Atlantic Canada airport thread

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by sailor734

Forget all the NB airports if you want to save money. I was looking for a short notice flight to Vancouver inNovember . NB airports were all around $2000-2200 return. Portland Me. To YVR was $840 CAD return and it was an afternoon departure so you could drive down in the AM

But what were the connections like?

[Nashe]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

But what were the connections like?

Atlanta + Salt Lake City looks like.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Nashe

Atlanta + Salt Lake City looks like.

Yeah, no thanks............

[Nashe]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Yeah, no thanks............

A quick search of the AC and Delta sites shows the total travel time the same (10-11hrs), even though the AC flight has one stop in Toronto, FWIW.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Nashe

A quick search of the AC and Delta sites shows the total travel time the same (10-11hrs), even though the AC flight has one stop in Toronto, FWIW.

Does this include the five hour drive from SJ to Portland???

[Nashe]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Does this include the five hour drive from SJ to Portland???

No, but you didn't think the $1200 saving would be no-strings-attached, did you?

[q12]

Halifax - Vancouver resumes non-stop year round starting this May on Air Canada. They only removed it this winter due to aircraft shortages.

It ramps up to 2x Daily on June 15th on Air Canada

Air Canada Non-stop

Depart 9:25 AM Halifax - Arrive 12:08 PM Vancouver
Travel time: 6 hr 43 min

Depart 6:50 PM Halifax Arrive 9:33 PM Vancouver
Travel time: 6 hr 43 min

Westjet also flies non-stop on some days

Depart 7:35 AM Halifax Arrive 10:02 AM Vancouver
Travel time: 6 hr 27 min

[Fischbob]

Originally Posted by homebody

50 percent??? I have been pricing flights to different destinations in Europe this coming summer. Compared all three airports. About 30 bucks more than Fredericton and 40 more than Moncton. Now I haven’t priced domestically though. I can’t see 50 percent.

I can't speak to transborder or international itineraries - I've been shopping for domestic flights over the past few months at various time horizons, both direct to the central Canada hubs and connecting to points further west. And yes, my experience has been that YSJ flights are often at least 1.5x the price (return) of flights out of Moncton/Fredericton.

[homebody]

Originally Posted by Fischbob

I can't speak to transborder or international itineraries - I've been shopping for domestic flights over the past few months at various time horizons, both direct to the central Canada hubs and connecting to points further west. And yes, my experience has been that YSJ flights are often at least 1.5x the price (return) of flights out of Moncton/Fredericton.

I say out with Air Canada at YSJ lol. Might be better off without them. Their lack of flights make connections anywhere almost impossible. I'm sure that someone else might fill the void. Perhaps Flair would consider a YSJ/YYZ/YYC route at that point, or even to their hub in Edmonton. Porter to YYZ.... just throwing it out there.

[sailor734]

Originally Posted by Fischbob

I can't speak to transborder or international itineraries - I've been shopping for domestic flights over the past few months at various time horizons, both direct to the central Canada hubs and connecting to points further west. And yes, my experience has been that YSJ flights are often at least 1.5x the price (return) of flights out of Moncton/Fredericton.

I'm not seeing the huge price differences between YSJ, YFC and YQM. I looked at a one-way fare to Vancouver on a midweek day in mid January..... YFC 592 YSJ 614 YQM 622

Hardly scientific I know but I also was checking this route several times over the fall and never saw a significant price difference between the three airports.
(sometimes better routing/connections yes but not big price differentials)

[Fischbob]

Originally Posted by sailor734

I'm not seeing the huge price differences between YSJ, YFC and YQM. I looked at a one-way fare to Vancouver on a midweek day in mid January..... YFC 592 YSJ 614 YQM 622

Hardly scientific I know but I also was checking this route several times over the fall and never saw a significant price difference between the three airports.
(sometimes better routing/connections yes but not big price differentials)

Definitely possible that I'm getting unlucky with the travel dates I've checked. That being said, I just compared the 3 airports in Google Flights for a 2-day return trip to YVR, and the price graphs for late March thru mid-May showed YQM 692-919, YFC 968-1247, YSJ 1285-1362

I do admit it's hard to say with certainty that there's a sustained pattern without a fuller analysis of the data.

[MonctonRad]

Happy New Year from CYQM Moncton.





Photos from YQM Planespotters Page on Facebook. These pictures were snapped last night during a light snowfall.

[DyAm00394]

I see AllNewBrunswick has a new headline on their website about YSJ working on an alliance to boost connections. Anyone with access to view the article know what is mentioned?

[sailor734]

Originally Posted by DyAm00394

I see AllNewBrunswick has a new headline on their website about YSJ working on an alliance to boost connections. Anyone with access to view the article know what is mentioned?

Sorry I don't but they certainly need to do something. I'm picking someone up today who is coming in from Europe. No way for them to get to Saint John without an overnight layover.

Late last year some family members vacationed in the Caribbean. In that case an overnight was required in TO in both directions.

YSJ is not only lacking in number of flights, they are lacking a flight schedule that allows same day travel to many destinations.

[Bishop2047]

Lynx Air is expanding to PEI in May.

https://www.flylynx.com/en

Looking at the available flight options, I am seeing Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday options.

[KnoxfordGuy]

Traffic at YFC increases 25 per cent in 2023, outlook for 2024 even stronger. A total of 333,813 passengers travelled through YFC in 2023.

[sailor734]

Lack of flights to the Maritimes (especially YSJ) and zero excess capacity are glaringly apparent when there are any disruptions.

We got a real lesson in this on Friday.

Family member was flying YSJ to TO on Friday and then on one of AC's twice weekly flights to Bermuda Sat morning. Weather in TO Friday evening meant they actually circled Pearson for awhile and then diverted to Montreal. Chaos ensued as the weather hit Montreal early Saturday causing multiple cancelations. That's fine and bad weather is certainly not AC's fault. How they deal with the fallout from it however........

Air Canada's only solution on Saturday was to offer to return this person to SJ on Monday afternoon which would be after being stuck in Montreal for 3 nights. (AC's next flight Toronto- Bermuda won't be until next Thursday) Zero willingness to reroute them or book them an AC flight to the US and then onwards on an American airline. Zero effort to get them to their destination.

They ended up abandoning their outward leg and buying an American Airlines Montreal-Charlotte-Bermuda ticket for this morning.

Air Canada's attitude can be summed up as "too bad....— to be you"

I know this story is just one of millions in recent years and probably not as bad as many but you have to wonder how air travel has deteriorated so badly? It's especially bad in a small, underserved market. Missing a flight or a connection doesn't mean being inconvenienced for a few hours. it can mean being stranded somewhere for days.

[bridgeoftea]

Originally Posted by sailor734

Lack of flights to the Maritimes (especially YSJ) and zero excess capacity are glaringly apparent when there are any disruptions.

We got a real lesson in this on Friday.

Family member was flying YSJ to TO on Friday and then on one of AC's twice weekly flights to Bermuda Sat morning. Weather in TO Friday evening meant they actually circled Pearson for awhile and then diverted to Montreal. Chaos ensued as the weather hit Montreal early Saturday causing multiple cancelations. That's fine and bad weather is certainly not AC's fault. How they deal with the fallout from it however........

Air Canada's only solution on Saturday was to offer to return this person to SJ on Monday afternoon which would be after being stuck in Montreal for 3 nights. (AC's next flight Toronto- Bermuda won't be until next Thursday) Zero willingness to reroute them or book them an AC flight to the US and then onwards on an American airline. Zero effort to get them to their destination.

They ended up abandoning their outward leg and buying an American Airlines Montreal-Charlotte-Bermuda ticket for this morning.

Air Canada's attitude can be summed up as "too bad....— to be you"

I know this story is just one of millions in recent years and probably not as bad as many but you have to wonder how air travel has deteriorated so badly? It's especially bad in a small, underserved market. Missing a flight or a connection doesn't mean being inconvenienced for a few hours. it can mean being stranded somewhere for days.

As someone that was just flying with Air Canada this weekend my experience was 1000% different.
I booked roundtirp to Dominican on the 4th and left on the 6th and was scheduled to leave Punta Cana on the 13th.
For the return leg the airplane coming to Punta Cana from Halifax was delayed about 3 hours, so my flight home to Halifax was cancelled. Within 5 minutes of the announcement, I was sent to a bus and took to a 5 star resort to stay for the night and got picked up the next day, given a food voucher for the airport of $28 USD and flew home.

Some friends of ours were caught on the earlier flight to Fredericton which got diverted to Montreal where they had to stay for 16 hours or so.

But I think because Air Canada still made the effort to take off and get home, their view is the weather is an act of god and they can't control that. Plus technically you've been brought to your home country.

Where as my flight was cancelled either and or both due to the weather or not wanting pilots to be on the clock for more hours for safety reasons?

Strange all around but couldn't be happier with Air Canada's service this weekend. An extra day in a nice resort with more free drinks and food is always good

[Nashe]

I was supposed to fly back from Orlando last Thursday; 11:05am to Pearson, then 3:45pm to Moncton. While driving to the airport that morning, got a series of delay notifications (30 minutes... then 15 minutes... then 2 hours... eventually over 6 hours worth) due to "technical issues with the incoming flight" (which hadn't left TO yet).

Since that would have us miss our TO connection, we anticipated a paniced exodus of folks trying to get on that plane and immediatelychanged our TO - Moncton booking to the 10:00pm flight over the phone. That part went OK. Unfortunately they charged us twice for the seat upgrade (will be calling to get that refunded). That second flight got delayed by about 30 minutes as well.

Got home Friday morning at nearly 2am. Our luggage arrived a day and a half later. I actually can't remember the last time I DIDN'T have a flight delay and/or cancellation with AC...

The last time we flew (in the fall) we ended up in TO with a cancelled flight and zero effort to reschedule by AC. In the end we relied on the cancellation/interruption insurance on our CC and just did our own thing and applied for a refund. Thankfully at that point Westjet was still in the picture for Moncton...

[bridgeoftea]

Originally Posted by Nashe

I was supposed to fly back from Orlando last Thursday; 11:05am to Pearson, then 3:45pm to Moncton. While driving to the airport that morning, got a series of delay notifications (30 minutes... then 15 minutes... then 2 hours... eventually over 6 hours worth) due to "technical issues with the incoming flight" (which hadn't left TO yet).

Since that would have us miss our TO connection, we anticipated a paniced exodus of folks trying to get on that plane and immediatelychanged our TO - Moncton booking to the 10:00pm flight over the phone. That part went OK. Unfortunately they charged us twice for the seat upgrade (will be calling to get that refunded). That second flight got delayed by about 30 minutes as well.

Got home Friday morning at nearly 2am. Our luggage arrived a day and a half later. I actually can't remember the last time I DIDN'T have a flight delay and/or cancellation with AC...

The last time we flew (in the fall) we ended up in TO with a cancelled flight and zero effort to reschedule by AC. In the end we relied on the cancellation/interruption insurance on our CC and just did our own thing and applied for a refund. Thankfully at that point Westjet was still in the picture for Moncton...

It does feel like you just need to get super lucky with delays. I use Flighty as a flight tracking app and 67% of all my flights have had some sort of delay. Not had any issues with luggage but I only ever take a carry on suitcase to minimize luggage related issues.