Canadian Airport Thread II

[q12]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Nothing succeeds like excess.

Meanwhile, in NB, nobody seems interested in providing trans-border service of any kind to either Boston or NYC.

Sure, there are flights from Halifax, but, there is really no intercity connector service in the Maritimes. If you want to get to Boston from Fredericton (for example) you first have to drive to Halifax (five hours), arriving at least two hours beforehand, followed by the flight itself to Boston (90 minutes), followed by another hour to get your luggage and get a cab downtown. Total = 9-10 hours.

You can drive to Boston from Freddy in about seven hours...........

Fredericton to YHZ is about 3 hours 45 mins by car even with a 15 min break for gas or food it's an easy 4 hour drive in good weather.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by q12

Fredericton to YHZ is about 3 hours 45 mins by car even with a 15 min break for gas or food it's an easy 4 hour drive in good weather.

Even using your metric, it is still nearly a four hour drive in the wrong direction, and it is still faster to drive to Boston than fly there.

I guess my point is that western Canada has much better point-to-point air service than eastern Canada. Freddy has about 120,000 people in it's CMA. Any city of that size in interior BC would have service to many more cities than just three out of YFC (Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto), probably including one or two trans border routes.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Even using your metric, it is still nearly a four hour drive in the wrong direction, and it is still faster to drive to Boston than fly there.

I guess my point is that western Canada has much better point-to-point air service than eastern Canada. Freddy has about 120,000 people in it's CMA. Any city of that size in interior BC would have service to many more cities than just three out of YFC (Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto), probably including one or two trans border routes.

Well currently out west, not counting Kenmore Air's floatplane service to Nanaimo Harbour, there aren't any cities that small with transborder service at present.

Heck, even YQR with a metro of 250K only recently got back service to a non-leisure transborder hub.

[Dominion301]

YQM handled 661,629 pax in 2024 = +10.2%: https://cyqm.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/YQM-Q4-Newsletter.pdf

YFC report +13% traffic growth for 2024 = 377,346 pax: https://yfcfredericton.ca/Latest-News/a-...024/?mc_cid=a6988034ef&mc_eid=dcac035415

[q12]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Even using your metric, it is still nearly a four hour drive in the wrong direction, and it is still faster to drive to Boston than fly there.

I guess my point is that western Canada has much better point-to-point air service than eastern Canada. Freddy has about 120,000 people in it's CMA. Any city of that size in interior BC would have service to many more cities than just three out of YFC (Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto), probably including one or two trans border routes.

The difference today (vs 30 years ago) is that most of the Maritimes are now connected to YHZ by a better freeway system than interior BC. This allows for an easy safe drive between Fredericton and YHZ.

[YYCguys]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Nothing succeeds like excess.

Meanwhile, in NB, nobody seems interested in providing trans-border service of any kind to either Boston or NYC.

Sure, there are flights from Halifax, but, there is really no intercity connector service in the Maritimes. If you want to get to Boston from Fredericton (for example) you first have to drive to Halifax (five hours), arriving at least two hours beforehand, followed by the flight itself to Boston (90 minutes), followed by another hour to get your luggage and get a cab downtown. Total = 9-10 hours.

You can drive to Boston from Freddy in about seven hours...........

I know there’s connecting air service between Sydney and Halifax, but is there anybody doing connecting air service between any of the NB airports to Halifax?

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by YYCguys

I know there’s connecting air service between Sydney and Halifax, but is there anybody doing connecting air service between any of the NB airports to Halifax?

Pascan has a puddle jumper between SJ and Halifax. 1x daily I think. Small and inconvenient, That's it.

AC used to have 3-4x daily connecting services to YHZ from all NB airports, but, that was killed by the pandemic and never came back.

A connector to Moncton doesn't matter much. YHZ is two hours from Moncton. The drive isn't bad. I tend to fly out of YQM however. Good direct flights from YQM on multiple airlines (AC, WJ, Porter and PAL) to multiple destinations in central Canada, NL and to Calgary (Edmonton too in the summertime). Most of my trans-border connections are to the western US, so connections in Toronto are preferred. I do use YHZ to get to Europe, and, frequently to Florida, but, aside from that I'm a homer.

Moncton also has seven sun flight destinations in the wintertime.

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by RomanR27

On the airliners.net Porter thread someone is claiming that the LGA slots are a three year lease from Jetblue.

That would make sense. JetBlue is losing money and isn’t doing too good compared to the US3. No way would AA or DL get rid of 3 daily LGA slot pairs that easily. They’re too valuable. JetBlue’s financial predicament probably made these slots available, and PD pounced on’em. It’s only a 3 year lease, so a low risk move for JetBlue.

As for the talk of why more YYZ-LGA and not YOW-LGA or another one of PD’s hubs, it’s pretty simple really. YYZ-LGA is one of, if not the most lucrative transborder market in the country. That’s why. Thinking these slots were going anywhere else than YYZ was a silly notion. If PD get their hands on a 4th or 5th daily slot at LGA, they will probably still use them on more YYZ.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Nothing succeeds like excess.

Meanwhile, in NB, nobody seems interested in providing trans-border service of any kind to either Boston or NYC.

Sure, there are flights from Halifax, but, there is really no intercity connector service in the Maritimes. If you want to get to Boston from Fredericton (for example) you first have to drive to Halifax (five hours), arriving at least two hours beforehand, followed by the flight itself to Boston (90 minutes), followed by another hour to get your luggage and get a cab downtown. Total = 9-10 hours.

You can drive to Boston from Freddy in about seven hours...........

Wouldn't it be faster to fly from Moncton to YYZ or YUL and connect to one of the million flights a day to NYC and Boston than to drive to YHZ? A quick look at Google Flights show exactly that through YUL taking about 4.5 hours total from Fredericton to Boston. Don't need to be at Fredericton Airport 2hrs early as it's tiny and doesn't have pre-clearance, so you are looking at:

1-1.5 hours at Fredericton Airport
4.5 hours in flight
1hr to get downtown in Boston
Total: 6-6.5 hours.

Still barely faster than driving and the connection is annoying to the point that I would probably just drive to Boston.. but Honestly, anything ~8 hours and under I tend to drive anyway unless it's a very very short trip as I like having a car at my destination without having to pay for a rental and can take as much 🞵🞵🞵🞵 with me as I want.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Wouldn't it be faster to fly from Moncton to YYZ or YUL and connect to one of the million flights a day to NYC and Boston than to drive to YHZ? A quick look at Google Flights show exactly that through YUL taking about 4.5 hours total from Fredericton to Boston. Don't need to be at Fredericton Airport 2hrs early as it's tiny and doesn't have pre-clearance, so you are looking at:

1-1.5 hours at Fredericton Airport
4.5 hours in flight
1hr to get downtown in Boston
Total: 6-6.5 hours.

Still barely faster than driving and the connection is annoying to the point that I would probably just drive to Boston.. but Honestly, anything ~8 hours and under I tend to drive anyway unless it's a very very short trip as I like having a car at my destination without having to pay for a rental and can take as much 🞵🞵🞵🞵 with me as I want.

Good points one and all.

I too prefer having my own car at my destination. I have driven to conferences in Washington a couple of times from Moncton. a two day trip and the i-95 corridor in the BosWash region is a 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵, but, it was still neat for exploring.

[Zmonkey]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Wouldn't it be faster to fly from Moncton to YYZ or YUL and connect to one of the million flights a day to NYC and Boston than to drive to YHZ? A quick look at Google Flights show exactly that through YUL taking about 4.5 hours total from Fredericton to Boston. Don't need to be at Fredericton Airport 2hrs early as it's tiny and doesn't have pre-clearance, so you are looking at:

1-1.5 hours at Fredericton Airport
4.5 hours in flight
1hr to get downtown in Boston
Total: 6-6.5 hours.

Still barely faster than driving and the connection is annoying to the point that I would probably just drive to Boston.. but Honestly, anything ~8 hours and under I tend to drive anyway unless it's a very very short trip as I like having a car at my destination without having to pay for a rental and can take as much 🞵🞵🞵🞵 with me as I want.

This is what most should do, but I think the person really was speaking out of frustration especially compared to service pre pandemic. There is generally less options out of NB and costs are higher. Fredricton for example handles 3 or 4 flights a day right now and you are going to Toronto, Ottawa or Montreal. This just leads to higher prices, less options and generally weak layover options and much higher total travel time.

Not sure what the solution is but something should be done here to ensure more flights are pushed from NB, even if that means connecting through Halifax or more flights to the hubs of Ontario or Quebec (and you would need something to give for that).

Smaller airports are struggling post pandemic in a way people in larger cities don't see since big airports have had strong recovery and flights centralizing.

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Nothing succeeds like excess.

Meanwhile, in NB, nobody seems interested in providing trans-border service of any kind to either Boston or NYC.

Sure, there are flights from Halifax, but, there is really no intercity connector service in the Maritimes. If you want to get to Boston from Fredericton (for example) you first have to drive to Halifax (five hours), arriving at least two hours beforehand, followed by the flight itself to Boston (90 minutes), followed by another hour to get your luggage and get a cab downtown. Total = 9-10 hours.

You can drive to Boston from Freddy in about seven hours...........

Extremely scattered population of less than 1 million in the whole of New Brunswick. Therefore, asking for a non stop to NY or Boston might as well be asking for a non stop to the moon, really.

I’ll say it again. If/when PD secured LGA slots, it was always going to be used on YYZ, first and foremost.

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Even using your metric, it is still nearly a four hour drive in the wrong direction, and it is still faster to drive to Boston than fly there.

I guess my point is that western Canada has much better point-to-point air service than eastern Canada. Freddy has about 120,000 people in it's CMA. Any city of that size in interior BC would have service to many more cities than just three out of YFC (Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto), probably including one or two trans border routes.

Compare Fredericton to Kamloops or Prince George. Much better service at YFC than those two cities. Now, Kelowna is a different story.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

Extremely scattered population of less than 1 million in the whole of New Brunswick. Therefore, asking for a non stop to NY or Boston might as well be asking for a non stop to the moon, really.

I’ll say it again. If/when PD secured LGA slots, it was always going to be used on YYZ, first and foremost.

And if they get another 3 slot pairs, they'll use them on YTZ-LGA once preclearance opens.

If they get more slots after that, then maybe they'd consider YOW-LGA, but it certainly ranks #3...unless they can only get their hands on another single slot pair that is similar times to their three now-existing YYZ-LGA slots. In that scenario, a single YTZ rotation makes no sense, nor does an overlap YYZ service.

First and foremost though, PD needs to get to work to secure 3 permanent slot pairs that will still be there after 2028.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

Compare Fredericton to Kamloops or Prince George. Much better service at YFC than those two cities. Now, Kelowna is a different story.

Kelowna also has a substantially bigger population than Fredericton.

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Pascan has a puddle jumper between SJ and Halifax. 1x daily I think. Small and inconvenient, That's it.

AC used to have 3-4x daily connecting services to YHZ from all NB airports, but, that was killed by the pandemic and never came back.

A connector to Moncton doesn't matter much. YHZ is two hours from Moncton. The drive isn't bad. I tend to fly out of YQM however. Good direct flights from YQM on multiple airlines (AC, WJ, Porter and PAL) to multiple destinations in central Canada, NL and to Calgary (Edmonton too in the summertime). Most of my trans-border connections are to the western US, so connections in Toronto are preferred. I do use YHZ to get to Europe, and, frequently to Florida, but, aside from that I'm a homer.

Moncton also has seven sun flight destinations in the wintertime.

Plus, Canadian Airlines International used to have service from YHZ to the three NB airports operated by Air Atlantic. I can recall some of the flights from YHZ to YFC were jet service on BAe-146 jets. Back in the day, I would fly frequently from YYT to YFC via YHZ.

Some retro commercials:
Air Nova
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrkIKlgIrBw

Air Atlantic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTEWQMPq22Y

Interesting that Air Nova was actively marketing its same day business travel in Atlantic Canada.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

Extremely scattered population of less than 1 million in the whole of New Brunswick. Therefore, asking for a non stop to NY or Boston might as well be asking for a non stop to the moon, really.

I’ll say it again. If/when PD secured LGA slots, it was always going to be used on YYZ, first and foremost.

Way back in the day when Metroliners were buzzing around everywhere, YSJ, YFC & YQM all had NW Airlink service to BOS. Here's a video I found of the 1993 airshow showing a NW SWM at the terminal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFaJ2KLJPqg.

You can also catch a glimpse of an Air Atlantic DH1 and Air Nova 146 throughout the video, along with a pile of vintage military aircraft like the Starlifter and some retro AC ground equipment with an AC tug with the 1988 livery lowercase Air Canada lettering.

[2009]

Originally Posted by Dominion301

Kelowna also has a substantially bigger population than Fredericton.

Yea Fredricton has a metro population of 120k, Kelowna 240k. Also that doesn't include nearby cities (Vernon, Penticton) that heavily rely on Kelowna's airport

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by 2009

Yea Fredricton has a metro population of 120k, Kelowna 240k. Also that doesn't include nearby cities (Vernon, Penticton) that heavily rely on Kelowna's airport

Well, Moncton CMA is pushing 190k right now, and is currently the second fastest growing city in the country (after Calgary). More than half the pax originating in NB fly out of YQM. Maybe in another 10-15 years a cross border route might become viable.

[2009]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Well, Moncton CMA is pushing 190k right now, and is currently the second fastest growing city in the country (after Calgary). More than half the pax originating in NB fly out of YQM. Maybe in another 10-15 years a cross border route might become viable.

Not to be negative about NB, but is there much tourism heading in from the states?

The Okanagan and BC interior does attract tourists from the US due to its ski resorts, mountains, and wine industry which help support the routes

YLW-LAX likely exists partly due to the ski industry