Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport

[Justanothermember]

delete; dup post

[Justanothermember]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

SFO and IAD as gaps as well? DTW perhaps?

And if you are going to call a place a "sh!thole", at least visit it once.

Right back at you.

[Myst]

Ottawa has a significant amount of high-level business and political traffic. Meaning high revenue. And is a short hop from many large east coast hubs. What doesn’t make sense is why it hasn’t been served by more US carriers - it should be first in line.

Edmonton has a stronger economic link to Texas than Winnipeg. I would put it far sooner to get a DFW route than YWG. And even so, although AA has a long history of YYC service it doesn’t with YEG. I’d put YEG-IAH as being just as likely, possibly depending on which carrier can free up capacity to be there first, AA or UA.

AA served YWG-ORD for about 12 months in 1995/1996, with 1/2 full loads. A lot has changed since then. Some things look up, others, like not having any Canadi>n Airlines feed or loyalty, not so much. If the question is whether there is a chance of AA being here in a decade, yes there is a chance, but maybe 50/50. If it is whether it is likely in the next year or two, maybe 1 in 10.

The Covid bounceback has happened. Going forward looks more steady, moderate growth. And the rate capacity can be absorbed is relevant. As you have pointed out, ATL loads may take time to build.

I would caution that looking over the fence at everyone else isn’t a recipe for what is right for (insert any city’s name).

[Myst]

Anyone hear anything about when Stella’s will reopen? A peek around the corner of the wall looks like the taking apart phase is done, but the actual renovation part just starting…

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by Justanothermember

Right back at you.

Been to Winnipeg many times; or perhaps I live here?!? And I've been to Tijuana as well. Much safer walking the tourist area of TIJ than walking around Portage and Main or anywhere in D/T Winnipeg.

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by Myst

Ottawa has a significant amount of high-level business and political traffic. Meaning high revenue. And is a short hop from many large east coast hubs. What doesn’t make sense is why it hasn’t been served by more US carriers - it should be first in line.

Edmonton has a stronger economic link to Texas than Winnipeg. I would put it far sooner to get a DFW route than YWG. And even so, although AA has a long history of YYC service it doesn’t with YEG. I’d put YEG-IAH as being just as likely, possibly depending on which carrier can free up capacity to be there first, AA or UA.

AA served YWG-ORD for about 12 months in 1995/1996, with 1/2 full loads. A lot has changed since then. Some things look up, others, like not having any Canadi>n Airlines feed or loyalty, not so much. If the question is whether there is a chance of AA being here in a decade, yes there is a chance, but maybe 50/50. If it is whether it is likely in the next year or two, maybe 1 in 10.

The Covid bounceback has happened. Going forward looks more steady, moderate growth. And the rate capacity can be absorbed is relevant. As you have pointed out, ATL loads may take time to build.

I would caution that looking over the fence at everyone else isn’t a recipe for what is right for (insert any city’s name).

You make a good point about AA serving YWG. Since there would be minimal feed traffic as there are no One World airlines, is there enough O&D traffic for a YWG-DFW route; or connecting passengers through DFW. It would be interesting to see the load factor and yield on FAR-DFW.

You are right about YOW. It's a victim of its geography. Many Ottawa travellers opt for YUL; which is under 2 hours away. Plus federal government travel is not back to pre-pandemic levels; which hurts YOW immensely.

[FactaNV]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

Been to Winnipeg many times; or perhaps I live here?!? And I've been to Tijuana as well. Much safer walking the tourist area of TIJ than walking around Portage and Main or anywhere in D/T Winnipeg.

That's how I know you're not from Winnipeg and if you are you haven't left Lindenwoods in like 15 years lol.

[Myst]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

It would be interesting to see the load factor and yield on FAR-DFW.

FAR handled about 1,000,000 passengers last year.

YWG handled 320,000 US passengers last year. Although 500,000/year is roughly the current pace.

FAR has service to Minneapolis, Chicago, Denver, Dallas, Las Vegas, Nashville, Phoenix, Orlando, and St. Petersburg. YWG has all of that except Dallas and St. Petersburg, but also has Los Angeles, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, and Palm Springs. To me that implies the market has to grow more (larger equipment / more frequency on existing service) before there is enough demand for DFW.

[Justanothermember]

Originally Posted by FactaNV

That's how I know you're not from Winnipeg and if you are you haven't left Lindenwoods in like 15 years lol.

[Justanothermember]

Looks like AC has added seasonal Express flights for YVR and YYC to compliment the current mainline flights. 1xYYC for the summer and 1xYVR for the winter.

[dennis]

I noticed on a flight tracking website that Cathay Pacific flight 830 from HGK to JFK had to divert to Winnipeg. Probably a medical emergency?

[Myst]

Another look at the connecting screens of the YWG-MSP flights. While you can’t tell the exact number going to each destination, the consistency they show up is an indicator of overall demand. And from different times of year can give a hint of seasonality. And if new flights were started, what connections they could serve.

Amsterdam
Appleton
Atlanta (3 separate flights, so at least 3 passengers)
Austin
Boston
Cancun
Chicago Midway (2 flights)
Colorado Springs
Columbus
Dallas (2 flights)
Detroit
Denver
Des Moines
Fort Myers
Hartford
Honolulu
Houston
Indianapolis
Kansas City
Las Vegas (2 flights)
Los Angeles (3 flights)
Louisville
Miami
Nashville
New York JFK
New York LaGuardia
Orlando (2 flights)
Paris CDG
Philadelphia
Phoenix (2 flights)
Portland
Raleigh
San Francisco (2 flights)
Sault St. Marie
Seoul
Spokane (2 flights)
Tampa

I’d note that this was a day YWG-ATL was operating. I suspect the fact that the codeshare on the DL flight number doesn’t have enough seats allocated to it (evidenced by the DL flight number selling out while WS still has a fair bit of inventory) is actually holding that route back. Although preferring DL operated flights is also a thing.

48 different connecting flights on a 157 seat aircraft is quite dispersed.

There is pretty consistently a handful going to other Skyteam hubs (AMS, CDG, ICN). Most of the time that traffic would be routed via YYZ or YVR and onto WS. A little leakage isn’t surprising. But there doesn’t appear to be much to other DL Europe destinations from MSP like LHR or DUB.

[optimusREIM]

It’s a little surprising that delta doesn’t try to be aggressive with pricing to try and divert some of those connecting passengers that would otherwise go through Toronto and onwards to the east through Minneapolis. It’s a way better airport to connect in

[Myst]

April transborder traffic figures for YWG (US DOT figures):

Route - seats available - passengers carried - load factor
YWG-ATL - 3444 - 2510 - 72.9%
ATL-YWG - 3444 - 3038 - 88.2%
YWG-LAS - 2262 - 2055 - 90.8% (Westjet)
YWG-LAS - 1509 - 872 - 57.8% (Flair)
YWG-LAS - 3771 - 2927 - 77.6% (total)
LAS-YWG - 2262 - 2047 - 90.5% (Westjet)
LAS-YWG - 1509 - 988 - 65.5% (Flair)
LAS-YWG - 3771 - 3035 - 80.5% (total)
YWG-LAX - 2268 - 1876 - 82.7%
LAX-YWG - 2268 - 2157 - 95.1%
YWG-MCO - 2610 - 2352 - 90.1%
MCO-YWG - 2610 - 2244 - 86.0%
YWG-MSP - 7862 - 6384 - 81.2%
MSP-YWG - 7859 - 7008 - 89.2%
YWG-PHX - 2442 - 1561 - 63.9%
PHX-YWG - 2442 - 2254 - 92.3%
YWG-PSP - 1878 - 838 - 44.6%
PSP-YWG - 1878 - 1579 - 84.2%
YWG-SFB - 186 - 16 - 8.6%
SFB-YWG - 186 - 151 - 81.2%

Total YWG transborder
48916 - 39930 - 81.6%

That is about 97.6% of the level of transborder traffic from April 2019.

Orlando MCO was surprisingly strong southbound for that late in the season, so there may be potential to extend the season.

One of the problems Flair has is that they’ve run relatively short seasons. If the first 2-3 weeks is largely southbound, and at the end of the season northbound, the percentage of empty seats at the ends of the season hurts them on average operating cost more than their longer season competitors.

It will be about 2 months before we start to see how ORD and DEN impact things.

[Justanothermember]

April-May-June will likely be the transition months to see more traffic flowing north than south, then level off com the summer months.

It will be great to have ORD and DEN add to our growing traffic counts. Hopefully a NYC route is on the horizon soon.

[FactaNV]

Originally Posted by Justanothermember

April-May-June will likely be the transition months to see more traffic flowing north than south, then level off com the summer months.

It will be great to have ORD and DEN add to our growing traffic counts. Hopefully a NYC route is on the horizon soon.

Let's shoot for the moon and hope for an LGW or AMS in our future haha.

[Justanothermember]

Originally Posted by FactaNV

Let's shoot for the moon and hope for an LGW or AMS in our future haha.

LGA is useless for international connections; no less than EWR should be sought for the NYC area. AMS is also a reasonable goal for our future growth into Europe.

[CoryB]

When I went to Europe in 2018 we flew out through YYZ and returned through MSP. We are planning to go again and will do all flights through MSP and are recommending the same to everyone else we know making that trip. But that might be my extreme dislike of YYZ coming through.

[Justanothermember]

WS just loaded it's winter schedule. Some of the changes I can see comparing last year to this coming year:

PSP down to twice weekly from four weekly
LAS down to twice weekly from thrice weekly (this one really disappoints me)
PHX up to four weekly from three weekly
CUN going to daily from five weekly.

I'm meh on PSP, but LAS is such a popular destination from YWG that surely there is enough demand for three to four weekly flights in the winter. This downgrade by WS for LAS is a real headscratcher.

Also of note, Flair has removed YWG-CUN from its winter schedule. Likely WS, AC and Sunwing were too much competion for them to compete, meaning YWG now has no transborder or international service with Flair.