WS S23 Long haul changes

YYC-LHR 1x daily
YYC-CDG 1x daily
YYC-LGW 1x daily
YYC-FCO Up to 5x weekly
YYC-DUB Up to 5x weekly

YVR-LGW 1x daily

YYZ-EDI/DUB/GLA are all still scheduled

No AMS, and unsurprisingly no new routes that I've found(they probably won't get loaded until Monday).

Means while, looks like AC continue to cut back on YYC in the latest schedule update.

Following routes are suspended or cancelled:
YYC-YQR/YXE/YZF/YYJ/YCD/YKA
YYC-SFO/IAH

Following routes have frequency cut by half or more:
YYC-YMM/YQU/YLW

YYC-YEG gets a 30% cut too. Some flights are still left in schedule but zeroed out, but most flights are fully removed.

Now looks like YYC will be much smaller than half of the size of YVR and YUL operation. Not sure if AC is still planning to keep YYC as a hub?

Mean whiles, expands FCO service using 788 for additional flights
YYZ-FCO to 10x weekly (AC888)
YUL-FCO to 8x weekly (AC904)

So YYC, YEG have substantial cutbacks and also here YOW's AC hacks for S23:

-YEG gone - An eventual E95 route for a certain operator no doubt. So the only YOW-YEG nonstops are on the ULCCs next summer (F8 & WO)
-BOS gone
-YFC gone
-YQM gone
-YYG gone - looks like F8 won
-YYT gone - seems like a prime ULCC opportunity & future E95 route of a certain someone
-EWR down to 1x (plus 2 UA E70s or 75s) - insane that there's still no afternoon or evening EWR departure
-YHZ down to 2x - excluding 2020/21, that's the lowest capacity since the 80s for AC
-YUL down to 7x and no mainline
-YYZ down to 11x from 16x...at least before 0800 the equipment is mainline and the one-way fares are under $200. This winter the two early a.m.'s are CR9s and are north of $500 daily one-way. In other words, the return to hourly Rapidair service is still a ways off.
-DCA daily flight cut to a CRJ from a CR9, which is what it's been since it returned several months ago - pre-pandemic this was 2x daily CRJ

So for summer 2023, AC will fly nonstop out of YOW to a mere 10 destinations. Excluding 2020 & 21, you'd have to go back to the mid-1970s for an AC YOW summer season nonstop destination count this low. Even this past summer it was 12 with YEG & YYG operating (13 if you count the 3 weeks YQB returned for cut they got walloped with the flight crew shortages). To put things in perspective, Flair are currently planning to serve 10 nonstop destinations out of YOW next summer, of which 4 they'll have zero nonstop competition on...I sure hope Flair survive the lean winter months. The only AC consolation prize YOW gets is the 789 is back on one of the three daily YOW-YVR rotations.

All of those are regional routes operated by Jazz, so curious if operational challenges played a factor in those cuts.

YYC-SFO/IAH are both flown on UA. Be curious is SFO gets mainline again.

Additionally, I see now WS added a 3rd YYC-LAX flight in March on select days.

I'll add a bit more to this. WS more than doubles its FCO presence, resuming a month earlier (April 6 now) and extended the schedule into November. FCO even resumes a week earlier than CDG does.

I saw on twitter that WS closed bookings on YYZ-GLA/DUB but I see both of them still limited to full-fare W/Y class.

If my math is correct, without the expected new routes WS has 31x weekly TATL from YYC in S23.

So this schedule would require about 6.2 frames given YVR-LGW can't be done within a 24 hour window with the same aircraft...will obviously be a YYC-LGW-YVR-LGW-YYC W pattern. That should leave enough slack for 2x weekly AMS and 2x weekly YYC-BCN. Likely also means zero YYC/YVR-YYZ domestic runs in between international flights.

So if YVR-LGW is also kept that means there could be 2 new routes out of YYC. Probably EDI/BCN.

I'm still sort of surprised YOW is getting gutted so badly by AC. At least WS is focussing on the west + there's a lot more ULCC competition too. Whereas YOW isn't seeing much competition to the extent YYC is to warrant all the cuts (unless you count potential new PD routes, none of which have been announced yet)

The two routes schedules don't line up to swap aircraft in LGW, which means there needs to be some domestic runs.

YVR-LGW
WS22 Arrives 10:25 WS23 Departs 13:00
YYC-LGW
WS01 Arrives 09:00 WS02 Departs 11:00

I am shocked the YYC-YXE/YQR routes are gone. Especially the ones that connect with the flights to London and Frankfurt. That was an important route for both Saskatoon and Regina when it came to onward connections. There going to route everything through Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver.

Surprising. It does mean AC becomes an all jet airline in Saskatoon and Regina. CRJ900 to Montreal and Vancouver. A320/319 to Toronto.

This may be the negative impact of Swoop and Flair. Both those are going to set to cause a lot of damage to air service into small centers. They are virtually useless airlines for onwards connections. If we are going to allow them to continue to operation the government needs to force them to interline with others.

6x weekly. The Saturday flight will be run by 7M8. This flight will be replacing the widebody transcon run to EWR that connects to the BNE flight.

Old: BNE-YVR-EWR-YVR-BNE
New: BNE-YVR-YOW(x6)/CUN(6)-YVR-BNE

Not sure if they will want to run all 7 planes to Europe 7 days a week though. If they have domestic runs, at least they would have slack and could swap some runs with 737 if needed to. If they have a full schedule to Europe, then they will need to cancel flights if there is heavy delay or if a plane need to be taken out of service.

Of course they can still cancel the YVR-LGW run and reroute everyone through YYC if they need to cancel a flight. Hard to do so for any other destinations though. But other than that, I don't see much room for expansion with what they have.

They could add 2 new 3x weekly routes and still have a little bit of slack though right?

Also based on the AC cuts at YYC I'm expecting WS to beef up their schedule a decent amount. They'll probably have a lot of feed for these flights but wow, we're looking at roughly 5 daily TATL flights from YYC on WS next summer, and about 4 on every other TATL airline combined.

I'm surprised honestly, seems like a missed opportunity for YVR-FCO 4 weekly.
Maybe the plane can't rotate in time, but just a thought.

If they change the timing of the YVR flight, maybe they can squeeze in a 4x weekly AMS so 6 planes will be operating flights to Europe at any time. Not sure if they want to use the 7th planes for long-hual, or just do some YYZ/YVR runs as "standby".

But they haven't open the flights for reservation, so I'm just assuming all departure/arrivals at YYC will be in the early evenings.


Same.. I thought they are saving the AC888 flight number for YVR-FCO... but I got half of the route right I guess.

Maybe there's just an extra 4x weekly 788 at YYZ and they can't find a new destination. The plane will be operating as
Wed: YYZ-FCO-YYZ
Thurs: something else
Fri-Sun: YYZ-FCO-YUL-FCO-YYZ-FCO-YYZ
Mon-Tues: something else

So if they want to use it for YVR, it can only be at most 2x weekly flight on Sat and Sun.

Widebody planes at YVR is currently fully scheduled for S23. If they want to add something new, then they'll need to add 7 weekly flights, or do a W pattern from YYZ or YUL.

Yes, the schedule right now only requires about 5.5 frames.

YYC-LHR/LGW/CDG & YVR-LGW - 4 frames
YYC-FCO/DUB don't run every day. On Sun, Tue, Wed and Fri only one of those routes flies.

So they could add 3x weekly each YYC-BCN/EDI and still have some slack in the fleet.

These are the schedule departure times for each TATL route. So of them vary per operating day.

WS001 YYC-LGW 17:30 Daily
WS006 YYC-DUB 19:55 12457
WS010 YYC-CDG 19:40 Daily
WS018 YYC-LHR 20:30 Daily
WS022 YVR-LGW 17:10 Daily
WS032 YYC-FCO 18:05 13456

I think it's a good idea they're keeping YVR-LGW. Probably much more lucrative than, say YYC-ATH or if they had taken up the DXB slots.

By the way even though YYZ-DUB/GLA have been dropped from the booking portal EDI is still up. Wonder if that means that's the sole YYZ TATL route?

Minister of Transport announces expanded Canada-Colombia Air Transport Agreement to allow unlimited flights and destinations

https://www.canada.ca/en/transport-c...tinations.html

Hmm YVR - BOG one day?

Canadian carriers have never been at the limit of the previous bilateral. So there was always room to add YVR-BOG.

Currently for W22, AC is 7x weekly and TS is 3x weekly. That’s 10x weekly, leaving 4x weekly unused.

The new agreement will probably mean more YYZ/YUL in the short term, until AC gets more widebodies.

I hope this means Avianca will eventually fly to YUL. It’s been rumored in the past on a few occasions.