Quote:
Originally Posted by fanofYOW
Unfortunately no, they did not. I will copy a paste what they said in the email:
"YOW is uniquely positioned between two hubs -- Toronto-Pearson (YYZ) Canada's largest, as well as Montreal-Trudeau (YUL). This makes it difficult to grow air service. For example, pre-covid we had decent volume to justify Paris and San Francisco service. Unfortunately, airlines both stated that with so much CDG and SFO capacity at nearby hubs, the Ottawa flow is a big part of the hub's multi-daily services." - as you can see, this was an email sent before AF arrived.
They also went on to say folks who drive to YUL negatively impacts them the most on a data perspective and that YOW has to stand on O&D alone as only 5% connect through YOW. Obviously this was about pre pandemic before PD's expansion.
YOW's data is by far the most difficult to decipher because we don't have very many direct connections. Data may say that Route A-B has X O&D but it is most likely incorrect since it is taking assumed connections and does not take into consideration folks from YOW who drive to YUL. For example, YOW-YQT route data said "X" O&D but PD found they were moving far more people between the two than X (through YTZ) which is why they went in directly with 2x daily. Another example, 57% (yes, more than half) of pax were not accounted for in the YOW-CDG data since they were driving to YUL. So when PD begins YOW-SFO/LAX it will probably be less than daily to start, but if they become popular and they grow to daily or even multi-daily frequencies, I wonder how it will affect YYZ's frequencies to Cali. PD's CEO went into this whole topic/issue about YOW back in April.
I love listening to people criticize YOW's viability to sustain air service, and most of them are from Ottawa themselves. They did it when AF announced CDG and now this past Summer, there was a full daily AF 350 crossing the Atlantic and only dropping to 5x this winter on a ever so slightly larger capacity frame, 777. Now they are eating their words.
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Thanks! I'm not sure I necessarily interpret that as them saying YOW has enough traffic for multiple daily California in general, just that there is enough demand to justify some level of SFO service.
It's logical to assume that the "airline" they speak about is indeed AC, or even UA talking about their ORD/EWR/IAD hubs. That said, if the AC/UA do have enough data to know that there is enough traffic to justify a non-stop but they don't want to cannibalize their own hubs, PD's entrance may be enough to make them re-think their tune.
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