Don't all the major cities have Amazon "fulfilment centres" now? Calgary, Vancouver, Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal... does Edmonton?

Winnipeg too (though I’m not sure it’s open yet, now that I think about it. Supposed to be open this year if nothing else.)

Right that was the more recent one, and I think there's is in the "inland port" right next to the airport.

Cargojet hub is Hamilton Airport, which is the site where a massive Amazon distribution centre is being built. DHL is upgrading their warehouse, which is next to the Amazon facility.

Amazon Winnipeg is a delivery depot, where the stuff comes in, goes on the vans and out to the customers. But given how far it is to truck stuff into Winnipeg from warehouses, I can see a big chunk of those deliveries being flown in. I wouldn't think that would call for a dedicated flight, but rather as part of the regular service CJ does for the major couriers and Canada Post.

Air Canada Air Transat deal terminated
 

News from Air Canada today that their pending agreement to purchase Air Transat has been terminated: citing restrictions already proposed by AC to the European Commission would have not been enough for the EC to approve the deal.

"After careful consideration, Air Canada has concluded that providing additional, onerous remedies, which may still not secure an EC approval, would significantly compromise Air Canada's ability to compete internationally, negatively impacting customers, other stakeholders and future prospects as it recovers and rebuilds from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Especially in this challenging environment, it is essential that Air Canada focus on creating the optimal conditions for its full recovery by preserving and leveraging all of its key strengths and assets including its strong employee culture."

I'm afraid unless we see a quick purchase or financial bailout of Air Transat, they will be on their way to CCAA quite soon...

Yes, Edmonton does

Figured this would happen.

Good, especially for YUL. We need more competition. Not less.

Hopefully a bailout is on the way for all airlines, and Transat can survive.

Winnipeg and Hamilton are both cargojet hubs. It would be logical for both to become hubs in the Amazon network.

I'm on the fence if airlines should or should not get a bailout or how much they should get as i don't know how much money other businesses are getting in Canada but i thought Air Transat was kind of a slowly sinking ship even prior to the pandemic? If so why pump money into this business? It's not like any of Air Transat's routes are required to serve smaller communities as AC and WS do. What a small community is is i guess subjective but it's not like Air Transat flies to Moncton or Grande Prairie.

You can argue about foreign airlines receiving aid but unless for example BA drops its LHR-YYZ route price to $150 return, they are not using their bailout money for some kind of predatory pricing against AC or WS. It MAY take AC and WS LONGER to come out of the red but why is that an issue?

I feel like AC Rouge was well on their way to putting Air Transat out of business so i think that will just continue.

Really depends on where the freight is coming from and going to. No real reason for it to touch YWG if they are flying a 767 full of stuff between SW Ontario and BC. They really only need to go there to drop the freight destined for their delivery depot when it opens

Foreign airlines are using their bailout money to survive and operate routes that don’t make economic sense. Canadian airlines don’t have that luxury. If PKP doesn’t rescue Transat this dithering will blow up in Trudeau’s face in Quebec.

Care to provide an example?

No. If Trudeau doesn't bail out TS (and all Canadian airlines) and let's it fail, then it will blow up in it's face. Until that happens, Trudeau has nothing to do with the future of Transat.

The competition Bureau's report was fair and accurate. The Government's ruling on the matter was fair and accurate. (WS doesn't think so, but then again, short of them getting 5x daily LHR slot pairs, they were never gonna be happy) The latter was enough for AC to call it quits. Of course the pandemic had a lot to do with it as well, but still. The due diligence was done, and AC took a decision. It was the right decision, if you ask me.

The process works. Same way WS and DL abandoned their JV plans, due to government restrictions on the approval. The government (US or Canadian) is there to protect the consumer foremost. In both cases (WS/DL JV and AC/TS merger), the consumer won with the outcomes, assuming of course TS survives to live another day.

I don't think so.

The competition Bureau report even said a few words about their financials. TS could have definitely survived, especially considering they were restructuring, by getting rid of their older A310s and replacing them with the fuel efficient and dual use A321s (able to do Caribbean runs in winter and Europe in summer). They had also abandoned most of their western Canada flying. They were on the right track. Concentrating on what they do best. The A321s also meant they didn't need to lease European B737s every winter.

Of course, all of this was before the pandemic hit. Now, of course TS could fail. This is why the bailout is even more important than ever. Canada needs it's small(er) airlines to stick around, for the consumer's sake.

Amazon is also buying space on existing CarjoJet aircraft that are also handling Purolator and Canada Post. That network has Winnipeg as a transit point.

Here is the Eastbound flow. Westbound is the reverse.

https://cargojet.com/wp-content/uplo...-2048x1543.png
https://cargojet.com/network/

I suspect you meant that as a reply to me. Anyway, yes I'm familiar with their network, and I mentioned it a few posts above. It's essentially the former KF Purolator network with the Canada Post daytime flights added on and minus the west coast network that KF still operates for Purolator. Most of other courier companies also have freight on those flights, as they did when KF ran them. The difference now is that Cargojet chases the sale of any unused capacity, whereas under KF, it was Purolator that tried to fill any space by getting Canpar, UPS and Fedex freight on the planes.

Anyway, the point is that just because YWG is a mini-hub for the courier flights doesn't mean the Amazon flights necessarily will pass through there. We simply don't know yet. Maybe the existing flights have capacity to feed the new Winnipeg Amazon delivery facility. Maybe the entirety of Amazon's business with CJ will be handled on the 2 Amazon-owned freighters that CJ will operate for them.

It will be interesting to see what AC will do with Rouge, now that those TS A330s aren't coming on board.

I don't see Rouge disappearing. It was hugely profitable/successful for AC, with the flights full, even with all the bitching and complaining by the flying public.

Will they re-activate the old 767s, once the demand recovers? Will they stay a narrowbody fleet only for now?

Interesting developments to come, fleet wise, I'm sure.

Maybe they are thinking the aircraft (or other aircraft) can be acquired for less than the cost and hassle of merging TS into their operation.

Looks like it was. From November onwards, AC is displaying 2x daily YUL-LHR.

AC864 YUL 20:50 - 07:30 LHR 333
AC865 LHR 13:00 - 16:30 YUL 333
AC866 YUL 23:50 - 10:20 LHR 788
AC867 LHR 12:05 - 15:25 YUL 788

AHHHH the return of AC866/867, I remember the days before the HD 77W when AC ran 2x 763s on 864 & 866 in the summer.

Anyway doubt this will stick.

If anything wouldn't Rouge come back quicker since the majority of the routes coming back will be leisure and VFR traffic at first? I believe that Rouge has too low of a pay/cost structure (good for AC/bad for us) for AC to eliminate it. I think the TS 321's were of more interest to AC than the 330's. It seems like you can get 330's quite easily from the 2nd hand market.

WS (along with TS, Flair and Sunwing) will probably have an advantage if the leisure and VFR traffic resumes first. It will be interesting how well AC competes as they had such a high share of the market of business travelers and that form of travel probably won't come back for a couple of years o at least previous levels. Who knows there may also be a new norm for business traffic that is lower.