Canadian Airport Thread II

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by ninjakafi_81

Qatar Airways is launching 3x weekly flights between Doha and Toronto starting this December with the 77W.



https://www.qatarairways.com/press-r...ctober-02-2024

So is it safe to assume during last week's Qatari state visit to Ottawa (the YOW pages have some excellent QR photos, including the VIP 748...along with French A330s for that state visit too) that the bilateral was expanded?

[whatnext]

Layoffs coming to Air Transat. Sign of turbulence to come?

Air Transat considering 80-person layoff amid financial turbulence
Montreal
The Canadian Press
Published 1 hour ago
For Subscribers

Transat A.T. Inc. N/A
is preparing to lay off up to 80 workers as the tour operator struggles to turn its finances around, according to a preliminary notice sent to the Quebec government.

Over the course of the year, the company has felt the headwinds of stiff competition, engine recalls and the threat of a union strike, which together conspired to drain more money from the struggling outfit....

...In its first three quarters, Transat reported a combined net loss of $155.3 million versus a loss of $28.5 million in the same period a year earlier.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/busi...al-turbulence/

[Dominion301]

Breeze are adding OGS-MCO 2x weekly undoubtedly targeting Ottawa and Southeastern Ontario.

[Dominion301]

Not Canadian-related, but at an airport in Japan, about a minute after a JAL 738 departs, a bomb explodes along the runway edge, which was captured on video: https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cy430j48kjyo

It turns out this was an unexploded WWII US-dropped bomb that had sat there for around 80 years!

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by Dominion301

Not Canadian-related, but at an airport in Japan, about a minute after a JAL 738 departs, a bomb explodes along the runway edge, which was captured on video: https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cy430j48kjyo

It turns out this was an unexploded WWII US-dropped bomb that had sat there for around 80 years!

We hear about construction crews finding them across Europe, but fairly rarely about one spontaneously exploding.

This could have been horrific.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by ScreamingViking

We hear about construction crews finding them across Europe, but fairly rarely about one spontaneously exploding.

This could have been horrific.

Potentially. Fortunately it happened a minute after the aircraft departed so nobody on board was even aware of what happened seconds later. Also fortunately it was along the runway's edge.

On a completely separate note, here's an interesting interview with YHZ's Director of Air Service Development: https://airserviceone.com/air-servic...opolitan-area/

[thenoflyzone]

The airlines (a bunch of them, as IATA and Airlines for America were listed in the lawsuit, see second link below) lost their bid at the Supreme Court of Canada to get rid of the APPR for international flights.

https://globalnews.ca/news/10794431/...ourt-decision/

https://decisions.scc-csc.ca/scc-csc...20674/index.do

Good news for passengers, but we still have some ways to go to match the protections of other jurisdictions, such as Europe (EC261). As I mentioned last month, EC261 regulations would have covered the AC strike. APPR wouldn't have. Why? The protections should be similar, if not identical.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

The airlines (a bunch of them, as IATA and Airlines for America were listed in the lawsuit, see second link below) lost their bid at the Supreme Court of Canada to get rid of the APPR for international flights.

https://globalnews.ca/news/10794431/...ourt-decision/

https://decisions.scc-csc.ca/scc-csc...20674/index.do

Good news for passengers, but we still have some ways to go to match the protections of other jurisdictions, such as Europe (EC261). As I mentioned last month, EC261 regulations would have covered the AC strike. APPR wouldn't have. Why? The protections should be similar, if not identical.

I can see covering a lockout, but covering a strike seems a bit of a stretch.

[casper]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

I can see covering a lockout, but covering a strike seems a bit of a stretch.

I think it reasonable the company covers the costs for both a strike or lockout.

After all the company is responsible for providing the service it agreed to. If it has a poor relationship with its workers causing a strike that is its problems. No reason to make that the passengers problem.

Best case is they contract to others to provide the service or worse case compensate the travelling public.

The company and union are in this together. They need to figure it out, if they can't they deserve to go out of business.

[thenoflyzone]

August 2024 stats

Total passengers:

YVR 2,610,568 +3.6%
YUL 2,336,264 +4.4%
YYC 1,929,182 -1.3%

Domestic passengers:

YVR 1,311,689 -1.4%
YUL 701,453 -1.7%
YYC 1,297,239 -6.2%

International passengers:

YVR 598,596 +6.3%
YUL 1,122,071 +5.9%
YYC 216,192 +9.8%

Transborder passengers:

YVR 700,283 +11.9%
YUL 512,740 +10.4%
YYC 415,751 +11.3%

YTD results

YVR 17,751,431
YUL 15,336,735 +7.5%
YYC 12,641,291 +2.15%

Domestic at YYC yet again dragging down the numbers into negative territory. Transborder at all three doing extremely well. International is doing good too.

https://www.yvr.ca/en/about-yvr/facts-and-stats
https://www.admtl.com/sites/default/...eb_EN_aout.pdf
https://www.yyc.com/portals/0/WebsiteStats-August.pdf

[YVR Bruce]

The missing % for YVR Total AUG YTD over 2023 is +6.1%.
2023 Aug YTD per the referenced YVR doc was 16,726,431.

If that 6.1% were to run through Dec 31, the full year number extrapolates to 26,458,456 or +0.3% above 2019s record.

[nname]

Originally Posted by YVR Bruce

The missing % for YVR Total AUG YTD over 2023 is +6.1%.
2023 Aug YTD per the referenced YVR doc was 16,726,431.

If that 6.1% were to run through Dec 31, the full year number extrapolates to 26,458,456 or +0.3% above 2019s record.

The latter half of last year have higher growth compare to the first half. I'm thinking of somewhere between 25 and 26 millions for 2024.

With Canada-China flights opening up (which looks like it's delayed to early next year), 2025 may be the year YVR breaks the all-time record... if Flair survives the winter. If Flair goes down, looks like YVR will be suffered the most and might be hard to make up of the domestic loss...

[thenoflyzone]

AC tentative agreement was ratified today. It passed the vote with 67%.

https://x.com/AirCanada/status/1844402271322505366

Glad to hear this, as I already have tickets booked with AC for next month, and plan on travelling in Christmas/New Years as well.

[Dominion301]

Not surprising that the AC pilots ratified but also not surprised that the yes vote was only 2/3.

F8’s summer schedule is out with lots more domestic airports dropped beyond YOW, including YYT, YDF, YYG, YQB, YUL, YQG & YXE.

[Airboy]

Noticed TO city council approved extending Billy Bishops runways.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by Airboy

Noticed TO city council approved extending Billy Bishops runways.

They pretty much had no choice in order to keep the airport open. The expansion is only to make the runway end safety areas TC & ICAO compliant and not to allow for jets.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Dominion301

Not surprising that the AC pilots ratified but also not surprised that the yes vote was only 2/3.

F8’s summer schedule is out with lots more domestic airports dropped beyond YOW, including YYT, YDF, YYG, YQB, YUL, YQG & YXE.

No question the junior pilots felt screwed over.

[Justanothermember]

Originally Posted by Dominion301

F8’s summer schedule is out with lots more domestic airports dropped beyond YOW, including YYT, YDF, YYG, YQB, YUL, YQG & YXE.

Flair appears to have no idea what direction it is heading in as an airline. Seems like they throw spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. Destinations at YKF are slowing being removed, so that sweetheart deal is gradually souring.

[nname]

Originally Posted by Justanothermember

Flair appears to have no idea what direction it is heading in as an airline. Seems like they throw spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. Destinations at YKF are slowing being removed, so that sweetheart deal is gradually souring.

The direction is focusing on more profitable routes and dropping marginal ones. They only have 20 planes, so in order to improve service of something, they must drop something else. They had been flying for a few years now, so they should have good idea of which route at which time is making more money, and which doesn't. They had been trying out a lot of routes, many doesn't work at all, and some are fine-tuned to operate only a couple of months a year. So that must've been based on result from previous years of operation.

When the fleet is constrained, there's no need to operate those 1-2x weekly marginal routes or compete with another airline, if there are other better use of the resource...

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by nname

The direction is focusing on more profitable routes and dropping marginal ones. They only have 20 planes, so in order to improve service of something, they must drop something else. They had been flying for a few years now, so they should have good idea of which route at which time is making more money, and which doesn't. They had been trying out a lot of routes, many doesn't work at all, and some are fine-tuned to operate only a couple of months a year. So that must've been based on result from previous years of operation.

When the fleet is constrained, there's no need to operate those 1-2x weekly marginal routes or compete with another airline, if there are other better use of the resource...

Indeed. They’re now mostly only on the highest volume routes (except YOW/YUL-YVR/YHZ/YYC) and all east-west traffic now only touches YYZ & YKF. It seems like YKF’s base will lose an aircraft, probably to YYZ. PD are definitely smiling seeing this schedule as they now no longer need to deal with F8 not only at YOW, but also YUL, YYG, YXE & YYG. I fully expect PD will launch seasonal daily YYZ-YYG next summer along with a whole host of other new stuff out of YYZ & YOW.