Quote:
Originally Posted by Tobuz
True, but what's happening at YYC is a very YYC-specific thing.
Tourism is booming everywhere. AFAIK, only YYC is seeing this broad downgrading of air service.
Our biggest carrier, hubbed here, is intentionally downgrading all of their products as part of their new strategy. The country's biggest carrier (and only full-service mainstream carrier now) largely pulled out -- taking YYC from a small hub to a spoke. And on one of their dropped routes, they swapped out for a no-frills leisure carrier.
That's all a huge shift for YYC.
But it's not happening elsewhere. At the same time as Lufthansa Group decided to send their no-frills carrier here, they announced a bunch of new North America routes on their mainstream (LH and Swiss) brands. They decided that Raleigh NC was worthy of LH, but that YYC wasn't.
Catastrophic? No. We're still well served for a city of our size. Non-stop destinations are great. Even if we're now somehow seen as a leisure/no-frills market not worthy of mainstream, full service. Humbling.
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I'm not disagreeing with you, it isn't great seeing mainline airlines being replaced by leisure carriers - although 4Y (nor any long haul carrier that currently serves YYC) is not a "no frills" carrier.
And it isn't just YYC. Last winter 4Y replaced LH mainline service on both YVR/YYZ.
I wouldn't go as far as to compare us to US markets. There's plenty of US cities with twice the population that currently have no TATL service at all.
YYC will still gain additional capacity to Europe in S24, including a returning foreign carrier.
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