And yet the government fiddles while our domestic airlines burn. Other countries got this money out the door in the first wave of the pandemic.

Devil's advocate: the airlines will come back once the passengers do

It won't be that simple. Once demand bounces back, AC & WS can't just recall all of these employees and re-introduce grounded aircraft at the drop of a hat. Pilots / FA will lose certifications if they don't work for extended periods of time, aircraft will need maintenance as they aren't meant to sit idle for long either. Re-certifying crew takes time. Those 5,000 jobs I mentioned are only those lost in the past month, and doesn't include the thousands others lost last year.

This is where Canada's airlines are disadvantaged compared to foreign competitors. They received help from their governments which allowed them to keep crew certified, aircraft moving, and will allow them to quickly build their networks up once demand returns.

With AC dropping YVR-LHR, this means there isn't a single connection between Western Canada to Europe operated by a Canadian carrier, while Lufthansa, KLM, Air France, etc all continue to operate flights.

Because they've all received aid from their respective governments...

That was the point I was trying to make. All those EU airlines got bailed out by their governments (some even took advantage of the CEWS that was the only form of 'aid' AC/WS got).

Demand won't bounce back overnight of course, but eventually it will. It's not like we're going to go from 8% of normal pre-covid volumes or whatever to 100% in a week or two. This is going to be a bit of a long-haul recovery, and capacity can be increased gradually as well.

I'm not sure that the feds are wrong here...

In the age of a $300+ billion deficit, tossing money at airlines to keep people employed at some huge dollar amount per job and flying empty planes around is a poor use of money.

There is an aid program, but Air Canada, Westjet and Air Transat have decided not to avail themselves to it. Perhaps one might ask them why before bemoaning the plight of the airlines. Sunwing has drawn from the program.

It's a little (lot) more complicated than that. The deservedly public shaming over the holidays of the vacationing politicians of all stripes received for needlessly vacationing abroad, was the trigger/last straw for what we're seeing now. Even if it were still a 'free-for-all', polling has repeatedly shown that a majority of Canadians wouldn't leave the country even if you paid them to do so until this is largely over...myself included.

On the flip side, I totally get that the airlines need help to get them through this darkest hour in aviation history...probably even worse than WWII. However, 3,333 of WestJet's formerly 14,000 strong workforce would have been cut regardless of the pandemic. The pandemic was just a convenient excuse to hide behind for the Onex-controlled, already-planned contracting out for minimum wage, no benefit slave-wage labour.

There is just not high demand for travel. Reducing COVID transmission is key, travel is a big part of the spread. Before people jump down my throat for saying that, I am a die-hard airport junkie, I worked for airlines for over a decade and still work with YVR now. Nobody wants travel to bounce back more than me. But the reality is, there are so many cases of travel-related cases and warnings. Now is not the time to travel unless you 100% absolutely need to, that is the direction from everyone. If someone absolutely must go somewhere, there are still travel options available. But I was shocked how many flights there even still were, and it showed that people were still travelling for leisure, which was wrong. With the situation as it is, this reduction more accurately represents where demand should be.

YVR still has flights to Tokyo on Ana and JAL, but BA never reinstated YVR-LHR, I wonder if they will now? The UK is not somewhere people should be travelling to or transitting thru.

The virus is here to stay. You have just as good a chance to get it in Canada as you do elsewhere. They said in March 2020 that it would take two weeks to flatten the curve. Yet here we are a year later.

We did, back in May and June... for most provinces at least.

Then the summer came, restrictions are reduced and everyone assumed the pandemic was over. Then the cases exploded again by September, and unlike last time, the government waited till near the end of October to start doing anything when the daily new cases are 3 to 10 times as much as before...

I don't want to see anyone lose their job or forced to change profession. That said this may be for the best at the current time.

Running empty aircraft is expensive and can't be defended in an age where we are all concerned about climate change. It is one thing to do this when your trying to accomplish the goal of moving people to where they want/need to be it is another to fly empty aircraft around.

Who operates YVR-LHR today is not a good indicator of the future. AC was running one or two flights a week. It is irrelevant.

What the industry should focus on is doing what it can to make a buck today. Move cargo around if that is what helps pays the bills. While in the background building its relaunch plan and figuring out how it wants to position itself.

The government is saying the vaccine program should be done in September. What the airlines need to be doing is talking to government about what restrictions will look like in a post vaccinated world. How international transfers will be handled. What the fleet will look like in each quarter and how many staff need to be recalled and re-trained as it stages up and out of this. Better to save money now to spend on an aggressive relaunch.

in other news

flair expands to 18 destinations


Kitchener-Waterloo finally gets a ULCC

Thunderbay, Ottawa, St. Johns, Charlottetown are new comers for flair.

Got a link?

Actually it's Saint John/YSJ and not YYT. YSJ will be thrilled to have air service back. Also, they're heading back into YXX, YYJ and YHZ after pulling out.

I got an email from them.

Here's the mighty impressive and ambitious launch plans for YOW (this was posted by someone else on the YOW forum):
Edmonton (YEG) - 2x Weekly (Starts in May)
Winnipeg (YWG) - 2x Weekly (Starts in May)
Calgary (YYC) - 2-4x Weekly (Starts in May)
Vancouver (YVR) - 1x Daily (Starts in May)
Toronto (YYZ) - 6-11x Weekly (Starts in May)
Halifax (YHZ) - 1x Daily (Starts in June)
Abbotsford (YXX) - 3x Weekly (Starts in August) new destination for the airport...and for YXX too!

Flights are extremely cheap right now. The majority of flights will be flown with their new 737-8 MAX aircraft.

Looks like they're also revising their livery a bit based upon the JPEG on their homepage.

While I didn't check full frequencies (i.e., anything 7x weekly or higher is a "D" below), here are the new destinations out of each brand-new or 2nd time new Flair city:
YXX: YYC D, YEG 6x, YOW 3x, YYZ 6x, YWG 3x
YYG: YYZ 2x
YHZ: YKF 4x, YOW D, YYZ (nothing listed yet)
YKF: YYC 3x, YEG 3x, YHZ 4x, YVR D, YYJ 3x, YWG 4x - IMPRESSIVE!
YOW: YXX, YYC, YEG, YHZ, YYZ, YVR, YWG (frequencies as noted above)
YSJ: YYZ 2x
YQT: YYZ 3x (surprised there's nothing west)
YYJ: YYC 2x, YEG 2x, YKF 3x - YYJ-YKF is nonstop 3x/week with o/w fares starting at a ridiculously cheap $59. A route like this is real Allegiant or Ryanair thinking!

I do now for the Kitchener-Waterloo announcement: https://www.kitchenertoday.com/local...lights-3369164

It’s Ambitious yes, but it’s not overkill either. They didn’t overload cities with flights and looks like they will increase frequencies if demand warrants it.

They are slated to get 13 737-8 MAX aircraft in the near future with deliveries starting in March. They also have the option for 60 more.

If we have covid numbers similar to last summer, I think there is a very good chance air travel will rebound this year.

Good to see Flair expanding. :)

I can see domestic travel recovering (maybe not 100%) but fairly decently this summer. I think AC / WS will end up being back to a skeleton of a domestic schedule in March/April this year with recovery beginning in June.

In the fall/winter demand to the US / Sun Destinations will start to pick up. Even this winter, many southbound flights were filled with people looking to escape winter right up until the $2000 hotel rule came up.

Intercontinental travel to Europe/Asia won't recover until Summer 2022 at the earliest.

Also YYC finally released December / year-end stats of 2020.

December 2020:
Domestic: 233,946 (-76.4%)
Transborder: 31,161 (-89.1%)
International: 21,788 -(86.8%)
December total: 286,885 (-80.1%)

Year End Totals:
Domestic: 4,339,426 (-65.32%)
Transborder: 817,940 (-76.81%)
International: 518,117 (-72.97%)
2020 Total: 5,675,483 (-68.40%)

Total US/International combined for December was 52,949. Given the circumstances, 2020 was better than it could have been.