Until recently - and it was Johnny who set me straight; thanks, Johnny- I was sure that YYZ, AC, and Ottawa were out to clip YVR's wings. They are not, and a lot of what flights an airport gets has to do with economy and city size.
* I think that YYC beats out YEG simply because it's the "powerhouse" of the West - OIL (down right now, but it'll come back) $$$, CP hq, TSX venture ..... Edmonton: administrative capital, important, but less business travel.
*YVR not only shares East Asia with YYZ (less so with others), but has the entire Pacific as its airport hinterland; East Asia (big time), Philippines, Hawaii, Australia, NZ ...
and the most European destinations west of Toronto.
*Even YUL, with its exotic destinations, has only about as many pax as YYC, and is a city of 4 million metro.
*And as Johnny said, it's only natural that YYZ, biggest city (6+ million) HQ city, economic powerhouse (among world's top 10) would get the most flights.

>> But it's a fact that an airport, its number of pax, routes, airlines and destinations, is often the "symbol" of a city, which is perhaps why so much emotion comes into this.

YUL and YYC's numbers are different in composition though. More than 60% of YUL's PAX numbers are international, while YYC has much more domestic passengers, a tendency that is observed everywhere in Canada except Quebec. Most Quebecers don't travel as often across the country as Canadians do.

Go one step further ! YUL in 2014 had more international non U.S passengers than YVR.

5.5 million vs 4.5 million.

Including US numbers, the difference is about 100,000 in favor of YVR. Point is, YYC is light years behind YYZ, YVR and YUL in terms of international passenger count.

Montreal also has the enviable position of Canadian gateway to the francophone world.

^ Well, it is just a city on the Canadian prarie and is only 1/6th the size of Toronto, 1/3 the size of Montreal, & 1/2 the size of Vancouver so ... this is to be expected ... no ?

Sure, until you try to fly south. YVRs Central/South America and Caribbean roster is abysmal.

Wow, so 2016 will see YVR get it's first A380 and 748i. That's huge!

Fantastic news. And it wasn't a matter of when not if with Hainan, they have a long history of applying for routes then never starting them. Couple that with the oil downturn and I was thinking this route may not see the light of day.

Leaving aside how enviable that is, is it based on flights, destinations or passenger numbers? Or all of the above? It would seem logical, but what are the numbers?

Just to put it in context, YUL-Paris alone is as large or larger than all of YVR-Europe in terms of passengers flown.

My data is a few years old, but after LHR-JFK, CDG-JFK and LHR-LAX, it's the busiest air route between Europe and North America in terms of passengers flown, and THE busiest between Canada and Europe, again in terms of passengers flown.

It helps when you have 4 airlines (AF, SS, TS and AC) that operate aircraft with high density configurations on the city pair. SS a few years ago was flying 580 seat B744s on the route. They now send the A330 to YUL and the seat config on their B744s has since been scaled back to a comfortable 533 seats...:)

Not me. I had my doubts about the route starting in 2016, but i knew it would happen eventually. There is a real battle going on between Air China and Hainan at PEK and PVG. That's what you get when the country has a one route/one airline policy for international flights.

I have expressed the same doubt about CA opening up PVG-YUL in 2016, but now I can see them jump on it, if for nothing else to prevent HU from operating it.

It helps that there are more than 120,000 French citizens living in Quebec. 110,000 of them living in Montréal.

That and the fact that almost every Francophone Montrealer makes it to Paris on a regular basis. The sheer number of flights makes them the cheapest route to Europe, even if we want to go to London...

Yes, but what other city in Canada has excellent South American connections other than YYZ of course? YYZ and YUL have PLENTY of flights to Central America to sun destination resorts. And the Caribbean is well covered from the Eastern Cities. But for Western Canada in general.... not as many. Geography plays a big role.

In fact, how many US cities have many connections to South America other than the big hubs? SFO, BOS, PHL are examples of very large US cities with no direct links to South America. Sure there are flights to Panama and San Salvador from SFO but that's it for Latin America. If SFO doesn't have one link to South America, being that much larger, that much closer and a huge hub for UA, why do we think YVR should have direct flights to South America? Even PHX being a large hub for AA has no direct links to South America and only seasonal flights to San Jose, CR. Since we are just that much further away makes it that much harder to make those flights work.

I know I have said this so many times, South American connections to a small number of cities is plausible like LIM or SCL for example but honestly guys don't expect much.

YVR is all about Asia first. I'm still impressed how much European service YVR has despite being the farthest away major city in Canada and compared to similar cities in the Pacific Northwest its still ahead of SEA and light years ahead of PDX.

That's interesting. I didn't know that a 747 can be configured to take almost 600 passengers!

660 passengers with the 747-400D variant.

Edmonton International Airport celebrates environmental certification

EDMONTON JOURNAL

Edmonton International Airport has achieved environmental LEED Gold certifications for its South Terminal expansion — a first for an airport terminal in Canada — and for its new Central Tower.

LEED — Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design — is a certification achieved through independent review of design, construction, operation and maintenance practices. It’s used by 150 countries.

Airport officials marked the achievements with a ceremony Wednesday.

“EIA has committed to being environmentally and socially responsible while meeting the Edmonton region’s growing need for air service,” Steve Rumley, EIA vice-president, infrastructure, said in a news release.

http://edmontonjournal.com/business/...-certification

The original post was about how YUL and YYC have similar overall numbers.

With one passenger being counted as one passenger regardless of their destination, what does being International, Transborder or Domestic have to do with overall passenger numbers? Pointing out that YYC is lightyears behind YUL in terms of international passenger count does nothing to refute the fact that both airports have similar overall passenger counts.

While a BMW is better than a Volkswagen, a person that owns only an M3 owns as many cars as a person who only owns a Jetta.

660 wow! What kind of seat width and pitch I wonder? What airline flies a 400D ... I wanna check seat guru...


Edit: Ok looks like the 400D was a variant made for the Japanese market ..

trofirhen said that airport passengers numbers were relative of a city's economy, which they often are. So I believe it's important to mention when more than half of an airport's PAX numbers come from international passengers (much more economic importance than domestic passengers).

Just checked schedules for Corsair to Paris (orly) from YUL it's not 6 weekly it's actually 7 ! I'll make changes to the list.

they're called ''international airports'', for a reason.

It's not just South America, Central America and the Caribbean are a joke.

-YVR has 3 flights per week to Cuba. Per WEEK!
-YVR doesn't fly anywhere in central america outside of Mexico... even YYC flies to Costa Rica.
-Pindling Intl in the Bahamas is managed by YVR but there isn't even a flight there.

And it's not just the lack of directs, one of the biggest problems is the connections. YYC has 6 flights per day to IAH, there are 2 from YVR. 0 Flights to Miami and only just this year started a 2 per week to Orlando. Sure there are a ton to LAX and SFO, but they are constantly full with business travel, leaving leisure little option.

I was in Van for work right before the break and wanted to fly to Panama City, the connections were all so bad I ended up flying back to Toronto and booked my flight out of there. While I was searching I noticed it was cheaper and faster to fly from YVR to Singapore than to panama City.

I'm not saying there is any appetite for these flights or that it is under served, just pointing out that the connectivity is horrible. YVR may be an embarrassment of riches for Asia-Pac or European flying but it's southern connectivity leaves a lot to be desired.