Quote:
Originally Posted by trofirhen
 When and why was San Jose CA dropped? We had it for years, but I can't see any flights from YVR there now. Too close to San Fancisco, perhaps, and therefore absorbed into he SFO air market? |
This was a casualty of Covid, never came back after the pandemic. Not too surprising, it is very much overlapping with SFO, so would make sense as a place to trim when things are down. When times were booming and 2020 was a million years away, it was a great add. But an easy casualty to cut for so many reasons.
YVR May 2024 Facts and Stats out.
All time record May for emplaned and deplaned.
All time record May for Transborder and Europe.
https://www.yvr.ca/en/about-yvr/facts-and-stats
Source : yvr.ca
I did the calculations as well, and it looks like Europe was just shy of a record in May (171,639 in 2024 vs. 173,437 in 2019). But transborder is nuts, such massive growth. Obviously a clear swing in demand from domestic and overseas to the US, I am shocked at the numbers. The capacity growth has been nowhere near as high as the traffic growth, so implies larger and fuller planes. While US inbound tourism is probably doing very well too, I suspect a big part of this growth is Canadian outbound tourism to the US. Despite political issues in America, it continues to be a magnet for tourism now more than ever, really unaffected by any of the Trump stuff or other hot button issues that Canadians seem so incensed over (ie. abortion bans, racial strife, LGBT issues, etc etc). Doesn't seem to stop people from going to Florida, Texas, or anywhere else lol!
June stats were also posted, basically at the same time as May I guess? Anyways, patterns continued from May: domestic weakness (another decline, -2.8%), with growth in transborder (up 13.8%), and international non-US (up 4.5%). Yet within these numbers, definite weakness in sectors. Europe declined -0.6% Y/Y, and Misc. declined -17.2%. Luckily Asia-Pac grew enough to offset this, but still, quite stark. Looking at YUL and YYC, their international non-us numbers weren't stellar either (YUL up 5.9% and YYC up 6.6%). But with the huge WS capacity build-up in YYC and all the zillion carriers in YUL adding international capacity, the figures are very low considering. It's only in the last few weeks I've been hearing Europe traffic is not doing great, here I thought it was the standout sector all over Canada. But these figures say otherwise, and then even AC came out and said Europe was weaker. I don't remember any mention of that until now, i thought they couldn't add capacity fast enough, and now all of a sudden demand is "soft" and they are redeploying planes to Asia? Seems like a sudden turnaround without previous mention, or maybe I missed it?
And now that "Asia is booming" again, I am more annoyed than ever about the various political restrictions strangling YVR's Asian traffic. I hate to sound like a broken record, but there's absolutely no movement on Canada-China, I don't think anyone in Ottawa cares that we have been effectively cut off from China, after years of so much growth. We are still in Covid-lockdown level frequencies, it's insane, no other country is still at those lows with China. I know it's deep politics and airport numbers are the least of the worries, but for AV geeks it's infuriating to see such an artificial barrier still exist, when we know the demand should be way higher (don't get me started on us losing approved destination status, unbelievable, just years of work down the drain). And then of course the never ending Russia/Ukraine war that barely even gets talked about anymore. It's almost at that point the Afghanistan war and the Iraq war got to, where people barely knew what was going on anymore, let alone current events, and it's only been 2.5 years, but attention spans are way worse now, and other conflicts have taken the spotlight. But the airspace restrictions are unlikely to disappear anytime soon, so no YVR-DEL, YYZ-HKG, and probably others. So annoying!!! I don't have a problem when demand softens, and traffic shrinks due to a legit decrease in demand, that's market forces. But when it's strangled by these abnormal circumstances that should be fixed, it frustrates me. It's like if a marathon runner loses a race because someone sabotaged their shoes or drugged them, it's not the same as losing because a competitor beat you fair and square, that's easier to digest. If Canada and China went back to the relationship they had before, and we got added back to "approved destination status", then market forces would dictate our level of service. Maybe it would still be much softer than pre-Covid, even with no political restrictions, but I think it would be way higher than what we have now. And ditto with Russia, these airspace restrictions are brutal, and certainly stifle traffic where it would otherwise be doing well (S. Asia namely).
But hey, what can you do, such is life at the moment. I haven't lost hope, but I don't have much confidence either, which is bumming me out, I'm not a pessimistic person, but just the geo political issues between Canada and China and Russia are quite deep, and will take a lot of political will to change (and it won't be with Trudeau I don't think, there was a lot of personal offence taken by China with him, and they don't really look past that easily). FFS, China likes Donald Trump more than Trudeau, and despite so many issues with the US and China, they are expanding flights, growing links, and the US is still an approved destination. It's a sad day when China prefers Trump than Trudeau, despite the fact that he's openly racist, mocking, and influencing millions of supporters with things like the "China virus" and to blame China for any American economic weakness. And yet China is more OK with that than Trudeau lol, just shows how realistic they are and how insignificant they think Canada is. The can't lose the US relationship, period. So they are fine with bumps and challenges, and not cut things off. But the issues with Canada are so deeply personal to their government, and the way Trudeau talked about things (ie. the Huawei trial, and a zillion other things, go to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada–China_relations and scroll down to the heading "Gradual Souring" and read on. Even I didn't remember all of the souring events, it's insane, no wonder we are here).
Silver lining I guess is the moderate increase in service to other Asian destinations; key word, modest: ZIP Air starting, Korean Air adding minor additional late night flights for the first time in ages, and Cathay adding flights (although still below where they were in years past). And Air India has flourished with AC competition, so it's nice having them at daily 777. But overall, not replacing the Chinese flights. I really hope AC's announcement of moving capacity to Asia will result in some new scores for YVR, but for some reason I am skeptical. I feel like they will add from YUL and YYZ, and that any YVR gains would just be the increases we already knew about (ie. HKG), and not anything new. UGH come on, why are you adding YYZ-KIX, YVR is supposed to be the Pacific hub lol... I know airlines think with their wallets, I'm kidding when said I expect them to "reward us" or give us increases for no logical reason, that's idiotic. But I think there's definitely room and demand for them to grow YVR, but they seem convinced on adding in the east and providing very similar offerings from each city (YVR still in front, but the gap is smaller than it's ever been).
Last thing I will mention when it comes to artificial strangling, the insane bilateral with the Middle East. Brutal! I am not suggesting having full open skies or anything, that'd be too much too fast. But the bilateral allowances are so restrictive, they really limit airlines ability to invest and grow in a market, even when demand is there. Again, artificial strangling. I'm glad there was some improvement with UAE finally, that bilateral was insanity. It still is ridiculous, but at least allowed YVR and YUL to get service to DXB finally. But there should be
at least once daily allowances for both AC and any UA carrier on and route between Canada and the UAE. Yes it would be a capacity jump, but nowhere near giving them enough capacity to cannibalize connecting traffic to ME, S. Asia, Asia, Africa. 7x weekly would be absorbed no problem, and AC could get in other action too, it isn't Emirates taking over. And now AC and EK are besties lol, with a deep partnership. Something weird happened, I think some politics behind closes doors to stop AC and *Alliance members from bad mouthing EK and making them seem shady for their targeting on CNX traffic. That kind of disparaging talk wouldn't be allowed in the UAE or anywhere else in the ME, so when a foreign entity does it, politicians hear about it. Believe me, I'm no conspiracy theorist, in fact I hate them because they are so irrational normally, and I find it uneducated to subscribe to rumours without any real proof or logic. But for some reason with this UAE thaw, I think there was some government involvement and not just a chance change of heart lol. Hey, I'll take it, I'm not some holier-than-thou puritan, things get done a certain way, and I am happy with the result. Now just make the bilateral realistic, and it'll be good for everyone. Ditto with Turkey, 3x weekly to YVR and YUL, and 6x weekly to IST? Laughable, it could be daily as well without hurting anyone. The demand from emerging markets in ME, South Asia, plus all the Africa traffic going to IST and DXB more than supports service, without destroying *Alliance traffic thru Germany.
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, I asked ChatGPI to summarize in 100 words or less:
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