Calgary International Airport II

[Bigtime]

One of the new taxiways that heads over to the new runway is designated Romeo (taxiways get letter designations). As part of its journey over there it crosses over McCall Way on the Romeo bridge, where this picture was taken from.

[simster3]

Here is an off topic question. Why/how is Westjet's name used for telemarketing scams? In my office we get a million calls from Wesjet and Google. Google makes sense but not really Westjet. It actually makes me really not want to use the company (which I never really do anyway).

[Rusty van Reddick]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

One of the new taxiways that heads over to the new runway is designated Romeo (taxiways get letter designations). As part of its journey over there it crosses over McCall Way on the Romeo bridge, where this picture was taken from.

You mean "R" then?

I dropped our Ottawa friend off at YYC the other day- she had a GREAT time in Calgary btw - and got to espy what is accessible of the new terminal. So cool.

[Canadian74]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

I think this is the first shot from the Romeo bridge:

http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/6/3/8/2480836.jpg

The view will be even better when the construction has finished and everything is cleaned up.

Originally Posted by Rusty van Reddick

You mean "R" then?

Well yeah it's "R" but it's the Romeo bridge. It's an avgeek thing I guess. If not for the picture I wouldn't immediately know what Bigtime was talking about if he had said "R bridge". Kinda denotes that you're most likely talking about a taxiway bridge because some other bridge is unlikely to be named after something in the phonetic alphabet.

[Tills13]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

One of the new taxiways that heads over to the new runway is designated Romeo (taxiways get letter designations). As part of its journey over there it crosses over McCall Way on the Romeo bridge, where this picture was taken from.

I was looking around trying to figure out how to get in there thank you for posting that.

I'll repost the rough drawing that I made.

[Aegis]

Originally Posted by simster3

Here is an off topic question. Why/how is Westjet's name used for telemarketing scams? In my office we get a million calls from Wesjet and Google. Google makes sense but not really Westjet. It actually makes me really not want to use the company (which I never really do anyway).

I can't think of too many phone/internet mass calling/spam scams that don't involve the impersonation of a legitimate company.

Why would it make sense that google is calling you?

Why would a phone scam make you not want to deal with Westjet? It's got nothing to do with them.

Westjet has addressed the issue:

http://www.westjet.com/guest/en/travel/basics/security-travel-alert/travel-alert.shtml

UA has just pulled the plug on YEG-EWR, a which at first glance might seems very relevant to us as it might result in upped loads and maybe down the road an upguage on our own YYC-EWR flown by AC. However, a few weeks ago Cage explained why that might not be the case:

Originally Posted by Cage

Re: AC YYC-EWR vs UA YEG-EWR.

The AC service is timed so that passengers are either destined for YYC or New York Region; the timing also deters pax from making connections at EWR to the European and Eastern USA markets.

The UA service is timed to meet the full European departure bank. In this sense the UA YEG-EWR flight competes with AC offerings over YYZ.

The two missions are separate. The AC service is pure O&D while UA relies on EWR connections. I believe that both missions can be accomplished on YYC-EWR. That is UA adds a early morning departure late afternoon arrival into YYC that feeds their domestic bank.

As far as revenue sharing, it is more profitable for AC to fly pax through their entire network than to hand the same pax to UA to take for 60% of the journey.

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by Acey

UA has just pulled the plug on YEG-EWR, a which at first glance might seems very relevant to us as it might result in upped loads and maybe down the road an upguage on our own YYC-EWR flown by AC. However, a few weeks ago Cage explained why that might not be the case:

This will bump up YYC's loads. Since this flight is being pulled, pax from YEG-NYC will need to travel via somewhere else. The YYC-EWR on AC and the seasonal YYC-JFK on WS would definitely be two options. Not all Edmontonians avoid YYC like the plague so yeah I'm sure these flights will attract a few connecting passengers.

FYI in 2012 YYC-NYC annual traffic was about 123k and YEG-NYC was about 53k.

At first I thought they would just make the route seasonal but after reading this quote from an un-named UA spokesperson I think it's gone for good.

"... the flights were not meeting the company's expectations."

The AC YYC flight used to be daily 319 anyway, so perhaps it will become one again... Or ... Imagine.. If it got ROUGED!!! Noooooo. Kidding.

I remember flying EWR-YYC a bunch of years ago on the 319 and there were ~40 people on the airplane.

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by Acey

I remember flying EWR-YYC a bunch of years ago on the 319 and there were ~40 people on the airplane.

If that was the norm, probably not (seems to be averaging around 70-75% though) it's no surprise the flight was downgauged to an E90.

Not a jab at you, but I'm always amazed at hearing over and over... "But I fly that flight all the time and its always full" in relation to a route being dropped. Like TS and YEG-LGW, despite being > 90% loads last year, it's being pulled next year... For whatever reason... It's gone.

[Johnny Aussie]

Another UA shake up of their winter scheds. YYC will see more E75 flights.

Effective 5 January 2 of the 3 daily SFO flights will be E75. Originally they were going to have only 1 over the peak Xmas period but this has now been extended.

1 of the 4 daily IAH flights will remain until mid Feb now. Again, after the peak Xmas period these were all to be mainline. So now 3 out of 4 mainline and 1 Express on the E75.

DEN looks like it's back to all Express flying again effective 3 December for the winter. They are also reducing DEN frequencies until 18 December.

[PPAR]

A few years back I saw an interesting art installation in NYC. It showed in graphic form the telecom traffic from New York out to the rest of the world circa 2006 overlayed on a world map. What was interesting was the intensity of the link between Calgary and New York. It was greater than that between many other major US cities.
I would suspect if that was a reliable guide to business interaction, that YYC-NYC has done pretty well on the high yield business class passenger. Of course 2006 would have been the height of oilsands financing deals.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

Another UA shake up of their winter scheds. YYC will see more E75 flights.

Effective 5 January 2 of the 3 daily SFO flights will be E75. Originally they were going to have only 1 over the peak Xmas period but this has now been extended.

So this will bump us up a few seats with the change right?

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

Not a jab at you, but I'm always amazed at hearing over and over... "But I fly that flight all the time and its always full" in relation to a route being dropped. Like TS and YEG-LGW, despite being > 90% loads last year, it's being pulled next year... For whatever reason... It's gone.

For sure, I was in no way trying to imply that 40% would be a normal load for that flight, but it's the most empty leg I've ever flown on a mainline AC flight.

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

So this will bump us up a few seats with the change right?

Yes, a bit. 6 seats per flight. United First cabin doubles to 12 seats from 6 on the CR7. So really it's 6 additional United First seats per flight.

[Johnny Aussie]

Saw a thread on airliners.net, a site I quit ages ago, but still lurk off an on.

Came across a Canada-Texas thread.

Knowing just how huge the local Calgary-Houston market is (O&D, not just pax traffic on the YYC-IAH route). I see another Westjet opportunity. Forgetting about the recent chats about Southwest as I truly believe their strategy is go big or stay home.

What about a twice daily return to Hobby. Maybe "shift" the DFW flight to HOU and run two daily there.

Not only could they tap in to the large O&D market but, if timed right, connections from Western Canada could make this a winner. Any thoughts?

[tuffyy]

I don't see why not, we just added Southwest in CUN in the last week and a bit and when talking to the guys about Canada they said they see lots of potential, OAK-YVR is one route that's gaining serious momentum as a potential launch route.

So the talk about Canada is a reality, just when and how is the ticket.

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by tuffyy

I don't see why not, we just added Southwest in CUN in the last week and a bit and when talking to the guys about Canada they said they see lots of potential, OAK-YVR is one route that's gaining serious momentum as a potential launch route.

So the talk about Canada is a reality, just when and how is the ticket.

Is the Southwest launch there a new launch or a transfer from Air Tran? And I also understand they are going to expand to 5 destinations within a few months and about 8 daily flights.

The only reason I ask is Southwest's (current) business model is they usually launch a new city with a minimum of 5 daily flights. And as pointed out by Cage they have a unique ground handling set up that requires dedicated gates etc. There were some other issues as well, but too lazy to go back and read them.
My concern with Canada is they would be unlikely to launch a city with just one or two flights per day. So like I say they generally go in big or don't at all. And longer thinner routes routes wreck havoc on their yields.
Really rethinking their strategy, I really don't see very many cities in Canada with enough transborder traffic that would suit their model. I am sure there is a lot of potential in Canada but when they really sit down and crunch their numbers they will find limited opportunities. I'm not saying it's impossible but I would be surprised if they actually did launch Canada for at least a few more years. Also remembering their smallest plane seats about 140 pax. They don't have any Express size aircraft to suit the smaller thinner markets.
YYZ by far the largest market, but costs, AC and Porter would be huge barriers to entry.
YVR with rouge ramping up and a fairly diversified network and really only LA and SF areas large enough.
YYC with Westjet's base (unless they do somehow retry an alliance with Southwest of some sort) be tough other than say HOU.
YUL don't really know.
YEG despite its growth in % terms it seems to be struggling with its current flights, UA and DL cutting frequencies/capacity this winter. Bright spot being AA with the new DFW and soon to start LAX flight. But quite Express oriented.
As for the rest, doesn't leave many opportunities.