Oh I have total sympathy for those laid off. They were sadly fed by senior management the “culture” kool aid until it was too late for them to unionize.

YHZ is western ;)

May as well throw in YOW and YUL too to round out the larger stations that are now contracted out.

Culture is important and you can quickly figure out the culture of a company. You can count on companies sticking to their culture in most cases.

The issue here is WestJet switched owners, management etc. The old culture was replaced by a new culture. My interaction with WestJet is as a passenger and someone with status in their frequent flyer program (or should I say attempt at a frequent flyer program). I have noticed.

There is an old saying, "Management gets the union it deserves". WestJet demonstrated its staff need a union and its also demonstrated that they don't deserve the loyalty and commitment they were getting before.

I do hope some day they go back to having their own people at the Canadian stations or at least train the contractors they have to be able to rebook passengers when flights get messed up.

Instead of WestJet, next week I am flying Air Canada (no checked baggage). Have not been on AC in while. In this case AC had better flight options between two major Western Canada cities. Price was very close, AC was slightly less.

Sorry I misinterpreted your comment. I didn't mean to say YHZ is western oops! But I agree that YOW/YUL as well could've had their above-the-wing staff kept. All of those stations have enough flights to have their own WS staff, which would help alleviate some of the current operational issues WS is struggling with.

I just noticed that AC has removed the YYZ-YUL-MXP start point from YYZ.
Flight originates at terminates in YUL.

YUL-MXP would leave super late because the inbound from YYZ was always late.

Here’s my family’s little story. We flew YEG-YYZ-WAW on June 29. A couple of points so far.

- YEG security quick with no issues.
- Confirmed that I love flying AC’s 320 over any 737 product.
- I have never seen YYZ’s international pier so busy in my life. Huge lineups at gates and almost as huge lineups to get food. We had AC lounge access and I would have paid to get in based on the lineups.
- LO flights late every day for the last week including our 2.5 hr delay.
- The LO flight seemed like 80% were connecting at WAW and 50% to outside of Poland but purely an educated guess based on tons of non Polish speaking people.
- LO’s 787 economy seats are wide enough but the pitch makes it hard to watch the screen in front unless everyone reclines.
- LO’s catering is the worst I have ever seen it but the 787 ride was fairly comfortable.
- 1 out of 3 checked bags didn’t make it. Weren’t loaded out of YYZ by AC or LO’s LHS services. Luckily we received our luggage last night. We proactively split up our 3 bags evenly so we didn’t lose the “kids clothes only” or the “adults clothes only”. I recommend everyone do this who flies just in case. Like I said we consider ourselves lucky.
- This was an Aeroplan ticket so I’m curious if I can get any compensation for the delayed flights.

Our return is HAM-DUB on Ryanair and DUB-YYZ-YEG on AC. We’ll see how that goes in a month.

One more thing. We flew with only two decent sized carry-ons packed with essential items. Normally we would have flown with five but the Ryanair flight really messed that up since Ryanair’s carry-on is a bagged lunch size. And even if you pay for their version of a carry-on, it is still much smaller than any other standard airline carry-on. You basically need Ryanair styled luggage to accomplish that.

Basically, with all the delays and lost luggage I would recommend to go with extra carry-on bags where possible.

Thanks for your summary. We are doing YOW-EWR-ORD in a couple weeks for Disney and I am dreading possible delays or missing luggage. Mix and matching our luggage sounds like a good idea!

We are doing YOW-EWR-CUN in September and hoping some of the delays/luggage issues are solved by than. We wanted to avoid connecting through YYZ due to some of the horror stories. We'll also definitely mix and match our luggages just in case.

Don't count on AC compensating you, unfortunately. I was on an Aeroplan reward ticket in February YVR-YUL-YHZ. As "luck" would have it, the airport was full of Olympic athletes that day arriving back from Beijing, and connecting back on various flights across the country. So needless to say, it was pretty chaotic. My flight to YUL was an A330, and packed. First we were delayed due to late inbound aircraft. Then delayed due to waiting for connecting luggage (which was not just bags, it was all the Olympian's sporting equipment like skis, extra sports items etc. so I guess they didn't want a PR disaster by having the gold medal team arrive back without their stuff?). Then we were delayed because they had to do an airside engine start, and the equipment was on the other side of the airport. Needless to say, these delays all compounded into a very late departure. I knew I was going to miss my connecting flight to YHZ, and it was the last one of the night.

Sure enough we were super late into YUL, and myself and tons of others (including Olympians) missed their connecting flights. Literally the only people who got called specficially when the plane landed were pax for Bogota. Not sure why they were special lol. Everyone else had already been rebooked by the time we deplaned, we just had to pick up our new boarding passes. This was only around 9-9:30ish. Since my flight was rebooked for the next morning, I assumed a hotel would be provided. Not so. Air Canada put the sole blame for the delay on "Airport Operations", which I found out meant they blamed YVR baggage systems somehow (even though it is airline crews who transport bags from plane to plane, I guess they blamed YVR's airside baggage sorter or something?). So they conveniently neglected to take into consideration the air start (airline problem), late inbound aircraft (airline problem), and the fact the crew CHOSE to wait for connecting bags, when they are supposed to prioritize on time departure). By waiting for the bags, they actually caused far more disruption due to missed connections.

Needless to say, I did choose to spring for a hotel (NOT CHEAP, it was the fancy airport in the terminal, since they rebooked me at the crack of dawn, I didn't want to muck around with transportation back to the airport early morning, not worth it). When I contacted Aeroplan and Air Canada from Nova Scotia, it was a polite but firm "the problem was out of our control and was solely due to airport operations. If you have insurance they should help". But absolutely no coverage of my hotel, meals, nada. It didn't spoil me on Air Canada, I am not the melodramatic, but it was a real eye operner that such an obvious airline f*ck up was totally shrugged off as the airport's fault. I worked for an airline for years, I know YVR very well, this delay was Air Canada's doing.

Sorry for the long saga, but I thought the details were important to know. So I would certainly not be surprised if Air Canada puts all of the blame on the airport/CATSA/etc for the current delays plaguing our airports. If they wouldn't reimburse gold medal teams for missing their connections (on the offical Olympic airline literally waving the flag), then hard to imagine they have any intention of helping today's travellers

It will be interesting to see how things turn out over the long-term but YHZ seems like it's becoming a more viable transfer hub for longer-distance trips. At the same time, there is now little to no service between YHZ and the NB/PEI airports so it has effectively stopped acting as a hub in that capacity.

Current overseas non-stop routes - mostly daily or near-daily:

London (LHR and LGW)
Paris
St. Pierre (3x/week)
Dublin
Glasgow
Frankfurt

Current US non-stop routes:

Boston (multiple/day)
Philadelphia (multiple/day)
Orlando (weekly)
Washington (DCA - weekly)

Current CA non-stop routes (mostly multiple/day or near-daily):

St. John's
Gander
Deer Lake
Goose Bay

Sydney

Moncton (2x/week)

Montreal

Ottawa
Toronto (YYZ and YTZ)
Hamilton
Waterloo

Winnipeg

Calgary
Edmonton

Vancouver


Many of these routes are seasonal but currently YHZ seems to be the next-biggest transfer hub after YYZ, YUL, YVR and YYC, and doesn't seem to be nearly as chaotic as YYZ or YUL right now. YEG is roughly similar.

In addition to cheaper and more convenient flights from YHZ, a nice bonus is that in practice many/most of the people traveling these routes would otherwise have transferred at YYZ, which takes some pressure off that airport, as does the increased service to (or through) YHM and YKF.

My wife and I never check bags anymore even on long trips. It simply is not worth the hassle. We find accommodations that have laundry service or somewhere close by and pack for about a week. It's surprising how much stuff some people bring on trips. Large bags, even if they aren't lost or delayed, are harder to tote around train stations, subways, up and down narrow stairs at small hotels or airbnb's. Sometimes we buy a cheap bag abroad and check it on the way home (filled with laundry).

I wish they'd drop the idiotic 100ml liquids rule already. I've had to switch to daily contacts just to avoid having to check in eye fluid or spend a good hour or so tracking it down in a foreign country. We're what? Over 2 decades removed from the Shoe Bomber and we're STILL hassling people for bringing in a half used tube of toothpaste? We have the technology but seems like there's a lot of Big Money in little travel sized bottles keeping it going.

I don't think the issue is technology it is training.

Several years ago at YOW my notebook was randomly selected to be "scanned" with the little swap they have. It went off. When I asked the CASTA person what chemical triggered it, they said it does not tell them that. They have zero understanding or training in chemistry.

He asked where I had been. I said I was attending a meeting that was being held at the University of Ottawa in a Chemistry lecture hall. Perhaps there is some residue of something on I picked up. It was not a chemistry related meeting, that just happened to be the theater they booked us into. I asked what concentrations they were looking for of the chemicals he could not identify. They did not know that either.

Could have just as easily been a high concentration of glycerin in the hand soap at the Best Western for all I know.

When he got to the questions about what I do for a living and I said I was working for a national lab involved in nuclear research (which is what I was doing back then) his interest in asking questions and writing down the answers dropped and he just kept saying "oh" to my answers. It was weird.

I would hope the CASTA people would be given some basic chemistry training but who knows.

My flight was delayed just under 3 hours so no compensation for me based on EU rules. It’s fine. They got my bag back to me and did a really good job doing it. AC and WS can do whatever they want in Canada and internationally except for their return flights from Europe. That is when the EU rules set in. I flew LO so the European rules are automatic but again it didn’t matter this time.

I am surprised YHZ isn’t used as a hub by WS. Would it not work well avoiding YYZ and YUL? But I understand that it is not an easy undertaking. I just figure all you need are some 737’s to make connections work. I’m curious how much shorter of a flight time it would be to do LHR-YHZ-BOS than LHR-YYZ-BOS.

The carry-on only plan is hard for many. People don’t necessarily want to waste time buying items overseas.

The carry-on only plan is hard for many. People don’t necessarily want to waste time buying items overseas.

Most people bring too much. We don't usually have to buy anything and waiting for your bag after your flight is a pain. We just get off and head to the exit. It's not perfect because some low cost airlines have shrunk the carry on sizes. When we used to check luggage there were always items we brought that we didn't use.

I'd love to show up at the airport with just a credit card and passport one time but that would probably be considered a flight risk...

Canada ranked number 1 for airline delays last weekend We’re #1, we’re #1!

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/busi...the-weekend-2/

My sister/family is considering shipping her luggage for our family trip to Ontario.

I leave clothes at our yearly pilgrimage destination and only bring a small carryon.

The expanded departures lounge at the Region of Waterloo International Airport was officially opened today, although the facility has been operational for a few weeks. Key stats:

• 20,000 square foot lounge
• Seating for 500 passengers
• Six boarding gates

Press Release

Vancouver to Fiji now official on Fiji Airways starting in November.

A little more info from aeroroutes:

Fiji Airways in November 2022 is set to resume service to Canada, as the airline opened reservation for Nadi – Vancouver route overnight on Monday-Tuesday (04-05JUL22), North America West Coast time. From 25NOV22, the airline will operate 2 weekly flights with Airbus A330-200 aircraft.

FJ880 NAN2215 – 1320YVR 332 15
FJ881 YVR2140 – 0530+2NAN 332 15

The airline previously served Vancouver as 2 weekly Nadi – Honolulu – Vancouver with 737-800 aircraft from October 2000 to November 2008 (In late-1990s, the airline offered service to Vancouver and Toronto through codesharing with Canadian Airlines International).

In its press statement, the airline will operate one-off promo flight in August 2022 with Airbus A350-900XWB with following schedule.

FJ880 NAN1900 – 1045YVR 359 09AUG22
FJ881 YVR2240 – 0455+2NAN 359 10AUG22
https://aeroroutes.com/eng/220705-fjnw22yvr

As an aside, their planes are really cool, excited to spot one at YVR
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...2088156%29.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiji_A...512088156).jpg