Quote:
It appears that the AC YEG-SFO is being downgraded from year-round to seasonal, commencing in October.
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As a semi-regular user of this route, since I live in SF, and come back to family in Edmonton + prefer direct, this is a shame. Given I keep a close eye on this route I may have a couple insights to share here. There are a few different factors coming into play from my perspective.
1. Over the past two years AC has had some downward pricing pressure on this route. First via Flair and this summer via Westjet. They used to hold a total monopoly over the direct route and were commanding a premium price for the direct connection before. Flights on this route are very affordable these days along with the extra competition.
2. As an addendum to the point above, I think its been difficult for AC to compete on price point or experience on this route because they run a CRJ-900 aircraft. Competitors are running newer 737-800 aircraft with presumably better fuel efficiency.
3. Tech is on a cyclical downturn and one of the first things to go for many companies is reducing business class travel if possible.
4* Was also going to add that runway construction at SFO has been causing regular delays for this and similar flights the past few months, but it looks like that capacity bottleneck is now removed.
Anyway, probably some combination of all of these. Will see in a week what the load is like when I fly this route back home