AT has had a strong presence at YUL since day 1. It's a Montreal based airline and is 10 years older than Westjet.

It's an old Montreal-based airline (they used to be called Quebecair before I believe) but they keep expanding at YUL by adding more flights to Europe every year.

I have yet to fly Transat as it never seems to come up as the most competitive airline out of YVR on the routes I fly. I have also been of the mind that they are a complete no frills airline with tight seat pitch, but is there anything to that? Are they just a normal (leisure) airline?

Normal leisure airline. I find it better than Air Canada Rouge.

Nice work G.S MTL !

AC to Lyon is an A333.

Also might want to add HAV next to PEK for Air China, just for the exotism of it all !

That's because TS is not a charter airline per se. It's a scheduled carrier. Their flights are scheduled flights and you can purchase "airfare only" straight out of their website. In fact, 30% of their seats are occupied by people who purchase airfare only (i.e. not a packaged holiday). That percentage is probably growing every year, especially to Europe.

AC changed LYS to 763 last week :(
But both CDG next summer are now on 77W :)

That explains a lot. I've been working on the assumption (never verified, obviously) that Air Transat was a charter operator. I knew that there were some routes that were so regularly booked they were operated as a scheduled service, but I thought that on the whole it was still considered a charter airline because they sold their seats as part of their Transat Holidays packaged vacations business. I thought they were a Canadian equivalent to Thomas Cook airlines. I didn't know, actually, that one could buy regular non-package tickets tickets on their flights!

Thanks for the info!

I wish YVR had its own airline like Toronto Montreal and Calgary. Even more flights than it does now.

It does!! Pacific Coastal :)

Their global hub is based at YVR! :)

Having said that I think YVR is doing pretty good eh?

Perhaps more tails because there is no massive big hub?

YYZ just has all the right stuff going for it to have a large global hub AND be able to attract a lot of foreign tails.

Thanks, didn't catch that.

Makes sense really. Launching LYS with an A333 seemed a bit over the top anyways. GVA and BRU were also launched with B763 and were upgauged later on for the high season. It will be interesting to see if they keep LYS year round or convert it to summer seasonal.

You're kidding right? Companies just have to be based somewhere.

AT didn't do shit, it's their home base for pete's sake. WS doesn't fly long haul from anywhere (yet), so it's not like AT has been cleverly opportunistic. They're a French Canadian operator. Who do you think YUL'ers would prefer to fly, (AT/WS) all else being equal...?

Oh were doing Very well considering we don't even have an airline based at YVR. You're constantly posting new announcements.

ukmmmmm yeah no I did my research thanks...btw Inboxed u privately a a couple weeks ago?

Btw did you notice Swiss international B773 for YUL in 2016!

Tell me about it!

I just post what I see :)

And I anticipate quite a bit more for YVR in the not too distant future.....

To quote the CEO of YVR at his Vancouver Board of Trade address yesterday:

"We are going to have more airlines, I just can't tell you exactly which ones they are right now..."

:)

Soooooo stay tuned to the YVR thread.

The top 5 as of September

1. YYZ: 27,982,740 (+6.9% YTD) AS OF AUGUST
2. YVR: 13,867,398 (+4.7% YTD) AS OF AUGUST
3. YUL: 11,973,423 (+4.4% YTD)
4. YYC: 11,762,816 (+1.8% YTD)
5. YEG: 5,510,302 (-0.8% YTD)

Trudeau airport keeps increasing the % of international passengers at a much faster rhythm than the domestic ones.

Yes. Can't see them filling all those first and business class seats though. The plane will not stay on the YUL route for too long.

really??? I thought they were doing good at YUL.

YVR is Air Canada's second biggest hub, right? That's worth more than being the hub for a charter airline.

Also, Air Canada's HQ is in Montreal so Toronto technically has no airline.