Canadian Airport Thread

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

For those who like Lego and aviation...this came out today; I snagged a set.

https://www.lego.com/en-ca/product/concorde-10318

Aviation I like. Lego I despise! My 4 year old loves lego. We have lego pieces scattered everywhere around the house.

I’m not about to spend 300$ on some more!

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Not an intuitive route pairing.

Leaf peepers???

Yep fall colours charters.

[whatnext]

Another reason for Canada's pilot shortage:

Number of Canadian pilots seeking to fly in U.S. tripled in 2022 as staffing shortages bite
ALLISON LAMPERT
MONTREAL
REUTERS
PUBLISHED 8 HOURS AGO

The number of Canadian pilots seeking to fly in the United States tripled in 2022, according to previously unreported U.S. government data, raising fears of deepening shortages in Canada as pilots seek higher wages.

Some 147 Canadian pilots applied for licenses to fly commercial jets in the United States in 2022, up from 39 in 2021, according to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) data. The number of overall foreign applications roughly doubled to 1,442.

High travel demand in the United States, where pilots are securing historic wage increases, is attracting foreign aviators, despite delays and high costs of immigrating, according to lawyers, unions and pilots.

While small, the increase in U.S. applications is worrisome for regional Canadian carriers, which like their U.S. counterparts, are wrestling with staffing shortages as they lose pilots to larger airlines, industry experts say.

It could also put pressure on Air Canada AC-T during negotiations with its pilots, whose contract expires on September 29.....

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business...seeking-to-fly-in-us-tripled-in-2022-as/

[nname]

Looks like Flair recently updated their schedule and added/restored the following routes:

YYZ-KIN
YVR-SJD
YVR-PSP

SJD and PSP was previously operated until last winter. Now the service will resume in time for the March break. KIN will begin service from December.

Looks like many domestic routes will resume service from early March, as well as some US destinations such as SFO and PHX. At least this is the case for some YVR routes.

Seem to me that they are avoiding the winter from late November to early March now.. maybe they're too scared of having half of their fleet stuck on the tarmac in winter storm last year, and the dead of winter in Jan/Feb that probably lead to their planes being repossessed?

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Another reason for Canada's pilot shortage:

Number of Canadian pilots seeking to fly in U.S. tripled in 2022 as staffing shortages bite
ALLISON LAMPERT
MONTREAL
REUTERS
PUBLISHED 8 HOURS AGO

The number of Canadian pilots seeking to fly in the United States tripled in 2022, according to previously unreported U.S. government data, raising fears of deepening shortages in Canada as pilots seek higher wages.

Some 147 Canadian pilots applied for licenses to fly commercial jets in the United States in 2022, up from 39 in 2021, according to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) data. The number of overall foreign applications roughly doubled to 1,442.

High travel demand in the United States, where pilots are securing historic wage increases, is attracting foreign aviators, despite delays and high costs of immigrating, according to lawyers, unions and pilots.

While small, the increase in U.S. applications is worrisome for regional Canadian carriers, which like their U.S. counterparts, are wrestling with staffing shortages as they lose pilots to larger airlines, industry experts say.

It could also put pressure on Air Canada AC-T during negotiations with its pilots, whose contract expires on September 29.....

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business...seeking-to-fly-in-us-tripled-in-2022-as/

147 pilots doesn’t change much, to be honest.

[hollywoodcory]

Condor is returning to YYC in S24 2x weekly.

https://condor-newsroom.condor.com/en/de...mmer-2024-condor-flies-to-miami-florida/

[Alexcaban]

Air Canada is keeping YUL-AMS next year.

Daily 787, season even starts as of March 30th.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by hollywoodcory

Condor is returning to YYC in S24 2x weekly.

https://condor-newsroom.condor.com/en/de...mmer-2024-condor-flies-to-miami-florida/

Says YHZ-FRA increases to 4x weekly next summer too.

[hollywoodcory]

WS is picking up another route deserted by AC. YWG-YOW

https://www.westjet.com/en-ca/news/2023/...nnectivity-between-winnipeg-and-ottawa-t

Route will be briefly paused from October 29-December 18 before resuming 4x weekly.

[hehehe]

Originally Posted by hollywoodcory

WS is picking up another route deserted by AC. YWG-YOW

https://www.westjet.com/en-ca/news/2023/...nnectivity-between-winnipeg-and-ottawa-t

Route will be briefly paused from October 29-December 18 before resuming 4x weekly.

I wonder where the spare capacity is coming from.

[YYCguys]

Originally Posted by hehehe

I wonder where the spare capacity is coming from.

Ex Swoop aircraft perhaps?

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

147 pilots doesn’t change much, to be honest.

Every little bit hurts our smaller carriers. From BNN Bloomberg/Canadian Press:

Airlines face growing pressure from pilot unions, as threat of brain drain looms
Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press
2h ago

Pilots are demanding better wages and benefits from their employers, raising financial pressure on airlines that are just starting to recover from the pandemic.

The union representing some 320 aviators at WestJet Encore, the carrier's regional service, announced Tuesday they plan to launch negotiations on their second collective agreement.

The move by the Air Line Pilots Association comes after 1,800 pilots with WestJet's main operation and its budget subsidiary Swoop ratified a new deal in June that brings them onto a level pay scale, giving flight crews a 24 per cent wage bump over four years and resulting in Swoop's shutdown at the end of October.

Days later, some 4,500 Air Canada pilots kick-started the bargaining process, as unions seek gains that will bring them closer to deals in the U.S.

Between March and September, pilots at Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and American Airlines secured agreements that included four-year pay hikes ranging from 34 per cent to 40 per cent.

John Gradek, who teaches at McGill University's aviation management program, said losing a pilot is a big deal to an airline because replacing them is time consuming and expensive.

"The airlines will do whatever it takes in order for them to protect their pilot base. And that approach is going to cost a lot of money," Gradek said.

Increasingly, aviators have been seeking sunnier skies south of the border.

While the trickle has been creeping up since 2017, the number of Canadian pilots applying for certification to fly commercial aircraft in the U.S. nearly quadrupled to 147 last year from 39 in 2021, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

"We're in a world where attrition is a key concern of the airlines," Gradek said of Canadian carriers.

"Where do you go and get pilots? You go to regional carriers, you go to the bush pilots to get them. But they're running out of pilots as well, so it gets to be really, really tricky."...

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/airlines-fac...as-threat-of-brain-drain-looms-1.1967957

[hehehe]

Originally Posted by YYCguys

Ex Swoop aircraft perhaps?

Probably. Just seems odd that they didn't have capacity to do this beforehand and they've now come up with the capacity to do an extra 18x weekly flights this winter. I wouldn't be surprised to see YHZ/CUN additions from YYC from December onwards though.

[Dominion301]

PD launched jet ops at YYT yesterday and launched YWG outright today.

[thenoflyzone]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/airport-traffic-montreal-1.6958548

Traffic situation is out of control at YUL. Scroll down and watch Georges St-Pierre’s video post from 2 weeks ago. It’s like this almost every day.

Funny how Transport Quebec is deflecting blame. Meanwhile, their recently built overpass (the asphalt of which is already crumbling in a lot of places) leading to the airport is obsolete and part of the problem, and won’t be able to handle the traffic even if ADM expands the arrivals/departure ramps. Typical Quebec! No long term vision whatsoever.

And the amateurs over at ADM aren’t any better. AC and others can add all the flights they want (soon they won’t be able to anyway), but YUL will always remain a second rate airport until these problems are solved.

[Dominion301]

YWG's June and first half of 2023 pax stats:

Sector / Jun-22 / Jun-23 / % Change
Dom: 288,159 / 356,514 / +23.7%
TB: 16,599 / 18,065 / +8.8%
Int'l: 0 / 0 / #DIV/0!
TTL: 304,758 / 374,579 / +22.9%

Sector / YTD 2022 / YTD 2023 / % Change
Dom: 1,095,077 / 1,656,456 / +51.3%
TB: 74,285 / 154,217 / +107.6%
Int'l: 35,946 / 119,626 / +232.8%
TTL: 1,205,308 / 1,930,299 / +60.1%

Month-Over-Month Change
Sector / May-23 / Jun-23 / % Change
Dom: 320,599 / 356,514 / +11.2%
TB: 19,227 / 18,065 / -6.0%
Int'l: 0 / 0 / #DIV/0!
TTL: 339,826 / 374,579 / +10.2%
Avg/Day: 10,962 / 12,486 / +13.9%
% of month's avg daily pax vs 2019 of 12,286 = 101.6% - June 2023 was busier than 2019's average daily pax count
YTD TTL vs YTD 2019 = 86.7%

12 Months Rolling / % Change vs Year End 2021
Dom: 3,357,099 / +181.1%
TB: 244,838 / +1,059.2%
Int'l: 154,168 / +1,871.2%
TTL: 3,756,105 / +207.1%

https://www.waa.ca/assets/pages/EN_YWG_passenger_statistics_2005_to_Q2_2023-2.pdf

Through the first half of 2023, YOW is 23,016 pax ahead of YWG. YOW had more pax from Jan-Apr, while YWG had more in May & June. Will be interesting to see how the second half plays out. YWG has more of a seasonal swing than YOW does, so I wouldn't be surprised to see YWG surpass YOW through Q3, but then YOW finish a bit ahead of YWG at year-end.

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

nname, are these AC weekly departure numbers current? scroll down.....

The numbers for the other star carriers seems accurate.

https://www.staralliance.com/en/airport-information?airportCode=YYZ

https://www.staralliance.com/en/airport-information?airportCode=YUL

https://www.staralliance.com/en/airport-information?airportCode=YVR

https://www.staralliance.com/en/airport-information?airportCode=YYC

https://www.staralliance.com/en/airport-information?airportCode=YOW

https://www.staralliance.com/en/airport-information?airportCode=YEG

AC weekly departure numbers:

YYZ 1947
YUL 1070
YVR 983
YYC 281
YOW 214
YEG 162

Noticed that weekly departure numbers seem to have been updated on the star alliance websites. I guess they're on an automatic script or something with a regular update interval. Nice to see.

YYZ 1865
YUL 1000
YVR 916
YYC 253
YOW 210
YEG 153

^ Speaking of YOW, noticed on these links that UA has 1 more freqency from YOW than they do from YUL. 50 vs 49 weekly. Don't know if that's a mistake or not, as both YUL and YOW seem to have 2x daily to IAD and ORD, and 3x daily to EWR, so where is that extra 1x weekly frequency from YOW going?

[cam477]

Originally Posted by whatnext

I find it strange PAL is able to get pilots yet Jazz, also based in Halifax, isn’t.

In 2018 PAL bought Moncton Flight College in response to the worsening pilot shortage. MFC is the largest private flight school in Canada. This provides PAL and its sister airlines (Perimeter, Calm, etc) with a huge advantage.

[nname]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

Noticed that weekly departure numbers seem to have been updated on the star alliance websites. I guess they're on an automatic script or something with a regular update interval. Nice to see.

YYZ 1865
YUL 1000
YVR 916
YYC 253
YOW 210
YEG 153

I'll wait and see for the winter update, if YVR will show up to have more flight than YUL.

Traditionally AC operate more summer flights out of YUL and more winter flights out of YVR. But this wasn't always the case for the past few years due to MAX grounding, the COVID, then the summer capacity constraint for YYZ/YUL...

At this moment, AC plan to operate 8 more weekly flights out of YVR than YUL this winter. But then AC haven't fully finalized the schedule yet, especially for the domestic express routes. And there aren't that many of those routes to be slashed at YUL end...

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

Noticed that weekly departure numbers seem to have been updated on the star alliance websites. I guess they're on an automatic script or something with a regular update interval. Nice to see.

YYZ 1865
YUL 1000
YVR 916
YYC 253
YOW 210
YEG 153

^ Speaking of YOW, noticed on these links that UA has 1 more freqency from YOW than they do from YUL. 50 vs 49 weekly. Don't know if that's a mistake or not, as both YUL and YOW seem to have 2x daily to IAD and ORD, and 3x daily to EWR, so where is that extra 1x weekly frequency from YOW going?

Assuming that they update the numbers weekly, maybe UA added an extra YOW rotation for the Labour Day weekend? I can’t find the 50th weekly…unless they’re secretly flying a weekly YOW-HNL 77W, lol.

What’s YHZ weekly AC count at? Outside the big 3, AC are a shadow of their pre-COVID weekly departure counts and the next 3 biggest. Hence enter Porter big time at YOW and they’re only getting started with the build up.