Canadian Airport Thread II

[zahav]

The prevalence of heavy aircraft on AC's transborder transcontinental activity has certainly dried up. One daily A330 on YUL-LAX and one daily 787 on YYZ-LAX, that seems to be it. There used to be 2x heavies between YYZ and LAX, plus to SFO as well. YUL I think had heavies sometimes to SFO; they likely only ever had 1x heavy to LAX, so that isn't a loss for them. YVR lost its daily 787 to EWR in recent years as well (although they doubled frequency, so its an overall seat gain, but still losing a heavy). This doesn't mean any of these routes are junk or weak. Rather that AC's heavy aircraft are in demand; for them to be used on routes that could easily be flown by an A320 or 737 means they are easy targets when a heavy is needed elsewhere. And that would be international it seems.

'AC's domestic widebody ops are more or less stable overall, with YUL seemingly closing in on YYZ's dominance in yet another metric:

Domestic Heavy Ops
YUL - 7x daily (YHZ 1x, YYZ 1x, YYC 2x, YVR 3x)
YYZ - 7x daily (YUL 1x, YYC 1x, YVR 5x)
YVR - 8x daily (YYZ 5x, YUL 3x, YOW 1x)
YYC - 3x daily (YUL 2x, YYZ x1)

So while YYZ and YUL both have 7x daily heavies, YUL has more destinations at 4 vs. 3 for YYZ. For YYZ and YUL to be tied in the number of heavies domestic + transborder is so surprising. The proportional usage from YUL is also much higher, for whatever it's worth. Heavies represent 3/5 or 3/6 dailies to YVR, 2/4 dailies to YYC, and 1/4 dailies to YHZ. The YYZ proportion is way lower due to much higher frequencies overall, of course. It is such a change from years past. Combined with all the international additions, AC really seems to be levelling it’s capacity at both airports more and more equally.

Again, this doesn't mean anything on overall seat totals, the loss of heavies can be replaced by other aircraft and added frequency, resulting in overall gains. I am only analyzing use of heavy aircraft here, nothing more.

Please correct me if you find other data, I am just using the same Jul. 13 week as Aeroroutes, and pulling random days, so I am not claiming this to be 100% accurate. But I think AC used to do heavies on YYZ-YEG sometimes, and even to YWG and YHZ here and there? Not this summer though. Even 5x daily to YVR and 1x daily to YYC seem on the lower end of historic frequencies for heavies on each route, which have definitely been higher before. But this summer seems like a record for YUL domestically, at least to non-YYZ destinations.

Side note, the aircraft lineup on YUL-YVR is truly a mix of everything this summer. On most days, there’s 1x A330, 1x 787, 1x 321, 1x 320, 1x 777, and 1x 737. Can’t think of another route pair that has that many daily flights, and no repeat aircraft. And such a variety all the way from the 320 to 777, it's basically covering all aircraft types except the 220 (I am intentionally not including the 319, which is basically obsolete, and the 767 which was a late minute substitution on a limited basis). Otherwise, all meaningful aircraft in the fleet operate one flight on the route.

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by zahav

YYZ also has UA now with 2x daily, which is higher than they started with, and a big addition on a route pair that Air Canada used to have exclusively. So I find it odd that AC didn't cut seats on YYZ-SFO. I know the comparison in the article is between 16FEB25 vs 30MAR25, so maybe the change had already happened, and therefore not included in this update?

Also 2x daily on Porter (which I'm booked on).

[YVR Bruce]

I've been looking for news of the last of 3 787-9s added to the original 29 units.
It seems that C-FEGI passed thru YYZ on the way to the UK for some interior work last week.
They could have used that ship last year,....
Maybe a useful part of the YVR-MNL launch going forward.

[Alexcaban]

Originally Posted by Dominion301

ITA delaying adding YUL until they join Star Alliance? I saw the PR earlier this week about entry applications and sponsorship by LH into Star has commenced.

I don’t think it will be ITA. It will most likely be Iberia to Madrid, and the reason for the delay is because of the A321XLR.

I do, however see ITA adding YUL at some point down the line.

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Why the mystery?

Why not? It's all part of the fun...

Originally Posted by YVR Bruce

I've been looking for news of the last of 3 787-9s added to the original 29 units.
It seems that C-FEGI passed thru YYZ on the way to the UK for some interior work last week.
They could have used that ship last year,....
Maybe a useful part of the YVR-MNL launch going forward.

It also crossed the Atlantic, all the while staying close to YFB, SFJ and KEF on the way to BHX. Probably an ETOPS issue.

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/c-fegi#39b68495

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=yyz-bhx%2C+yfb%2C+sfj%2C+kef%2C+&MS=wls&DU=nm&E=60&EV=410&EU=kts

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by Alexcaban

I don’t think it will be ITA. It will most likely be Iberia to Madrid, and the reason for the delay is because of the A321XLR.

I do, however see ITA adding YUL at some point down the line.

I actually didn’t list IB because IAG have basically publicly stated it’s a matter of time until YUL-MAD happens with the XLR.

[hollywoodcory]

WS has increased YYC-NRT to daily, year-round.
https://westjet.mediaroom.com/2025-04-07...-Japan-with-new-daily-year-round-service

Perhaps someone with a better sense of history, but when was the last time YYC had year-round daily service to Asia? When AC ran NRT it was never daily in the winter.

It could still happen, but I suspect ICN will mostly remain seasonal for now.

[hehehe]

Originally Posted by hollywoodcory

WS has increased YYC-NRT to daily, year-round.
https://westjet.mediaroom.com/2025-04-07...-Japan-with-new-daily-year-round-service

Perhaps someone with a better sense of history, but when was the last time YYC had year-round daily service to Asia? When AC ran NRT it was never daily in the winter.

It could still happen, but I suspect ICN will mostly remain seasonal for now.

I don't think YYC has ever had daily year round service to Asia, right? At least not within the last 30 years or so

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by hehehe

I don't think YYC has ever had daily year round service to Asia, right? At least not within the last 30 years or so

Back in the days of CP flying YYZ-YYC-NRT on the D10, it was never more than 3x weekly at any time of the year.

[Calfan12]

Originally Posted by hollywoodcory

WS has increased YYC-NRT to daily, year-round.
https://westjet.mediaroom.com/2025-04-07...-Japan-with-new-daily-year-round-service

Perhaps someone with a better sense of history, but when was the last time YYC had year-round daily service to Asia? When AC ran NRT it was never daily in the winter.

It could still happen, but I suspect ICN will mostly remain seasonal for now.

Good points, (if) I’m not mistaken Hainan Airlines was a daily flight ✈️ route between Calgary YYC- Beijing PEK- YYC in the 1st year the route started up it operated daily, before it got reduced to seasonal service & then it got cut end of October 2019.

[hollywoodcory]

Originally Posted by Calfan12

Good points, (if) I’m not mistaken Hainan Airlines was a daily flight ✈️ route between Calgary YYC- Beijing PEK- YYC in the 1st year the route started up it operated daily, before it got reduced to seasonal service & then it got cut end of October 2019.

Hainan operated 3x weekly through its entire run. When it was announced they said it would go 4x, but the 4th never happened. It’s last winter it was down to just 2x weekly.

It was never daily. Not even in the summer.

[zahav]

Seems like a very solid, smart move by WS, on a route that historically has proven it can succeed on various airlines and is even stronger now. Some of WS's additions over the last while have seemed less solid and more just attempts to see what succeeds most at utilizing aircraft. But deploying the 787 to Tokyo year round would make a lot of sense I'd think, especially if US weakness continues and frees up 737s, these could go to places like CUN instead of the 787.

Just shows how strong Tokyo/Japan is as a market both for O&D and connecting. And also how WS is still more route focused than potential alliance focused. Even though they have heavily leaned into Skyteam overall, they realized demand for Tokyo was higher and expanded service and JL (OneWorld) codesharing instead of focusing on ICN and KE. That will naturally be next I'd say, but smart to do Tokyo first.

[thenoflyzone]

YUL released Feb 2025 stats. It's not pretty:

Domestic: 408,493 -2.3%
Transborder: 339,559 -8.3%
International: 744,409 -4.8%

Total: 1,492,461 -5.0%

https://admtl.my.salesforce.com/sfc/p/#H...4O_vu9g5IAq51yei6hru0_2gY6TLQaw6Hx6AH8j4

That's a decrease of ~78,000 passengers compared to Feb 2024, quite a significant drop.

However, due to the leap year last year, Feb 2025 had 1 less day than Feb 2024, so a decent chunk of the decrease is attributed to that, as YUL handles an average of ~54,000 passengers a day during February. Remove that, and the decrease is around 25,000 passengers.

However, even if we remove the leap year discrepancy, it's still quite a significant drop in passengers, due to the simple fact that YUL has been seeing tremendous growth of late, to the tune of around +100,000 to 200,000 passengers per month. Sometimes more.

So the way I see it, it's potentially a drop of a quarter million passengers.

There are several reasons for this:

- Weak Canadian dollar, affecting international travel.
- Trump 2.0 policies.
- Weather: February was pretty brutal for YUL. Two massive back to back snowstorms dumped almost 80 cm of snow over the city and airport in a span of four days, from Feb 13-16. These consecutive storms contributed to Montreal's snowiest February in over 50 years, with total accumulations nearing 100 cm for the month. So the result was plenty of flight cancellations, which surely affected the numbers. Sunwing, in particular, was a total shitshow.

So all of this being said, March will paint a better picture of how the year should look. Sadly, I still foresee a lot of red, but probably not as bad as February.

[nname]

YVR seems a bit better, especially remove the effect of leap year which attribute to 3.4% of the decrease.

I guess opening of APAC (China) helps things a lot. But the big increase in Europe is quite surprising...

Domestic: 908,394 -0.4%
.. Transborder: 435,962 -6.0%
.. Asia Pacific: 336,176 +8.9%
.. Europe: 85,479 +3.1%
.. Misc intl: 143,491 -6.5%
International: 1,001,108 -0.8%

Total: 1,909,502 -0.6%

https://www.yvr.ca/en/about-yvr/facts-and-stats

[Myst]

Originally Posted by zahav

But I think AC used to do heavies on YYZ-YEG sometimes, and even to YWG and YHZ here and there? Not this summer though. Even 5x daily to YVR and 1x daily to YYC seem on the lower end of historic frequencies for heavies on each route, which have definitely been higher before.

I haven't paid close attention to exact frequencies and types for some time, but for what it's worth:
- some of the reason for that is the end of 767 service, first with their transfer to Rouge and then their retirement - 787's have not been used as extensively on domestic routes
- YYC-YYZ used to have around half of the flights operated by 767's, but that's been 20-25 years ago
- YEG-YYZ had widebodies regularly, but could be spotty. Just before the AC/CP merger I think it was one 767 flight, maybe only in the summer.
After the merger it might have been a little more 767 operations, but dropped down over time. Not surprising given the capacity of the 737-8 and A321 fleets.
- YHZ-YYZ had 1 or 2 widebody flights, but I think that was partly for aircraft rotation purposes to operate YHZ-LHR
- YWG-YYZ would receive substitutions from time to time, but I don't think it has had any 767 service regularly in the schedule since the early '90's. For a 2 hour flight, and with an A320 pilot base in YWG, that's not all that surprising.

Here's a snapshot of domestic widebody arrivals in YYZ, circa June 1999:
YYC-YYZ - 767's, 27x weekly on AC (surprisingly nothing on CP)
YEG-YYZ - 767 6x weekly on AC
YHZ-YYZ - 767 14x weekly on AC
YUL-YYZ - 767 55x + A340 6x weekly on AC, plus 2x weekly A310 on Royal
YOW-YYZ - 767 6x weekly on AC
YVR-YYZ - 767 43x plus 747 2x plus A340 6x weekly on AC, 767 plus 39x 747 3x plus DC10 12x on CP, plus 3x A310 on Royal

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by Myst

- YHZ-YYZ had 1 or 2 widebody flights, but I think that was partly for aircraft rotation purposes to operate YHZ-LHR

I remember as a youth through the 80's and into early adulthood in the early 90's, I used to go to Halifax from London pretty much yearly to see my dad, and typically it was either from Toronto or connecting there. I had 747 at least 3 or 4 times and L-1011 a few more times on the YYZ-YHZ, and 767's a couple times towards the end of that regular travel. Toss in a few 727's, a DC-9 same plane from YXU-YOW-YHZ and even the BAe-146 a couple times, it was quite the variety of aircraft back then.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

YUL released Feb 2025 stats. It's not pretty:

Domestic: 408,493 -2.3%
Transborder: 339,559 -8.3%
International: 744,409 -4.8%

Total: 1,492,461 -5.0%

https://admtl.my.salesforce.com/sfc/p/#H...4O_vu9g5IAq51yei6hru0_2gY6TLQaw6Hx6AH8j4

That's a decrease of ~78,000 passengers compared to Feb 2024, quite a significant drop.

However, due to the leap year last year, Feb 2025 had 1 less day than Feb 2024, so a decent chunk of the decrease is attributed to that, as YUL handles an average of ~54,000 passengers a day during February. Remove that, and the decrease is around 25,000 passengers.

However, even if we remove the leap year discrepancy, it's still quite a significant drop in passengers, due to the simple fact that YUL has been seeing tremendous growth of late, to the tune of around +100,000 to 200,000 passengers per month. Sometimes more.

So the way I see it, it's potentially a drop of a quarter million passengers.

There are several reasons for this:

- Weak Canadian dollar, affecting international travel.
- Trump 2.0 policies.
- Weather: February was pretty brutal for YUL. Two massive back to back snowstorms dumped almost 80 cm of snow over the city and airport in a span of four days, from Feb 13-16. These consecutive storms contributed to Montreal's snowiest February in over 50 years, with total accumulations nearing 100 cm for the month. So the result was plenty of flight cancellations, which surely affected the numbers. Sunwing, in particular, was a total shitshow.

So all of this being said, March will paint a better picture of how the year should look. Sadly, I still foresee a lot of red, but probably not as bad as February.

We knew from January that YUL's transborder number would be down but domestic down in February is surprising given YOW was up about 8% domestically in the same month...and with the one fewer day - mind you winter 23-24 had ridiculously low domestic capacity (e.g., a mere 2 Dash 8s a day to YHZ, which would have been on par with capacity in 1980!). If you factor in the leap year day in 2024, YUL domestically was essentially flat - not bad considering the snowstorms, which probably drove a bunch of people onto trains or cancel outright.

YOW in Q1 has brutal international numbers just because of the large loss of capacity with no WS (— & MBJ) and F8 (CUN & PUJ) vs winter 23-24...and like YUL the snowstorms.

YOW might breakeven or even finish up on international for the year thanks to AC's return to LHR and 3 additional weeks of full daily AF service...and AF using the slightly larger 772 this summer vs 359 last summer. It'll all depend on how WG-WS merger integration capacity looks for winter 25-26 and whether PD jump into international sun flying - with the bloodbath Florida appears to now be, I don't think they'll have any choice but to be ready for next winter. AC's already showing mixed results for winter 25-26 out of YOW as it appears they won't have any November sun flights but mainline MAXes taking over for rouge 319s. TQO appears to be getting replaced by MBJ.

How has Tulum fared out of YUL, YQB & YYZ this winter?

[whatnext]

DJs Aviation has a segment on unhappiness with their Embraer’s availability:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hVT_Z9f-UfI&pp=ygUNZGoncyBhdmlhdGlvbg%3D%3D

[RomanR27]

Originally Posted by Dominion301

YOW might breakeven or even finish up on international for the year thanks to AC's return to LHR and 3 additional weeks of full daily AF service...and AF using the slightly larger 772 this summer vs 359 last summer. It'll all depend on how WG-WS merger integration capacity looks for winter 25-26 and whether PD jump into international sun flying - with the bloodbath Florida appears to now be, I don't think they'll have any choice but to be ready for next winter. AC's already showing mixed results for winter 25-26 out of YOW as it appears they won't have any November sun flights but mainline MAXes taking over for rouge 319s. TQO appears to be getting replaced by MBJ.

How has Tulum fared out of YUL, YQB & YYZ this winter?

I'm not sure what peak frequencies were overall out of YQB on CUN/TQO this winter, but all I see loaded in for next winter this far is CUN 1x weekly on the MAX. It's interesting that YHZ/YQB have sun routes loaded from the beginning of November whereas YOW only has them beginning mid-December. All three are secondary markets that were served by Rouge 319s and have been loaded with MAXes for next winter on Caribbean routes.

I see YYZ-TQO and YUL-TQO are loaded 4x/3x weekly for next winter, respectively. Also on mainline MAXes from Rouge this winter.

[hollywoodcory]

YYC's February numbers aren't pretty either:

Domestic: 835,791 -3.2%
Transborder: 266,531 -3.2%
International: 203,733 +4.6%

Feb 2025 total: 1,306,055 -2.0%

YTD: 2,651,258 -0.10%

The international numbers have continuously been trending up while domestic and now US is trending down.

Also 4Y launched YYC-MUC yesterday, I believe this is the first non-WS new long-haul destination for YYC since...... HU launched PEK in 2016?