Yes I think you are both right right, they are probably close in terms of # of flights. If I feel ambitious, I might tackle it this weekend.

I am just so surprsied at WS's ops in YYZ this winter, they kind of threw up the white flag to AC. Even on routes they are operating still, it's really bare. This reduction might be temporary, but who knows. Maybe with all the other low cost competition at YYZ, they are just not getting the traffic anymore to justify so many routes? I was just really surprised doing the breakdown, and seeing it drop enough for YVR to overtake it

I was going to post my stat... or I should wait till you finish yours first? :D

But yeah, prelim stat shows YUL is about 100 more weekly flights than YVR again. But I don't think AC finish updating the Express schedule yet.

That makes sense, thanks nname, you definitely would have been waiting a while for me lol.. I wasn't sure because AC has lots of widebodies at YUL doing all those Europe flights, so they had a lot of traffic, but didn't know how much it all added up to.

The widebody part is easy, but the sun routes are going to kill you. AC operates 84 unique routes out of YUL in the winter. Basically AC is scheduled to operate the same amount of routes from both YVR and YUL this winter compared to W19 but with lower frequency. Only YYZ and YYC are losing routes.

As for capacity, I'm not really sure... Looks like the majority of narrowbody mainline routes out of YUL this winter will be operated by 223, while AC is dumping most of their 7M8 to YVR. So the number of seats might be similar even though YUL have more flights?

One thing I've noticed while looking at W22 schedule. Looks like YQB will be 100% rouge. 72x weekly Rouge flights but no mainline and express flight to the airport at all!.

I'll add the summer 2022 stat. This was the scheduled flight for last week, gathered sometimes in July so this includes YYZ and YUL reductions. I didn't have a saved copy of the schedule after AC slashed domestic frequency before schedule was finalized.

See previous note about for S20 schedule.

More stat for S22:
I have more detailed stat for each plane type and each region and sub-region, but that's probably too overkill... There may be bug in the "flight by region" due to tech stops but I'm too lazy to fix, so you can probably deduct 5 from YVR and 2 from YYZ so they'll add up to 963 and 1850. The other stats seems correct though.

This shows how 3 of the 4 small “big 8” still have a much longer ways to go, especially YOW which still isn’t even at 50% of planned S20 weekly departures. Could you add in YWG too?

The next biggest ones:

I leave them out because there is a huge gap between YEG and YWG. The following destination all have between 100 and 160 flights per week before the pandemic so they are quite similar: YWG, YYT, YQB, YYJ, YLW, YXE, YQR

But since the removal of express routes out of YEG... YXE, YQR, and to some degree YLW is becoming much smaller after the pandemic. YTZ now leaps ahead of those 3 airports. YYJ is still up there as long as it keeps the 10 or 12 daily flights to YVR...

Not sure if I miss anything, but I'm pretty sure some of the US airports would have as much flights on AC compared to YWG or YYT. LAX, for example, have 98 weekly flights for S22.

YYT lost a pile of flights when AC abandoned EVAS' BEH intra-NL flying.

Positive move in the US requiring airlines to properly accommodate stranded passengers. We should hopefully see similar things happen here in Canada.

https://www.businessinsider.com/flig...ttigieg-2022-8

Canada appears to already be ahead of the US with respect to airline obligations to travelers affected by delays and cancellations (at least in theory).

Source

If the US goes to requiring airlines to provide accommodation for all overnight delays regardless of reason they will leapfrog ahead of Canada.

Buttigieg wants airlines to provide meals and lodging. Nothing in that article suggests airlines will comply with that request.

It’s impossible to guarantee a room for all overnight stranded passengers, especially at hubs, where potentially a lot of flights might get canceled at the same time.

It looks like (BA) British Airways Summer 2023 planning to add London Gatwick LGW UK - Vancouver YVR route & up to 6x weekly & operated by the Boeing 777.

BA 2279 12:00 PM Gatwick Airport (LGW)- 1:35 PM (YVR)
BA 2278 3:25 PM (YVR) - 8:40 AM+1 Gatwick Airport (LGW)

Also wonder (if) were going to see some cut backs of frequencies on WestJet YVR- LGW flight route next Summer operated by the WS 787?

I would much rather take British Airways to Britain than WestJet.

That’s interesting, to say the least…

YVR was the only Canadian station that saw first class service on BA, with the A380. Will be interesting to see if they keep A380 service to LHR with this new LGW service. Most likely not…

Just goes to show, yet again, that Canada simply doesn’t have demand for first class.

Ya that's my guess, which is a shame, but it was fun getting the 380 for more than a few years there.

I'm fine with Canada not being a first class market, it shows our wealth distribution is a bit more equitable than some of the old classist European wealth hives or some of the new dysfunctional oligarchies. A sign of a better country IMO.

With that said I'm surprised of all the places we don't see first class service is YVR-PEK or PVG, I don't think CA ever sent their 77W with first nor MU, which seems strange given the bonkers amount of HNW mainland Chinese traveling back and forth.

BRITISH AIRWAYS NS23 INTERCONTINENTAL SERVICE CHANGES

London Gatwick – Vancouver eff 19MAY23 6 weekly 777-200ER, new route (BA continues to list 1 daily 777-200ER London Heathrow – Vancouver route, no A380 schedule filed)
BA2279 LGW1200 – 1335YVR 777 x2
BA2278 YVR1525 – 0840+1LGW 777 x2

https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/220825-bans23inc

EVA AIR FURTHER RESTORES CANADA PASSENGER SERVICE IN SEP/OCT 2022

EVA Air in September 2022 continues to restore additional passenger frequencies to Canada, opened for reservation on Monday 22AUG22. Toronto is now scheduled to see 4th weekly passenger flight restored permanently, while Vancouver returns to 1 daily level by late-September 2022.

Taipei Taoyuan – Toronto eff 07SEP22 Increase from 3 to 4 weekly, 777-300ER
BR036 TPE1940 – 2155YYZ 77W x146
BR035 YYZ0145 – 0500+1TPE 77W x257

Taipei Taoyuan – Vancouver eff 19SEP22 Increase from 5 to 7 weekly, 787-9/-10 (schedule below effective 01OCT22)
BR010 TPE2355 – 1925YVR 781 246
BR010 TPE2355 – 1925YVR 789 x246

BR009 YVR0200 – 0520+1TPE 781 357
BR009 YVR0200 – 0520+1TPE 789 x357

https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/220823-brsep22ca

They need to pack as many passengers as they can :D

But when MF send their 788 to YVR, it have 4 first class seats.

I don't think this will affect YVR-LGW on WS. It's once daily, and that is with all of WS's feed as well, I think they can make it work. In the past, there used to be Air Transat, Thomas Cook, MyTravel, Zoom, so many different carriers on the London route. In addition to the steady BA and AC flights. So having BA add 6x to LGW should hardly push WS out. Would be nice if they kept the A380 and had the 777 to LGW, but oh well if not. I'm sure those A380s aren't long for this world anyways, sadly