Canadian Airport Thread II

[Myst]

Re: YHM

It is hard to match YYZ on the route network and schedule. While I would agree that meaningfully lower fees could be important to attracting carriers, I suspect those costs are not large enough as a percentage of total cost to be meaningful enough in the final ticket price to change consumer behavior.

While I’d like to see more transit, I would really wonder if the thing should have been tried to attract the sorts of passengers that would go to YHM is very low cost parking that YYZ couldn’t match. Think gravel lot with no shuttle, but really cheap.

[casper]

Originally Posted by Myst

Re: YHM

It is hard to match YYZ on the route network and schedule. While I would agree that meaningfully lower fees could be important to attracting carriers, I suspect those costs are not large enough as a percentage of total cost to be meaningful enough in the final ticket price to change consumer behavior.

While I’d like to see more transit, I would really wonder if the thing should have been tried to attract the sorts of passengers that would go to YHM is very low cost parking that YYZ couldn’t match. Think gravel lot with no shuttle, but really cheap.

Better yet, have the airport authority run a free shuttle to the nearest go station.

[Myst]

I’d agree that I’d rather see people take the train. But will a family of four going for a week at the grandparents in Moncton see the GO fares as a cost, while considering the car “free”? Will they see the bus as “what if I miss it or it doesn’t have room?” I’m just saying that the thing that might actually change the choice may actually be parking (however much I disagree with it).

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Myst

I’d agree that I’d rather see people take the train. But will a family of four going for a week at the grandparents in Moncton see the GO fares as a cost, while considering the car “free”? Will they see the bus as “what if I miss it or it doesn’t have room?” I’m just saying that the thing that might actually change the choice may actually be parking (however much I disagree with it).

Probably best to think about the overall net result based on the average airport user rather than really specific scenarios. Unless there's some reason to believe that such a scenario is common enough to act as a proxy for users in general. It's safe to say that pretty much any setup will have people who prefer it and for whom it works better while the same setup won't work well for others.

[Myst]

The demographic YHM has tried to market to - probably the one they have to market to - is not the Toronto business traveller, the visiting foreign tourist, or the Adelaide St. condo dweller. It’s the people that drive to Buffalo to catch a flight to go on vacation.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by Zmonkey

Flair will be starting MEX from Toronto and Vancouver this October, both 3times a week.

Just checked the flights out from Vancouver - Once you add in baggage and fees, it’s on par with Air Canada, at least during November.

I’ll stick with Air Canada.

[nname]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

Just checked the flights out from Vancouver - Once you add in baggage and fees, it’s on par with Air Canada, at least during November.

I’ll stick with Air Canada.

Well, the cheapest with AC for YVR-MEX in Nov is $1041 r/t with carry-on and NO checked baggage and seat selection. I don't think F8 can reach that price even if you pay for the carry-on.

Didn't know MEX is this expensive now... for that price, I'd probably rather go to SIN for $771...

[Dominion301]

YYZ's Q2 2025 results: https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/gtaa-reports-2025-second-quarter-results-825829068.html

Q2 pax traffic was +1.5%. YTD traffic is +0.1%.

They for god knows what reason refuse to report transborder separately anymore, but:

"Q2 2025 was encouraging with growth in domestic and international sectors, which offset the decline in transborder U.S. travel. Amid ongoing uncertainties in the global economic and political landscape, year-to-date performance is as strong as 2024, and our long-term strategy remains firmly on track," said Deborah Flint, President and CEO.

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

TS has applied to the CTA for a licence to operate to Brazil and Guyana. Let’s see if anything materializes from this. If it does, it will most likely be for a W25 start.

https://otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/ruling/a-2025-83

https://otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/ruling/a-2025-84

TS launching YUL/YYZ-GIG.

https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/ai...from-toronto-and-montreal-893420404.html

[hollywoodcory]

YYC June 2025 stats are out, and its the best performing month in a long time. Positive growth in domestic / US and International.

Domestic 1,249,455 +7.8% [YTD: 5,979,653 +3.26%]
Transborder: 370,963 +3.6% [YTD: 1,775,467 -0.12%]
International: 210,892 +5.1% [YTD: 1,276,915 +4.95%]

June 2025 Total: 1,831,310 +6.6%

2025 YTD: 9,032,035 +2.81%

Wonder if July or August could hit 2 million.

[nname]

YVR June 2025

Domestic: 1,188,781 (+4.0%)
-- Transborder: 620,218 (-1.1%)
-- Asia Pacific: 366,381 (+14.5%)
-- Europe: 199,730 (+7.2%)
-- Misc.: 51,069 (+18.0%)
International: 1,237,398 (+5.1%)

Total: 2,426,179 (+4.6%)
YTD: 12,867,257 (+2.1%)

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

Domestic, Total, and YTD are all-time high.

[Djeffery]

Not exactly looking like a huge US boycott going on.

[Taeolas]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

Not exactly looking like a huge US boycott going on.

Looking at those other two posts for Vancouver and Calgary, it does seem like something is up. Calgary's transborder flights "only" increased by half the amount National and International flights did, and are still down for the year overall.

Transborder from Vancouver is also down while all other routes have seen significant increases.

Expecting a boycott to knock all travel to the US down to zero is impossible. Some Canadians will still have various reasons to travel down to the States (and/or may not support the boycott). And we are certainly still welcoming Americans to come visit us, which would mean more flights from the US to Canada (and count as Transborder flights).

That the transborder flights are staying stagnant or decreasing, or at best inching upwards when all other flight types are showing significant growth, is a sign that the travel boycott is having affects.

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

Not exactly looking like a huge US boycott going on.

Don’t be fooled by airport transborder numbers. They don’t tell the full story.

For one, it doesn’t say which passengers are Canadian residents and which aren’t. We don’t know how many of those passengers are US citizens, either visiting Canada, or transiting to Europe/Asia (6th freedom). AC (and to a lesser extent, WS) are trying to balance the Canadian resident decrease with more US 6th freedom, so it’s highly likely the 6th freedom numbers are up, masking the Canadian resident decline.

Thankfully, Statscan numbers do single out Canadian resident travel trends, and air travel numbers are down in the double digits for April and May. June will most likely be the same.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2025006/article/00006-eng.htm

Canadian-resident return trips by air continued to decline throughout the first five months of 2025, falling by 14.0% year over year in April and by 24.2% in May.

Also according to Statscan, YYZ transborder in June was down 7.9%, YUL was down 4.8%. That’s your two largest international ports of entry into the country with pretty significant US decreases, especially YYZ.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/250731/dq250731d-eng.htm

Canadians are very much boycotting the US. And let’s not even begin to talk about car traffic going down to the US, which is down ~40% versus last year. (See first link)

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

Not exactly looking like a huge US boycott going on.

Lots of 6th freedom connecting traffic is going on at the big 4. Also, Americans are still coming to Canada. YYZ who annoyingly refuse to break out transborder so much as acknowledged that domestic & international made up for the huge drop in transborder in order to eke out a small gain for the quarter and YTD.

The boycott is very real. The only folks I know of still going to the USA are either out of necessity for work or to visit family who live in the States.

[thenoflyzone]

Canadian resident air travel to the US was down 22.1% in June. Car trips we’re down 33.1%.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cross-border-travel-plummet-fewer-americans-1.7581821

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by Myst

The demographic YHM has tried to market to - probably the one they have to market to - is not the Toronto business traveller, the visiting foreign tourist, or the Adelaide St. condo dweller. It’s the people that drive to Buffalo to catch a flight to go on vacation.

YHM's market isn't really the GTA - It's Hamilton, Niagara, Brantford, Haldimand, Norfolk, parts of Halton. It's a catchment area of well over a million people, enough to support a decent little airport. Sure, a small number of people may come from the GTA, but it's the closest international airport for a population catchment roughly equivalent to Ottawa. Up to a certain extent, it doesn't need to compete with YYZ because it's already closer to a good number of people.

That market is also one which is highly auto-dependent and dispersed, especially for the class of people with the incomes to support flying. It's not particularly conductive to transit.

The problem is that YYZ has more direct destinations than almost any other airport on the planet - which means YHM cannot function as a "connection" airport. They have to compete on direct flights or people will simply go to YYZ.

I think Porter's model will work well - focus on the highest demand routes which can support direct service with smaller, narrow-body planes, offer a service differentiation to give people a preference for YHM.

The dispersed nature of YHM's catchment does mean parking is critical, yes. YHM doubled their parking rates 3-4 years ago as Swoop was ramping up and I frankly think they really need to reconsider. YHM parking is actually more expensive than YYZ right now, and that is ignoring the off-site options available around YYZ for value-seeking customers. It's going to be chasing a lot of customers away to prefer YYZ.

YHM Access improvements need to focus on getting Highway 6 up to freeway standards, building the Hamilton East Arterial Road to get a good quality connection towards Niagara, and providing GO bus connections to Aldershot. Even GO services are likely a waste until flight frequencies pick up a bit more.

[thenoflyzone]

YUL June 2025

https://www.admtl.com/file?v=ab8e51b8-856c-4dd6-aec7-98296204858e&mod=download

Domestic 638,053 -0.1% [YTD: 3,100,963 +3.2%]
Transborder: 459,413 -3.3% [YTD: 2,354,147 -6.8%]
International: 959,013 +0.5% [YTD: 5,161,834 +0.6%]

June 2025 Total: 2,056,479 -0.5%

2025 YTD: 10,616,944 -0.4%

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by Dominion301

The boycott is very real. The only folks I know of still going to the USA are either out of necessity for work or to visit family who live in the States.

We are flying to the US tomorrow, on Porter to SFO. I'm interested to see what the airport US area will be like and how full the flight is. I seem to recall when I booked this at the start of the year that Porter had 2 flights a day YYZ-SFO and now it looks like 1. I only noticed that because I had thought of switching to the later flight today instead of spending the night in Toronto tonight to catch the morning flight tomorrow and saw the afternoon flight wasn't listed anymore. Since I booked Reserve, I don't see the seat map for the regular cabin so I can't see if the flight looks very full. If I do a mock booking, it will let me select one passenger for Reserve but not 2. Prices are quite a bit higher than when I booked so I imagine it has sold well (especially if they did actually drop one flight).

As to our reasons? Because we have wanted to do an Alaska cruise for a long time (that will also involve two visits into Canada as well), this was the ideal one with extra sea days out of a city we also have wanted to see, and Trump isn't going to run our life anymore than he already is.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

We are flying to the US tomorrow, on Porter to SFO. I'm interested to see what the airport US area will be like and how full the flight is. I seem to recall when I booked this at the start of the year that Porter had 2 flights a day YYZ-SFO and now it looks like 1. I only noticed that because I had thought of switching to the later flight today instead of spending the night in Toronto tonight to catch the morning flight tomorrow and saw the afternoon flight wasn't listed anymore. Since I booked Reserve, I don't see the seat map for the regular cabin so I can't see if the flight looks very full. If I do a mock booking, it will let me select one passenger for Reserve but not 2. Prices are quite a bit higher than when I booked so I imagine it has sold well (especially if they did actually drop one flight).

As to our reasons? Because we have wanted to do an Alaska cruise for a long time (that will also involve two visits into Canada as well), this was the ideal one with extra sea days out of a city we also have wanted to see, and Trump isn't going to run our life anymore than he already is.

Enjoy your trip! I've been to Skagway and Haines AK, driving from Yukon. The scenery is pretty spectacular, especially the drive from Haines Junction, YK to Haines, AK and then the ferry to Skagway.

You are correct PD have cut YYZ-SFO back to a single daily. Ditto YYZ-LAX. YYZ-PHX cut from 7x to 5x weekly. YOW-EWR reduced from 3x to 2x daily. YOW-BOS from 2x to 1x daily.

YOW-LAS, that started as winter seasonal, was announced to go year-round just before the orange criminal assumed office, reverted back to winter seasonal, then was cut outright.

YYZ-PSP gone

YYZ-SAN gone

YUL-LAS didn't even make it to the end of the first winter.

YYZ-PBI daily's loads were so lousy I'm shocked PD are still keeping it for this winter 5x weekly.

That's a lot and that's just PD!