YOW's July pax traffic

Sector / Jul-21 / Jul-22 / % Change
Dom: 116,171 / 293,192 / +152.4% - this surpasses July 2010, but that's not hard with July 2010 having had 81,828 non-domestic pax.
TB: 0 / 13,328 / #DIV/0!
Int'l: 0 / 0 / #DIV/0!
TTL: 116,171 / 306,520 / +163.9%

Sector / YTD 2021 / YTD 2022 / % Change
Dom: 278,434 / 1,373,110 / +393.2%
TB: 0 / 76,532 / #DIV/0!
Int'l: 0 / 42,722 / #DIV/0!
TTL: 278,434 / 1,492,364 / +436.0%

Month-Over-Month Change
Sector / Jun-21 / Jul-21 / % Change
Dom: 283,120 / 293,192 / +3.6%
TB: 14,639 / 13,328 / -9.0%
Int'l: 0 / 0 / #DIV/0!
TTL: 297,759 / 306,520 / +2.9%
Avg/Day: 9,925 / 9,888 / -0.4% - so the fewer flights in July vs June resulted in a slightly lower average daily pax count, but much higher load factors. I bet June was in the mid 70s, while I bet July was in the high 80s.
2019 daily average: 13,990
Traffic recovered to 70.7% of 2019's daily average or -0.2% vs June's 70.9%

12 Months Rolling / % Change vs Year End 2020
Dom: 2,238,626 / +116.9%
TB: 87,774 / -46.2%
Int'l: 58,319 / -65.4%
TTL: 2,384,719 / +74.9%

Slowly getting there. Not too bad, all things considered.

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YUL posted June and Q2 results as well.

https://www.admtl.com/sites/default/...ique_VA_VF.pdf

Q2 2022 saw 4.0 million passengers, which was 79.7% of traffic compared to Q2 2019.

June saw 1,589,600 passengers, which is 86.4% of June 2019 numbers.

YTD traffic reached 6,234,000 passengers in the first half of the year, which is just ahead of YYC's 6.05 million for the same period.

I wonder why they didn't post the full update on the Stats page yet. YVR did the same, they announced total volumes before posting the actual stats. Just for PR I guess, postive news about airlines is contagious, it will help the rebound to hear good stories about airports and not the doom and gloom of Covid years and the other airport issues this year. YUL's international (non-US) traffic is definitely impressive, to the point that I think they are siphoning off Pearson's growth. Operating two hubs so close together in a small-ish population country can always be a bit iffy, but YYZ and YUL are so different and had different strengths historically. But the AC growth at YUL has been on routes that were very YYZ (just to name a few: Delhi, Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Cairo, South America, Tel Aviv, even European routes like Copenhagen). These were part of Montreal in the Mirabel days, but hadn't been for quite a while. It seems to me that although Toronto is the global hub, AC has actually been giving YUL more love. Other than Brussels in the spring, they are kind of stagnant on YYZ, which is surprising. I thought they'd be amping YYZ up before YUL, to be honest.

YVR is even getting more love than YYZ it seems like. Although China's still in the dumps and India is a no-fly zone (things that are no reflection on YVR itself, just global circumstance), AC introduced BKK, boosted Australia and New Zealand, and have been strengthening transborder and switching to more mainline. And arguably WS has axed more Toronto routes than almost any other station (a big chunk of their Encore service, their LGW service, Charlottetown..). They still have massive operations there, no doubt, but they are really a sun destination carrier now. They have so much competition from Flair and other domestic-focused airlines, their domestic routes aren't as big as they used to be. Obviously Toronto is by far the biggest domestic market in Canada, so they are always going to have a big presence, but it seems like they are in retraction mode there. AC is not in retraction mode, but they don't seem to be giving new routes to YYZ the way they are to YUL. Someone made a funny comment a few weeks ago when Top Gun was #1 at the box office and Kate Bush was in the top with Running Up That Hill, it was like 1985-86 all over again. And Montreal attracting all the international love was also very mid 80s lol!

This was not meant to be a pile-on against YYZ, not at all, nothing personal, please no angry replies from YYZers. Just never really thought about it until I looked at what was happening in YYZ vs YUL and was very surprised how different their trajectories seem. What this tells me is AC has so many routes from YYZ already, so with what equipment they have available, they see more success in new routes from YUL and YVR. I think AC has gotten into almost all the big main routes from YYZ already, so the routes left may not be as viable in the current climate. Whereas YUL was so underserved, there's more fresh fruit.

It's a totally different story than in the West, because WS is so clearly dominant in YYC, so AC isn't really concerned about splitting between them and YVR. YYC keeps LHR and FRA on AC, and some sun destinations, but that's it. So if they expand in the West, YVR is almost certain to benefit. Whereas in the East, AC has to make real educated judgement calls about what new routes are announced and from where to Europe, Africa, Middle East. Both YYZ and YUL are seen as valuable contenders, and seems lately YUL is winning.

^ several reasons as to why that is.

1. Not much room left at YYZ T1. Pre-pandemic, there was talk of reactivating the infield terminal due to this reason I believe.
2. As you said, YUL was underserved, especially internationally. That's not the case anymore.
3. AC wants to maximize 6th freedom traffic from the US to Europe. It's a priority for AC, and is therefore leveraging both of its east coast hubs in order to do it. This is why you are seeing a lot of routes to Europe and Asia flown from both YYZ and YUL. YVR also got some love in this regard, with the addition of ZRH/DUB and FRA on AC metal. No doubt they wanted the flights to capture some of the US west coast to Europe demand.

YYZ now benefits from upgauging aircraft moreso than new destinations for Air Canada. By increasing the number of destinations at their other hubs, fewer passengers are funnelled via YYZ. Or alternately, overflow can be moved away from YYZ, letting it focus on origin-and-departure passengers.

Maybe more secondary Europe happens from YYZ when the XLR comes on the scene. Extra narrowbodies are easier to accommodate than big metal.

Yes think you are both right. I am always surprised that Canadian airports can capture so much US to Europe traffic. There a lot of US airports with service to Europe, it's not like it's just available from one or two. AC must really be able to provide a price discount to be able to capture this

AC doesn't seems to run more than 1x daily for long-haul routes except maybe LHR, CDG, etc. If there is demand to run more than a daily service, they'll try to split the routes between 2 hubs and route the traffic between one of the two hubs (maybe more to YUL, as YYZ likely have more O&D demand).

This is the case of CPH. Instead of running 10x weekly from YYZ, it was split between YYZ and YUL with 5x weekly each. I guess the same can be said about GRU, DEL, ICN.

So regard to this, this is what I think:
- Instead of 10-11x weekly YVR-SYD, AC would've run the extra flights from YYZ, except it doesn't have the plane capable of flying the route
- The next European destination from YVR is likely to be something already have daily service from YYZ (and YUL)
- When demand rebounds, YVR-NRT will not grow beyond 1x daily flight. AC will try to restart the route from YYC instead.

Leveraging the CAD v. USD spread helps.

The Northeastern US has seen a lot of de-hubbing over the decades, so many secondary cities that used to have direct service lost it. That leaves remaining US East Coast hubs (NYC, Boston, Philadelphia) that can be miserable to transit (Newark and JFK in New York come to mind as particularly bad examples) on the most direct path to Europe.

UPX ---> YYZ to YYC today at 630am.

YYZ was BUSY for anyone checking luggage and without NEXUS, but with just carry-on and NEXUS it was less than 15mins from getting off the UPX AND passing through security.

Recovering, but still far lagging other airports (case in point almost 16 points behind YUL), simply because of the hyper-concentration at YYZ and YUL...especially with YOW's ability to generate 0 international pax this summer and looking the same for next. It is still beyond perplexing how YHZ and YQB have more transatlantic capacity vs pre-pandemic and YOW has none. Even YXY got FRA back this summer.

ANA are moving YVR-TYO back to NRT: https://www.flightglobal.com/network...147166.article

YQB's june yoy numbers are out (still irritatingly not publishing the number of passengers though):

January 246.6%
February 618.8%
March 1,254.9%
April 1,305.9%
May 1,265.5%
June 948.6%

https://www.aeroportdequebec.com/en/...layout-content

That article is from last January.

ANA has been flying to YVR from NRT since March, and plans to continue this coming winter season as well.

https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/220810-nhnw22yvr


Pretty useless information. Not even worth posting.

I agree that it's very concerning, especially if you're from Ottawa, but YHZ, YQB and YXY have inbound tourism from Europe. YOW has less of that. So that's 1 aspect. It surely explains why DE, AF and 4Y serve those three, but not YOW.

Also, YOW is dependent on AC/LH for long haul service, and AC's priority is on building back its hubs at the moment. No one else will add transatlantic from YOW, unfortunately. TS and WS aren't really interested. So that narrows the field a bit. AC's hubs should be up and running at full steam come next summer, so maybe AC might resume YOW-LHR/FRA come summer 2024.

As for YHZ, there is a strong possibility that WS doesn't resume any of its european destinations from there next summer.

That is such a shame, because nobody east of Saskatchewan would likely backtrack to YYC to pick up a European flight. WS is literally handing any Europe bound passengers from most of Canada over to AC or TS! If WS could at least hang on the YHZ Europe ops, they might get at least some interested passengers willing to connect there.

Leisure travellers would if the price is right... if the connection is decent, backtracking to YYC doesn't really add much travel time.

I can appreciate that business travellers flying on the company dime would probably be a bit more picky, though.

I have seen from social media feeds several Winnipeg friends and acquaintances have gone to Europe via YHZ this summer. It seems to be a popular option which lets people avoid the unpredictability of YYZ. I would have certainly leaned towards YHZ as a first option if I had gone to Europe this summer, followed by YYC/YUL and then finally YYZ.

Had a fun time at Pearson on the weekend. Waited 1 hour, 40 minutes for our baggage. The flight was only 2 hours. What a joke of an airport of late.

We also took Flair for the first time. What a joke of an airline, too. We couldn’t check in online because of unspecified system issues but they provided an error code and magnanimous promise to waive the $25 airport check-in desk fee. Then we got an email about 12 hours before the flight saying “your flight has changed” but it didn’t provide any details, just a suggestion to check our reservation at Flair’s website. We tired to do so, but only got a concerning “no reservation found” result to our reservation code/last name search. We then had to use Flair's chat feature and began slogging through the pre-made FAQ prompts to get a person. Pro-tip, if you successfully initiate admittance to the live-person queue by saying "agent", it will confirm that you will speak to someone and gives you an estimated wait time (<15 minutes, so not terrible). Here's the tip, once you are in the queue, the chat will suggest additional self-serve FAQ topics to explore while you wait. If you choose one, it apparently cancels your place in the queue and puts you back to square one to re-request an agent (and new wait time estimate). When we did connect to someone live, there was a delay of up to 5 minutes between typing something and receiving their response. Ultimately, they couldn’t answer any questions about our flight or the itinerary changes but said they would have their system send us an automatically generated updated itinerary, which told us the flight was only delayed by 20 minutes. When I asked why this info wasn’t sent with the original email, which is simply the bare minimum for any itinerary change-related airline communication, and why we were unable to even access our reservation online, they simply ended the chat after a final 5 minute delay.

Arriving at the airport (Winnipeg) ~2.5 hours before the revised departure time, we found a long line for the Flair check-in/bag drop agents, which airport staff were actively managing to avoid clogging the terminal entrance after it snaked out of the holding queue. Based on snippets of overheard conversation it seems like a fair proportion of folks were unable to check in. It also appeared as if Flair hadn't provided any additional check in agents to handle the issue as only half of the check in points were staffed. Furthermore, there was no option to use the airport multi-airline self-serve check in kiosks for Flair to obtain a boarding pass and/or bag drop tags, so everyone who was unable to have checked in and/or just needed a bag drop tag had to wait together. When we eventually got nearly to the head of the line, a staff person was asking everyone if they had checked in (almost universally answered “no”) and they said that the $25 fee would only be waived if people had taken screenshots of their error message. Fortunately, we had. But the lady behind us had not and the agent said “no screen shot, no fee waiver”. I pulled up our screenshot and told the passenger the error code, but the agent sort of glared at me and reiterated that individual passengers had to provide their own screenshots and then moved farther down to the line.

Once on board, I found that my seat was dirty: a big finger-smear of something frosting-like was caked on the rear of the seat in front of me, the overhead reading light and air vent were similarly crusty, and in the seat pocket there was a bit of discarded trash. Otherwise, the in-flight product was a straight-forward LCC.

Finally, at Pearson, when our flight’s luggage took an extraordinary amount of time to arrive, and only in dribbles of one or two bags at a time, a Flair person staffing the nearby lost luggage desk had no explanation, nor any apparent access to a manager or airport liaison to investigate the delay. Our first bag took about 45 minutes to arrive, the second arrived at 1 hour 40 minutes after our flight landed. Things were beginning to get heated between the remaining passengers and the Flair person when we left.

Out of curiosity, why was Flair a joke?

Updated my post, above, with an explanation. Flair's own automatic post-flight email solicited customer reviews on Google Reviews and Trip Advisor. You sure? Okay.

WS over the weekend upped YVR-PVR to a 789 for this winter. 1x daily.