YVR & Sea Island Developments Discussion II

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

What’s your beef with Avianca? LATAM and Avianca are the leading carriers in terms of number of flights between N and S America. In 2019, BOG was trailing GRU in terms of passenger numbers by over 8 million. Just 3 years later, it surpassed GRU to become the busiest in South America. GRU managed to take back #1, barely, and they are now neck and neck as the top two busiest airports in South America. No small feet for an airport and an airline that was bankrupt only a few years ago.

I mean they did declare bankruptcy, not really the pinnacle of competency....

Also, they lost my bags twice in 2 years so that certainly impacts my assessment too.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

These posts won't age well after today's new route announcement....

I don't think I've ever had issue with ACs service to Asia-Pac, so I think that this route announcement, while greatly appreciated, does not disprove that for AC, YVR does one thing, and only one thing.

As an aside, their summer transcon capacity at YVR is still only 84% of what it was in 2019, so they are a long way to getting back to where they were.

[nname]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

I don't think I've ever had issue with ACs service to Asia-Pac, so I think that this route announcement, while greatly appreciated, does not disprove that for AC, YVR does one thing, and only one thing.

As an aside, their summer transcon capacity at YVR is still only 84% of what it was in 2019, so they are a long way to getting back to where they were.

If you do full season capacity, then things may be a bit different. Most of the seasonal route in 2019 runs from mid-June to early-Oct. Now all season routes the full season with peak capacity from May to end of Oct. KIX even run into winter from March to end of Nov.

What about peak winter? I don't have the exact list, but judging from the number of plane required to run all the routes, it's almost certainly bigger now. Might be very close, or even bigger than the summer of 2019.


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Happened to find this post I wrote a while ago...

Originally Posted by nname

Speaking of flight number, it's surprisingly how full the 1-99 series right now.

There's only 4 sets of numbers that have not being used in regular service for the past 8 years:
13/14, for the obvious reason, although 14 sometimes is used for HKG-YVR
21/22, but 21 is used each year for additional flights HKG or SIN... in S25 the number is used for 2 additional HKG flights in Sept, and 2 for SIN in Sept/Oct
54/55
76/77, although they will be used for additional YYZ-DXB flights W25

So any new service from YVR will most definitely come from recycling old flight number. YVR-MNL already used the 17/18 that was originally for TPE. This shows AC wasn't planning to restart TPE any time soon (at least that was the plan about a year ago). It will be interesting to see which number it take, IF there is upcoming new TPAC route(s)...

So YVR-CTS now uses the 54/55 number.
Additional HKG/SIN flight moved from 21 to 15, and some HKG-YVR flights now uses 16 instead of 14.
The additional YYZ-DXB never started, so 76/77 remain unused.

So now there are 3 numbers left or recently cleared out before AC start to reuse numbers:
13/14
21/22
76/77

Will AC actually assign 13 to a new route??

[hehehe]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

I don't think I've ever had issue with ACs service to Asia-Pac, so I think that this route announcement, while greatly appreciated, does not disprove that for AC, YVR does one thing, and only one thing.

As an aside, their summer transcon capacity at YVR is still only 84% of what it was in 2019, so they are a long way to getting back to where they were.

Which, I don't really see the problem with though. Just like YUL doesn't get a bunch of Asia service. Doesn't mean AC neglects YVR, at all. YVR is doing very well at the moment with services.

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

Also, they lost my bags twice in 2 years so that certainly impacts my assessment too.

Well that certainly explains it.

[Denscity]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

These ignorant East coast managers! How dare they! It should have been YUL-CTS….

Congrats to YVR. Nice addition. Should work out extremely well for AC. And the fact that it’s within range of an XLR means that even if loads are lighter than planned, AC can simply switch equipment in the future and operate it with a narrowbody if need be.

The last thing YVR needs and is excited about is a minor destination in Japan.

[nname]

Originally Posted by Denscity

The last thing YVR needs and is excited about is a minor destination in Japan.

Minor destination...

You know in term of passenger traffic, CTS is bigger than YUL, right? It's the #4 airport in Japan, behind HND, NRT, and KIX.

It's almost twice as big than... say AC adding YVR-EDI.

[casper]

Originally Posted by Denscity

The last thing YVR needs and is excited about is a minor destination in Japan.

They should be excited about it. If your goal is to be hub and connect traffic between Asia and North America adding more and more destinations is a positive. If the city pairs are unique so your the only one stop connection even better.

[Johnny Aussie]

I think it’s a fantastic add!

Like I said in my previous post. It’s a unique nonstop route from NA to CTS.

This just solidifies YVR’s gateway to Asia status.

On airliners.net the discussion is more of how will DL or UA respond? 🤣

[LeftCoaster]

Probably shows it's a good add. No one is asking how UA or DL will respond to YYC-GRU...

[Zmonkey]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

I think it’s a fantastic add!

Like I said in my previous post. It’s a unique nonstop route from NA to CTS.

This just solidifies YVR’s gateway to Asia status.

On airliners.net the discussion is more of how will DL or UA respond? 🤣

With the routes UA flies, likely them. They take shots that are out of left field.

[hollywoodnorth]

Yeah to me this is a good addition. Also a route like this will strengthen the traffic from the United States in and out of Vancouver. and make it so we don't loose any more.

[Denscity]

Originally Posted by nname

Minor destination...

You know in term of passenger traffic, CTS is bigger than YUL, right? It's the #4 airport in Japan, behind HND, NRT, and KIX.

It's almost twice as big than... say AC adding YVR-EDI.

Didn't know it was busier than YUL but being 4th place is my disappointment. And that were already well covered in Japan compared to say South America, sunny Europe, or Doutheast Asia.

[Johnny Aussie]

Pretty sure CTS is #5 in Japan behind HND NRT KIX and FUK

I’ll throw my support into the SGN is next camp (or at least soon)

With China still rather subdued, perhaps 2026 will bring Emirates and/or Qatar knocking at the door

[nname]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

Pretty sure CTS is #5 in Japan behind HND NRT KIX and FUK

I’ll throw my support into the SGN is next camp (or at least soon)

With China still rather subdued, perhaps 2026 will bring Emirates and/or Qatar knocking at the door

Ok, you're right... the English wiki have the wrong data. For 2024..

FUK is #4 at 27.1M
CTS is #5 at 24.8M

Both are bigger than YUL, that part is still correct. But with the growth rate, both would likely be bigger than YVR by 2025.

Originally Posted by Denscity

Didn't know it was busier than YUL but being 4th place is my disappointment. And that were already well covered in Japan compared to say South America, sunny Europe, or Doutheast Asia.

Tell that to EI, who added service to the #35 (RDU) and #48 (PIT) US airport, but didn't bother with #2 in Canada

[Johnny Aussie]

A bit more on the European side of things

Icelandair has updated its YVR schedule for next winter with the 32Q operating 2 of the 4 weekly flights. I guess we will see it this gets expanded in Summer 2027

https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/260122-fi1q27yvr

Icelandair in the last few days extended schedule listing into March 2027. On Reykjavík Keflavík – Vancouver route, the airline’s schedule listing has provided additional information on planned A321LR service in the first quarter of 2027. As of 22JAN26, 2 of 4 weekly flights will see A321LR operating, instead of 737 MAX 8, effective 08JAN27.

FI697 KEF1715 – 1705YVR 32Q 56
FI697 KEF1715 – 1705YVR 7M8 13

FI696 YVR1435 – 0605+1KEF 32Q 67
FI696 YVR1435 – 0605+1KEF 7M8 24

[ninjakafi_81]

I do wonder how much more can AC expand into the Asia / Oceania region as to me the only notable destinations missing would probably be SGN and MEL. Would AC start expanding to secondary cities in those regions or would they start looking at expanding into Europe again or Central / South America ?

[nname]

Originally Posted by ninjakafi_81

I do wonder how much more can AC expand into the Asia / Oceania region as to me the only notable destinations missing would probably be SGN and MEL. Would AC start expanding to secondary cities in those regions or would they start looking at expanding into Europe again or Central / South America ?

Other than SGN and MEL, AC still got NGO, TPE, DPS, NAN on the Pacific side of the investor day map.

On the other hand, AC had started almost all the destinations under study for Central/South America in 2025 alone, and only ACA and FOR left from the map.

But then... AC started or planned to start one route in Europe (CTA) and two one in Mexico (PXM, TPQ) that was not on the map, so who knows... Maybe AC is now looking at more routes on the Pacific side as well.

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

Probably shows it's a good add. No one is asking how UA or DL will respond to YYC-GRU...

But people (including me) are wondering if or how will AC respond...

[ninjakafi_81]

Originally Posted by nname

Other than SGN and MEL, AC still got NGO, TPE, DPS, NAN on the Pacific side of the investor day map.

On the other hand, AC had started almost all the destinations under study for Central/South America in 2025 alone, and only ACA and FOR left from the map.

But then... AC started or planned to start one route in Europe (CTA) and two one in Mexico (PXM, TPQ) that was not on the map, so who knows... Maybe AC is now looking at more routes on the Pacific side as well.


But people (including me) are wondering if or how will AC respond...

Just curious since other than the stuff mentioned on the investor day map, I can't really think of other destinations. I guess maybe they could look at Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta ? Or possibly more secondary cities in Korea / Japan like Busan or Fukuoka ?

AC probably will respond once they have enough slack in the widebody fleet to start some routes out west.

[nname]

Originally Posted by ninjakafi_81

Just curious since other than the stuff mentioned on the investor day map, I can't really think of other destinations. I guess maybe they could look at Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta ? Or possibly more secondary cities in Korea / Japan like Busan or Fukuoka ?

AC probably will respond once they have enough slack in the widebody fleet to start some routes out west.

If they go as far as DPS, then they probably also looked at CJU and OKA. But yeah FUK and PUS are the next logical destination in Japan/Korea after all the ones listed on the map.

Maybe if CTS goes well and they got many bookings from the Japanese side, they could try more destinations with XLR? The only one I can think of is SDJ, all other airports in the area are too small.

And since AC wants to fly everywhere French from YUL, wonder if they looked at YUL-YVR-PPT. TN couldn't make it work for SEA, but maybe YVR will work with the help from YUL? But then PPT is just out of range for XLR, so they'll have to use at least a 788 for this.

And then since BKK is doing very well, maybe AC will want to try HKT too.

Then there are CAN and secondary Chinese cities, each one of them are larger than everything listed above. But since pandemic AC can barely make PEK work, and HKG seems be doing very badly right now, I doubt we'll see any Chinese expansion from the AC side for a while...


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FJ added 3rd weekly YVR-NAN from end of summer to beginning of peak season in December.

So now the route will essentially be operated 3x weekly year-round except mid-April to mid-June.