YYC February 2020 stats are out. The extra day this year wasn't enough to push the month into positive territory.

https://www.yyc.com/en-us/media/fact...tatistics.aspx

Domestic : 880,612 -0.9%
Transborder : 283,135 +3.5%
International : 175,630 -2.3%
Total: 1,339,377 -0.2%

YTD total: 2,673,765 -2.06%

This will be YYC's best month this year, for sure. Hold on to your hats, starting with the next monthly reports, pax stats nationwide will take a huge nosedive.

I find it very bizarre that AC is still operating so many flights to the NYC region (LGA and EWR). They cancelled Milan right away when it was flagged as a hotspot, but NYC is now the new global epicentre and getting worse, ye they are keeping flights going? The "mandatory quarantine" on arrival is a joke, if those planes are flying in and out all day back and forth there will be more infections. Seems bizarre to me they cancelled service to cities like Beijing in the beginning, even without there being cases there. Yet NYC is like Wuhan now with their case growth, and they don't seem to care?

Sarnia joins Lethbridge and Medicine Hat in losing AC service permanently.

https://blackburnnews.com/sarnia/sar...s-sarnia-good/

Delta cuts to Canada:

Calgary
Service from Salt Lake City to Calgary suspended as of March 24.
Service from Seattle to Calgary suspended as of March 27.

Montreal
Service from Minneapolis to Montreal suspended as of March 24.
Service from New York-LGA to Montreal suspended as of March 24.
Service from Atlanta to Montreal to suspend as of April 2.

Toronto
Service from Cincinnati to Toronto suspended as of March 24.
Service from Salt Lake City to Toronto suspended as of March 24.
Service from Minneapolis to Toronto suspended as of March 27.

Ottawa
Service from New York-LGA to Ottawa suspended as of March 24.

Vancouver
Service from Atlanta to Vancouver suspended as of March 24.
Service from Minneapolis to Vancouver suspended as of March 27.
Service from Salt Lake City to Vancouver suspended as of March 24.

https://news.delta.com/coronavirus-u...lying-schedule

China now implement new rules for international flight. Each airline is now limited to operate only 1x weekly flight per country.

This will be the operating plan, effective Mar 29. All route 1x weekly

CA PEK-YUL-HAV
MU PVG-YYZ
CZ CAN-YVR
HU PEK-YYZ
MF XMN-YVR
3U CTU-YVR

Yikes. Unlike the two Alberta cities, Sarnia doesn't yet have WS Link. I would imagine once all this is over and WS' Link East opens that YZR will be on the add list out of the gate.

I wonder if Porter or GTA Express would look at YZR come this fall?

Funny how China had no problem letting its airlines fly all over the world when the epicentre of the pandemic was in China.

Ha. The irony. No doubt the whole issue is in the process of being deflected from a domestic issue to a Huge Threat posed by outsiders.

IKR - to think they are doing this because the flights are bringing the virus back into China.

We should have bigger concerns with US and European flights.

Might depend on what Porter's market research shows for where people from Sarnia are flying to. WS Link would at least connect to Pearson and all that goes with that, compared to just Porter's own network out of YTZ. I think another part of Porter's issue is the size of their aircraft. They used to have a mix of B1900's and DH1's in there, but the number of flights was cut, I think down to 1 a day, on a DH3 and wasn't well sold due to the limited schedule. Don't know what Porter would bring to the table to put a 70 seater in there.

Updated, change CA to PEK-YVR

CA PEK-YVR
MU PVG-YYZ
CZ CAN-YVR
HU PEK-YYZ
MF XMN-YVR
3U CTU-YVR

AC has now suspended most of its long hauls until May 31.

WS schedule remains unchanged. LGW suspended until April 20 / CDG April 23. FCO still scheduled to start May 2. Also WestJet's 5th 787 is currently ready for delivery at CHS.

YVR expects this year's traffic to decline to 1995 levels. They are also putting their construction program on hold:

https://vancouversun.com/news/covid-...-d4cfec69b488/

Kenneth Chan?

Huh? :shrug:

Canadian route updates - foreign carriers Trans-Pacific (of course subject to change):

All Nippon Airways (29Mar - 24Apr):

Tokyo Haneda – Vancouver, 3 weekly 787-9

Air China (29Mar-30Apr):

Beijing Capital – Vancouver, 1 weekly 777-300ER

Beijing Capital – Montreal – Havana, 1 weekly 777-300ER (Havana service restored)

Japan Airlines (29Mar-30Apr):

Tokyo Narita – Vancouver, 2 weekly 767

Philippine Airlines (15Apr-30Apr):

Manila – Toronto, 1 daily 777-300ER

Manila – Vancouver, 1 daily 777-300ER

EDIT (add):

Cathay Pacific (29Mar-31May):

Hong Kong – Vancouver, 2 weekly A350-900XWB (3 weekly from 12MAY20)

Competition Bureau report for AC/TS merger is out. Findings are as expected.

A financial expert reviewed Transat's financials and expected cost-reduction and margin-improvement initiatives and determined that TS is solvent and unlikely to exit the relevant markets in the near term if the merger doesn't happen.

Let's see what Marc Garneau will do with this info.

https://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/...eng/04522.html

At this point the Transport Minister would be a fool to do anything that interferes with any of Canada's airlines.

I guess due to the HAV tag, YVR and YUL are actually considered to be in different country. Otherwise CA will need to pick one of the two :D

I don't think Air Canada has such a limited group of international destinations since the 1970s. It's crazy to look at something like Flightradar24 and see how few Canadian-registered aircraft are flying to the US or internationally. We've not even hit bottom yet.

Currently, the most activity is domestic (makes sense given the announcements by airlines) and repatriation flights from Mexico and the Caribbean.

It is nuts to watch in real time.