proper high speed exits, so while one parallel runway is closed, they will reopen 10/28. After that, sayonara to the crosswind runway !

Also, the bridge to nowhere finally goes somewhere. Only took them 8 years and $344 million (more than double the initial price !).

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montre...2017-1.4425297

Today's annoucnement is Montréal QC - Victoria BC

http://www.newswire.ca/news-releases...661240093.html


MONTREAL, Dec. 1, 2017 /CNW Telbec/ - Air Canada today announced non-stop, seasonal service between Montreal and Victoria, B.C. starting in June 2018. The new domestic transcontinental route complements Air Canada's U.S. transborder expansion announced Wednesday with new non-stop year-round Montreal-Baltimore and Montreal-Pittsburgh routes beginning in Spring 2018. All new flights are now available for purchase at www.aircanada.com and through travel agents.
 
"We are expanding our domestic network with our flexible fleet, products and services to capitalize on the growing seasonal demand to and from Vancouver Island during the peak summer travel period and will offer vacation travellers from Eastern Canada more convenient travel options. With the addition of new year-round Montreal-Baltimore and Montreal-Pittsburgh services, our customers will have unparalleled access to the most cities of any carrier in the United States, and provide U.S. travellers a convenient option to access our growing international network from Montreal," said Benjamin Smith, President, Passenger Airlines at Air Canada. "This underscores once again the strategic importance of building our Montreal hub as Air Canada continues its global expansion. Since 2012, our ever-growing presence at Montreal-Trudeau Airport has increased by 83 per cent with the introduction of 29 new routes."
"Today's announcement solidifies Montreal's role as a hub for business travel in North America. Montreal's business community will greatly benefit from more direct flights to major economic cities, so I commend Air Canada's commitment to contribute to Montreal's economic development," said Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante.
"The announcement of these direct flights to Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Victoria demonstrates the dynamism of Air Canada, which is contributing in a major way to the development of Montréal-Trudeau's air service," said Philippe Rainville, President and CEO of Aéroports de Montréal. "We are constantly looking to offer our passengers the best possible service, both for business and for leisure travel. These new destinations will enhance the range of flight options from Montreal."

All flights are timed to connect conveniently with Air Canada's global schedule, and provide for Aeroplan accumulation and redemption, Star Alliance reciprocal benefits, and for eligible customers, priority check-in, Maple Leaf Lounge access at mainline airports, priority boarding and other benefits.
 
Montreal-Victoria
Begins June 22 until Oct. 9, 2018
Tuesday, 
Friday,
Sunday
AC1685 departs 
Montreal at 7:45 a.m.
AC1684 departs
Victoria at 11:05 a.m.
Air Canada Rouge 136-
seat A319, Premium and 
Economy class
Montreal-Baltimore
Daily
May 17, 2018
Year-round
Air Canada Express 50-
seat CRJ
Montreal-Pittsburgh
Daily
May 17, 2018
Year-round
Air Canada Express 50-
seat CRJ
Air Canada at Montreal-Trudeau airport
With flights to 23 U.S. cities, the most of any airline, it has never been easier to connect in Montreal to Air Canada's global network including Paris, Lyon, Geneva, Brussels and Casablanca. With the introduction of our new international services from Montreal to Europe, Asia and North Africa, international travelers are increasingly finding that connecting through Montreal on Air Canada is the most convenient way to fly to and from the U.S. on North America's Best Airline as rated by Skytrax.
Air Canada's has announced seven new destinations from Montreal for 2018: Tokyo-Narita (Japan), Phoenix, Pittsburghand Baltimore (U.S.), Dublin (Ireland), Lisbon (Portugal) and Bucharest (Romania).
In 2017 Air Canada started service to Shanghai (China), Marseille (France), Dallas/Ft. Worth (U.S.), Washington/Dulles (U.S.), Keflavik (Iceland), Tel-Aviv (Israel), Algiers (Algeria) and in December to Lima (Peru).

Yup, it's from the middle east:

"Roughly 80 per cent of the fuel consumed by Air Canada planes at Pearson now comes from refineries in the Middle East, South America and parts of Asia. A similar program on the West Coast meets about 75 per cent of the airline's fuel needs in Vancouver.

"There's no other airline on the planet that does this," says Whitty. "Airlines are typically a captive audience to their local refining community."

Air Canada's fuel is brought into the country on ocean-going freighters and is unloaded at a port in Quebec City, the furthest up the St. Lawrence Seaway the fuel-carrying freighters can safely travel. From there, it is either placed on a barge that travels up the seaway to Hamilton, where it is put in holding tanks until it's trucked to Pearson, or put on rail cars that travel to a depot located 26 kilometres from the airport. The fuel is then trucked in for the final stretch.

https://www.thestar.com/business/200...ly_system.html

Air Canada also adding Toronto-Nanaimo and Toronto-Kamloops on Rouge.

I wonder how these new routes will impact YVR traffic. By offering these flights I think it could hit YVR's domestic #s, since these passengers will no longer be connecting. Kind of an odd move by AC to bypass one of their hubs (or in the case of Kamloops, likely this will affect YYC more since connecting from YYZ to YKA would often go through YYC). But the traffic must be significant enough to warrant it. They wouldn't launch these routes if they hadn't done the research to see where the traffic was going.

Curious if they will ever consider doing the same thing in the other direction? Ie. flights from YVR to smaller cities in the East. Unlikely, since I don't think they want to do anything to undermine hubbing at YYZ

It's strange since when you fly Minneapolis-Toronto-Ottawa that journey is cheaper than only Minneapolis-Toronto but Omaha-Toronto-Ottawa is more expensive than Omaha-Toronto so it doesn't seem to be treated like other feeder routes. It's a shame since I would use that flight.

A couple of seasonal 319s a day aren't going to do much to impact YVR's domestic numbers since summer at YVR handles over 250 domestic flights per day.

The effect will be even more muted since both Kamloops and Naniamo PAX have direct flights to YYC and would connect in both YYC and YVR so the load effect would be split.

Air Canada use to have same aircraft service from Vancouver to London Ontario (with a stop in Calgary).

The YYJ-YVR Dash-8 flights are frequently full, same goes for the YYJ-YYC flights. I have done the Montreal trip connecting in either YYZ, YVR or YYC. Not uncommon to see a good number of the people coming off the YYJ-YVR flight wander upstairs and grab the morning A330 departure to Montreal.

AC may also pull some passengers off Alaska and Delta out of YYJ with this move. When I have flown to Paris it is usually been via SEA. Same thing for the eastern US, it usually has been through SEA or YYZ.