Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport (YOW/CYOW)

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by acottawa

There was a YOW-SJC flight maybe 20 years ago. Not sure how long it lasted.

That was very much a flight to try and fill the front of the plane. Launched right as the Dot Com crash happened if I remember the history.

[Zmonkey]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

That was very much a flight to try and fill the front of the plane. Launched right as the Dot Com crash happened if I remember the history.

It was there because of tech dollars. There were 3 massive firms that brought up Ottawa's tech value to 400 Billion at the time of companies HQ'd in Ottawa. Nortel, JDS, Mitel led the way at the time.

Since the bubble burst the scene in Ottawa has not been about Global companies HQ'd in Ottawa, but secondary offices to help lower costs of larger firms. Very different mentality for spends.

The only real exception to this has been Spotify and over the years their focus has been Toronto with staff growing there and more of senior management working from Toronto over Ottawa.

The HUB in Toronto was not really a HUB at the time either, AC was getting smaller and their focus was not transiting people in Toronto, that came 5-7 years later in a big way. The airline industry was still more point to point around 2000.

[Rhb]

I just noticed on Porter airlines website it has Aeromexico as an Alliance partner.
Is this a new development or it’s been around for a while?
If’s it’s new then there’s an opportunity to fly to Cancun and Mexico City ( from YOW) on Porter metal and connect to Aeromexico.
Presently it just has Porter feeding into Aeromexico flights at YYZ/YUL.

https://www.flyporter.com/en-ca/abou...rline-partners

[Tesladom]

Just came back from Europe, flew AF from Ottawa to CDG and happy to report that both flights outbound and return were pretty much at 100% in all seat classes

[RomanR27]

April 2024 US DOT numbers have arrived. Last batch of numbers with a full slate of Florida/Vegas flying. I don't see Porter Dash-8 numbers or Jazz. Pretty clear why MCO stuck around for the summer on PD. If I have time, I'll try and consolidate all the seasonal flying from November-April into one report. There may have been some adjustments from earlier reported numbers, too.

Porter
MCO: 7440/7029 = 94.5%
FLL: 5152/7316 = 70.4% -- Similar to AC, northbound was higher (77%) compared to southbound (63%)

Rouge
TPA: 895/1088 = 82.3%
MCO: 2230/2448 = 91.1% -- same capacity Rouge had in March, and the passenger count was just a single person higher in April
FLL: 3203/4416= 72.5% -- YOW-FLL was 59% and northbound was 86%. I could see northbound feeding connections (YQB, YVR and YHZ) which could explain the delta?

WestJet
RSW: 1860/2448 = 76.0%
MCO: 1137/1488 = 76.4%

Flair
LAS: 2477/3402 = 72.8%
FLL: 3374/5091 = 66.3%
SFB: 207/378 = 54.8% - last round trip of the season. Northbound was actually decent at 166 pax, southbound only had 41.

United
ORD: 7854/8928 = 88.0%
EWR: 10079/12188 = 82.7%
IAD: 7306/8500 = 86.0% -- first full month with the third daily flight, still good loads

[fanofYOW]

Originally Posted by Rhb

I just noticed on Porter airlines website it has Aeromexico as an Alliance partner.
Is this a new development or it’s been around for a while?
If’s it’s new then there’s an opportunity to fly to Cancun and Mexico City ( from YOW) on Porter metal and connect to Aeromexico.
Presently it just has Porter feeding into Aeromexico flights at YYZ/YUL.

https://www.flyporter.com/en-ca/abou...rline-partners

I hope there's a YOW-YYZ-MEX-LIM option at some point so I can use it this winter. Doesn't seem to be an option though.

Originally Posted by Tesladom

Just came back from Europe, flew AF from Ottawa to CDG and happy to report that both flights outbound and return were pretty much at 100% in all seat classes

Happy to hear this.

[OTSkyline]

Originally Posted by fanofYOW

I hope there's a YOW-YYZ-MEX-LIM option at some point so I can use it this winter. Doesn't seem to be an option though.



Happy to hear this.

We recently did YOW-YYZ-MIA-LIM and then
LIM-PUJ-YOW on the way back (which was very unexpected)

Would've been nice to bypass Toronto on the way there if we had a Ottawa-Miami flight (could open up a lot of doors to south America).Otherwise we could've chanced it by booking a YOW-FLL flight and a MIA-LIM flight and train between both.

[RomanR27]

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

We recently did YOW-YYZ-MIA-LIM and then
LIM-PUJ-YOW on the way back (which was very unexpected)

Would've been nice to bypass Toronto on the way there if we had a Ottawa-Miami flight (could open up a lot of doors to south America).Otherwise we could've chanced it by booking a YOW-FLL flight and a MIA-LIM flight and train between both.

Curious which airline(s) you flew? The PUJ connection is very interesting to me.

[fanofYOW]

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

We recently did YOW-YYZ-MIA-LIM and then
LIM-PUJ-YOW on the way back (which was very unexpected)

Would've been nice to bypass Toronto on the way there if we had a Ottawa-Miami flight (could open up a lot of doors to south America).Otherwise we could've chanced it by booking a YOW-FLL flight and a MIA-LIM flight and train between both.

PD/TS were doing YOW-YYZ-LIM in the summer but that stops at the end of October even though YYZ-LIM with TS continues with no schedule change. Weird. Was thinking of doing PD to YYZ then TS as separate tickets but that's risky in case of disruptions. Also trying to avoid AC/UA but UA's YOW-EWR-LIM seems like the best option so far (even though the layover is over 6 hours in both directions to my distaste).

[RomanR27]

Originally Posted by fanofYOW

PD/TS were doing YOW-YYZ-LIM in the summer but that stops at the end of October even though YYZ-LIM with TS continues with no schedule change. Weird. Was thinking of doing PD to YYZ then TS as separate tickets but that's risky in case of disruptions. Also trying to avoid AC/UA but UA's YOW-EWR-LIM seems like the best option so far (even though the layover is over 6 hours in both directions to my distaste).

That's why I'm curious...I believe LATAM is oneWorld so I could see YYZ-MIA on AA and MIA-LIM/LIM-PUJ on LATAM. But not sure who YOW-YYZ and PUJ-YOW would be operated by, unless it was separate tickets.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by RomanR27

April 2024 US DOT numbers have arrived. Last batch of numbers with a full slate of Florida/Vegas flying. I don't see Porter Dash-8 numbers or Jazz. Pretty clear why MCO stuck around for the summer on PD. If I have time, I'll try and consolidate all the seasonal flying from November-April into one report. There may have been some adjustments from earlier reported numbers, too.

Porter
MCO: 7440/7029 = 94.5%
FLL: 5152/7316 = 70.4% -- Similar to AC, northbound was higher (77%) compared to southbound (63%)

Rouge
TPA: 895/1088 = 82.3%
MCO: 2230/2448 = 91.1% -- same capacity Rouge had in March, and the passenger count was just a single person higher in April
FLL: 3203/4416= 72.5% -- YOW-FLL was 59% and northbound was 86%. I could see northbound feeding connections (YQB, YVR and YHZ) which could explain the delta?

WestJet
RSW: 1860/2448 = 76.0%
MCO: 1137/1488 = 76.4%

Flair
LAS: 2477/3402 = 72.8%
FLL: 3374/5091 = 66.3%
SFB: 207/378 = 54.8% - last round trip of the season. Northbound was actually decent at 166 pax, southbound only had 41.

United
ORD: 7854/8928 = 88.0%
EWR: 10079/12188 = 82.7%
IAD: 7306/8500 = 86.0% -- first full month with the third daily flight, still good loads

I bet the southbound FLL was the same on F8 too. All the snowbirds coming home accounts for the discrepancy. Probably the last 10 days of the season southbound were pretty empty.It’s usually the same in the opposite direction at the start of the season. Easter being in March would have a bit of an impact too.

Hopefully PD’s summer MCO numbers average north of 75%.

[DTcrawler]

I wonder how YOW <-> EWR service on PD is doing overall. I flew back from EWR last Thursday and there were maybe 20-25 pax on the flight. FA's had to re-assign seats to evenly distribute weight. My flight down on UA was pretty full.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by DTcrawler

I wonder how YOW <-> EWR service on PD is doing overall. I flew back from EWR last Thursday and there were maybe 20-25 pax on the flight. FA's had to re-assign seats to evenly distribute weight. My flight down on UA was pretty full.

Data for previous months has shown loads generally averaging in the 70s as I recall…would need to scroll back a bunch of pages to find them.

Today's departure count: 83

Today's cancellation count (so far): 1 - just another AC YYZ replacement flight #, which seems to be happening now whenever there’s a change of aircraft gauge. I checked for those from today and yesterday and in all cases it’s been a mainline 320 subbing for a rouge operated by mainline 319.

[RomanR27]

Originally Posted by Dominion301

I bet the southbound FLL was the same on F8 too. All the snowbirds coming home accounts for the discrepancy. Probably the last 10 days of the season southbound were pretty empty.It’s usually the same in the opposite direction at the start of the season. Easter being in March would have a bit of an impact too.

Hopefully PD’s summer MCO numbers average north of 75%.

Indeed, FLL southbound was 60% and northbound was 72%.

[RomanR27]

Fun flight path for AC447 this morning to get around the weather on its way to Toronto: https://www.flightaware.com/live/fli...330Z/CYOW/CYYZ

Not often you'll see domestic flights doing the standard southern departure.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by RomanR27

Fun flight path for AC447 this morning to get around the weather on its way to Toronto: https://www.flightaware.com/live/fli...330Z/CYOW/CYYZ

Not often you'll see domestic flights doing the standard southern departure.

Ended up circling over BUF before heading to YYZ and landing on 24L. 2h12 trip!

[RomanR27]

Originally Posted by Dominion301

Ended up circling over BUF before heading to YYZ and landing on 24L. 2h12 trip!

I was watching the Emirates A380 to see if it would end up needing to divert but it took the scenic route and was able to land alright at YYZ. A couple diversions did hit YOW, an AC E75 and CR9 from LGA and EWR respectively.

[OTSkyline]

Originally Posted by RomanR27

Curious which airline(s) you flew? The PUJ connection is very interesting to me.

YOW-YYZ Air Canada
YYZ-MIA Air Canada
MIA-LIM Latam Airways

LIM-PUJ Latam Airways
PUJ-YYZ Air Canada Rouge?

Granted, we were supposed to have the exact same routing as the way down there but because of a change in schedule for the LIM-MIA flight, our entire scheduling coming back changed and we were somehow able to get Latam to update our routing to 1-stop only (PUJ).. otherwise it would've added a 3rd stop in Colombia.

[RomanR27]

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

YOW-YYZ Air Canada
YYZ-MIA Air Canada
MIA-LIM Latam Airways

LIM-PUJ Latam Airways
PUJ-YYZ Air Canada Rouge?

Granted, we were supposed to have the exact same routing as the way down there but because of a change in schedule for the LIM-MIA flight, our entire scheduling coming back changed and we were somehow able to get Latam to update our routing to 1-stop only (PUJ).. otherwise it would've added a 3rd stop in Colombia.

Very cool, I didn't know you could book LATAM on the same ticket as AC, since they're different alliances I figured you wouldn't be able to!

[RomanR27]

Here are the compiled stats for the Winter 2023/24 seasonal transborder flying.

Orlando (note Porter shows 100% loads for Nov/Dec, likely inaccurate)


Fort Lauderdale (note Porter shows 100% loads for Nov/Dec, likely inaccurate)


Gulf Coast (RSW/TPA)


Las Vegas


WS+F8 combined for ~31K seats and ~22K pax on Orlando, both airlines have removed service for next winter.

F8 had ~26K pax on FLL and nearly 35K seats that will not return.

And of course, ~17K pax and ~22K seats on LAS that is currently a completely vacated market unless (until?) Porter announces something on that route.

AC moving MCO from 2x weekly to 4x weekly will lead to a recovery of approximately 14,000 of those 31,000 lost Orlando seats. Going from 4x to 6x weekly on FLL will lead to approximately 14,000 of those lost ~35,000 seats on FLL.

And here's where the Porter expansion comes into play. Going double daily on MCO and FLL from December 14-April 22 is an additional ~34K seats on each route. MCO started November 21 last year, so that's an additional ~5K in November and FLL started November 28 so an additional ~7K.

So Porter is adding ~39K seats to Orlando and ~41K to FLL. Together with AC, MCO will see ~108,000 seats this winter, and FLL will see ~120,000 - both increases of about 20,000 seats per market.

The gulf coast should be fascinating to watch as well. As of now, WS on RSW is flat compared to last year and AC is moving from 1x weekly to 2x weekly on TPA. With Porter doing TPA 4x weekly, that's about 25K seats for the winter. RSW at 3x weekly is about 17.5K seats.

That means TPA is going from a measly 6,800 seats last winter to about 39,000, almost a 6x increase. RSW over doubles from 13,620 to approximately 30,0000. I still wouldn't be surprised if WS drops RSW.

LAS seems like a no-brainer to be added, as at 3x weekly you're more or less matching the overall F8 capacity from last year. PD will have some feed from connections too. I'd be surprised if they went daily on LAS, but even a 4x/3x split with LAS and maybe PHX or LAX 3x weekly could be an interesting option.