Air Canada making a general capacity reduction announcement - they did secure an additional credit line at the start of this event.. but this hit on the airline industry is going to be unprecedented ...

Air Canada cuts seat capacity in half

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/busi...tes-as-ottawa/

I don't think the numbers are inflated. YVR on a normal day has around 60,000 pass through the airport. Basically about 2M people in January. About 50% of that was overseas or US.

The goal should be reduce the impact on the medical system. Europe and some countries in Asia are problems. We should have focused on them. If a rush in getting everyone home having people come back from Mexico and lower risk area standing in the same lines are high risk passengers is the best situation.

WestJet to suspend all transborder and international flights for 30 days.

https://blog.westjet.com/statement-o...ponse:facebook

This is so f*d up, at least this will halt the weird competitive behaviour on here with pax numbers (although not so sure, maybe people will still rival over #s during the shutdowns!). I can't believe the border close didn't included the US, that was a cop out. I think the US is going to get hit hard. They have an insane amount of domestic travel by all modes, and that's been going on for a while when the virus was likely already spreading. Banning international is all well and good, but if people are travelling city to city across states, that's just as bad! Add to that the already poor health of a lot of Americans (the risk factors for serious corona complications are diabetes, heart disease, etc.). Lots of that in America, just as much as the elderly are getting it, the unhealthy could be hit just as hard. The numbers are gowing in America fairly decently now

Is Swoop included in this?

They are implementing restrictions step by step, the next big step will be the closing of our border.

We need to slam the borders shut to American citizens, full stop. Please Justin, grow a pair and do the right thing.

Thought i'd share my flying experience today.

Flying through Pearson this morning might have been one of the weirdest experiences I've ever had. It so weird to see one of the worlds busiest airports completely empty, and I mean completely. My flight in from Moncton (Q400) had 15 people on it, I had nobody in my row, the row behind, and in-front of me. Pearson was completely dead, the majority of people inside the airport right now are workers, and if I had to guess they're the only ones keeping some of the shops afloat right now. You can legitimately walk through entire corridors and not see any other travellers, I feel like a solid comparison would be YEG during off-peak hours. My connection to Calgary looked about 3/4 full and YYC if just as dead as YYZ. I wouldn't be surprised if layoffs come soon.

And what do you propose we eat, after fresh food starts running out five days later ....

Like a good portion of border closures in the world, cargo will be exempt. It would be for us citizens trying to enter our country

But not just because you say so. You may not be aware, but cargo only moves when human beings move it. This needs to be negotiated with the USA. You really think that if everything was already in place that the closure wouldn't have been announced already? Give your head a shake! And pray that the USA doesn't close the border unilaterally.

Assuming that this is the way we want to go in the future, and that Americans are willing to go along with it, there are some pretty obvious ways to close the U.S.-Canada border and keep goods flowing with minimal human contact.

If something is the right thing to do (even moreso if it's of critical, life-saving importance), saying "awww it would be too complicated!" is not a justifiable excuse for inaction.

Trump makes it complicated. The border will be closed, but I'm thinking that they want it to be his idea. Otherwise, Canada will suffer economically from his backlash. James Moore was talking about this on Twitter yesterday.

On L'Actualité's website yesterday there was a piece that was talking about pretty much the same thing.

It's astonishing that this is an all-important factor given the gravity of the situation, but the closing of the border when it happens will imperatively have to include optics that allow Trump to save face.

Basically it can't look like Canada is shutting the border because the U.S. response (under Trump) to COVID-19 is a mess and we're afraid of the chaos spilling over onto our side.

Pathetic that it comes to this, where flattery of an egomaniac is driving foreign policy during a pandemic, but given the circumstances it's a perfectly reasonable approach to take.

What shows up on cnn and fox and reality are two very different things. It was important to generate the optics that air traffic between China and the US was closed. Well there are still Chinese airlines offering passenger service into the US. The same for Europe. Air France is still flying daily into the US. The real goal is to shutdown travel that is not needed while still leaving sufficient air routes operating for essential travel.

Same thing with the the Canadian rules. The rules now state that anyone coming into Canada (including both Canadians and Americans) must self-quarantine for 14 days. The only exception are individuals essential for the transportation of goods and people. Basically truck drivers and air crew are exempt. The quarantine requirement kills all tourism traffic but still keeps essential business traffic moving.

Little YYJ reporting that the number of PAX is down 30% so far in March... after a slight uptick in Feb.

In other news the European Commission is suspending slot rules @ EU airports until June 30. That will allow carriers to finally cancel (mostly empty) many flights that were necessary just to keep their slots at certain airports.

https://www.internationalairportrevi...rt-slot-rules/


Also, its almost a certainty that Boeing will go bankrupt without Gov aid.

Now they added one: YVR-MEL

Though from the wording, seems like they're blaming the seasonal suspension on coronavirus...

Do you really think the unwashed Canadian masses who stampeded to by toilet paper wouldn't collectively freak out if they heard the border was closing? They wouldn't be attuned to subtleties like the fact goods would still be moving through.

I doubt there are very many American tourists coming to Canada. Canadians looking for cheap cheese south of the 49th on their weekly shopping run are likely a bigger threat.

Ah there we go.