Canadian Airport Thread II

[hollywoodcory]

Originally Posted by jc_yyc_ca

I'm confident YYC to PVG or PEK will happen, but not for a bit due to the number of available 789s. Another possibility is that Hainan re-opens their PEK-YYC route now that the company is back in better financial shape. That would get around the Russian airspace issue. HKG would be great but would have to be a Chinese airline using 777 or A350.

I could be wrong, but I think the flights are maxed on the Chinese side, so almost no chance for Hainan to return. Any increase in flights would certainly result in more for YVR before YYC.

YYC-China will probably have to wait for WS to get more 787s.

[msmariner]

As per the assertions by a couple eastern based contributors a few posts back. True YYC does have a smaller O/D population to draw from. It also has the whole prairie region and the rest of the western Canada to feed its “quirky” flights. It’s drawn heavily to fill its unique flights to BCN,FCO and other European/Asian destinations. They have done quite well. I have no doubt US travellers will also help fill the GRU flight as well since there are no other direct options from the western part of the US. YYC like all hub Airports exists because of connections to all its destinations. I doubt this will be any different.

[Zmonkey]

Originally Posted by hollywoodcory

I could be wrong, but I think the flights are maxed on the Chinese side, so almost no chance for Hainan to return. Any increase in flights would certainly result in more for YVR before YYC.

YYC-China will probably have to wait for WS to get more 787s.

There is alots of direct flights allowed from the Mainland Chinese side to Canada, almost all covid restrictions are gone. Chinease carriers have the capacity to add Calgary 3 times a day if they wanted, they don't want to. There focus is Vancouver and Toronto.

With Visa potentially going away and a push for more trade with China which will be focused on agra and energy that may help Calgary get something from the Chinese side.

[Zmonkey]

Originally Posted by mxg308

Before any of those YYC flights in terms of the 'deserved' category I would argue YOW deserves more and could easily support from AC: LHR daily, CDG, FRA and possibly FCO (seasonally) with ITA now part of Star Alliance. YYC is insanely well served for a city its size.

I have never understood this deserved thing you always see online with aviation. Our company has worked with aviation for 16 years, literally not once has anyone brought up deserved in real life.

Airlines do not care what cities deserve. Not Air Canada with Toronto or Montreal or Calgary with WestJet. They want to minimize risk, max out profits. They are looking at where other airports are, how easy airports are to feed, staff issues, deals they get with airports, where airplanes are best utilized etc etc etc.

Sure airlines will try things, but its all in the context of long term profits and how to use there assets in most efficient manner.

Why does Westjet do well in Calgary? They had an airline who took a shot in part of the country that was going through a massive boom, massive corporate spend and was a high cost area of the country and they took off. They could probably expand Toronto today, but likely make more money elsewhere with the same planes.

Air Canada really turned Toronto into a HUB when Toronto airport got a new CEO from Hong Kong and said Air Canada should have 0 landing fees (which happened for 10 years). 10 Years later Toronto turned into a global hub.

[whatnext]

I always wondered by Porter had a crew base in Thunder Bay.

Closure of Porter Airlines crew bases to affect 60 pilots in Thunder Bay, Ont., and Halifax, N.S.
Union says decision will affect 28 pilots in Thunder Bay, 32 pilots in Halifax
Sarah Law · CBC News · Posted: Jan 23, 2026

The upcoming closures of Porter Airlines’ crew bases in Thunder Bay, Ont., and Halifax, N.S., will affect 60 pilots, according to the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA).

Porter says the closures, which come into effect this May, are part of its “transformative growth plan” as it looks to consolidate crew bases at its hubs in Toronto and Ottawa.

“After considering various scenarios, we found that consolidating crew bases in these two cities is the most effective way to organize crew and operate flights,” a spokesperson for Porter said in a statement to CBC News....

...The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4061, which represents more than 1,200 cabin crew at Porter, says the decision will affect about 60 of its members, including 26 flight attendants in Thunder Bay...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/porter-airlines-pilots-9.7057905

[nname]

Originally Posted by msmariner

As per the assertions by a couple eastern based contributors a few posts back. True YYC does have a smaller O/D population to draw from. It also has the whole prairie region and the rest of the western Canada to feed its “quirky” flights. It’s drawn heavily to fill its unique flights to BCN,FCO and other European/Asian destinations. They have done quite well. I have no doubt US travellers will also help fill the GRU flight as well since there are no other direct options from the western part of the US. YYC like all hub Airports exists because of connections to all its destinations. I doubt this will be any different.

Well the difference between GRU and existing WS flights is:
LAX-YYC-FCO or LAX-YYC-NRT makes sense
LAX-YYC-GRU ....??? That's almost like connecting at YYZ for YVR-China flight

The only draw it will have is from Western Canada like YEG and especially YVR.. and maybe the north-western part of US like SEA. It may work for Asia but the flight doesn't seems to timed too well for both directions. AC could easily come and spoil the party by adding YVR-GRU and provide much better feed, if they want to.

Originally Posted by Zmonkey

There is alots of direct flights allowed from the Mainland Chinese side to Canada, almost all covid restrictions are gone. Chinease carriers have the capacity to add Calgary 3 times a day if they wanted, they don't want to. There focus is Vancouver and Toronto.

With Visa potentially going away and a push for more trade with China which will be focused on agra and energy that may help Calgary get something from the Chinese side.

No, they are currently maxed out. Why do you think MU and CZ only fly twice-weekly to YVR? They wanted daily, but they are capacity restricted.

From what I've seen, HU still holds the right for YYC-PEK. But now they are restricted to 2x weekly, and they chose to split it to 1x YVR and 1x YYZ. If they got more right, likely they'll choose to fill YYZ to daily and YVR to at least 2 or 3x weekly before even thinking about YYC.

No other Chinese airline currently have right to any other YYC route.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by whatnext

I always wondered by Porter had a crew base in Thunder Bay.

Closure of Porter Airlines crew bases to affect 60 pilots in Thunder Bay, Ont., and Halifax, N.S.
Union says decision will affect 28 pilots in Thunder Bay, 32 pilots in Halifax
Sarah Law · CBC News · Posted: Jan 23, 2026

The upcoming closures of Porter Airlines’ crew bases in Thunder Bay, Ont., and Halifax, N.S., will affect 60 pilots, according to the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA).

Porter says the closures, which come into effect this May, are part of its “transformative growth plan” as it looks to consolidate crew bases at its hubs in Toronto and Ottawa.

“After considering various scenarios, we found that consolidating crew bases in these two cities is the most effective way to organize crew and operate flights,” a spokesperson for Porter said in a statement to CBC News....

...The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4061, which represents more than 1,200 cabin crew at Porter, says the decision will affect about 60 of its members, including 26 flight attendants in Thunder Bay...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/porter-airlines-pilots-9.7057905

Cabin crew must decide whether to commute to Toronto or Ottawa at their own cost, relocate, choose a voluntary layoff, or retire early.

Beyond the cost of getting to/from the airport at YQT or YHZ, I can't imagine the above statement is correct. I've never heard of an airline forcing deadheading crew/employees to pay to do so.

[Dominion301]

YHZ are the first of the 8 main airports with 2025 year-end results:

December:

Sector / 2019 / 2024 / 2025 / % Change vs 24 / vs 19
Dom: 260,139 / 226,262 / 232,943 / +3.0% / -10.5%
TB: 21,581 / 24,831 / 21,116 / -15.0% / -2.2%
Int'l: 2,925 / 19,589 / 20,996 / +7.2% / +617.8%
TTL: 284,645 / 270,682 / 275,055 / +1.6% / -3.4%

Full Year:

Sector / 2019 / 2024 / 2025 / % Change vs 24 / vs 19
Dom: 3,524,167 / 3,222,284 / 3,271,046 / +1.5% / -7.2%
TB: 361,348 / 316,448 / 343,257 / +8.5% / -5.0%
Int'l: 302,928 / 441,053 / 526,181 / +19.3% / +73.7%
TTL: 4,188,443 / 3,979,785 / 4,140,484 / +4.0% / -1.1%

While YHZ has recovered to 98.9% of 2019 traffic, the traffic mix has changed quite a bit between domestic and international, while transborder hasn't changed much. Also, YHZ's record year was actually 2018 at 4,316,079, so 2025 recovered to 95.9% of 2018's total. YHZ got hammered in 2019 by the MAX grounding.

[msmariner]

[QUOTE=nname;10543380]Well the difference between GRU and existing WS flights is:
LAX-YYC-FCO or LAX-YYC-NRT makes sense
LAX-YYC-GRU ....??? That's almost like connecting at YYZ for YVR-China flight

The only draw it will have is from Western Canada like YEG and especially YVR.. and maybe the north-western part of US like SEA. It may work for Asia but the flight doesn't seems to timed too well for both directions. AC could easily come and spoil the party by adding YVR-GRU and provide much better feed, if they want to.


Obviously LAX isn’t an obvious choice (not to mention they have a GRU flight already with LATAM). There are 10’s of millions of people who live within a 2-3 hour flight to YYC that can connect one stop that can fill the plane. The timings of the flight aren’t great, but give it a chance to work. Maybe they can get better times in the future. WS sees a market with YYC-GRU. There are many ways to fill it up. Can’t think of any 789 flights overseas on WS metal from YYC that haven’t worked. Only two out of YYC that don’t exist anymore (AMS, LGW) stopped because of lack of metal. End of the day they might know what they are doing??

[Surrealplaces]

Originally Posted by nname

Well the difference between GRU and existing WS flights is:
LAX-YYC-FCO or LAX-YYC-NRT makes sense
LAX-YYC-GRU ....??? That's almost like connecting at YYZ for YVR-China flight

The only draw it will have is from Western Canada like YEG and especially YVR.. and maybe the north-western part of US like SEA. It may work for Asia but the flight doesn't seems to timed too well for both directions.

There won't be a a lot of draw from the US for YYC to GRU, but there will be some draw for closer cities like MSP or SEA. Most US passengers will go to another American hub to go to GRU, but depending on schedules and prices some may end up going through YYC even if it's not the most efficient route. Every overseas WS flight from YYC that I've taken always has a few Americans. For GRU, hard to say, we'll see.

True. Most of the draw will come from Western Canada as a whole. The population of the 4 western provinces isn't much less than Ontario which serves GRU via YYZ, and is more than Quebec + Maritimes, which serves GRU from YUL so the population is there. It's tight but I think it's enough.

Originally Posted by nname

AC could easily come and spoil the party by adding YVR-GRU and provide much better feed, if they want to.

They won't though. It's only a better feed for people coming from southeast Asia, but those people don't need to go through YVR for that, they have dozens other hops. AC would need a larger source of Canadian passengers.
Is it a good fit for WS out of YYC? maybe not, but it's a better fit WS from YYC than AC from YVR.

[nname]

Originally Posted by Surrealplaces

There won't be a a lot of draw from the US for YYC to GRU, but there will be some draw for closer cities like MSP or SEA. Most US passengers will go to another American hub to go to GRU, but depending on schedules and prices some may end up going through YYC even if it's not the most efficient route. Every overseas WS flight from YYC that I've taken always has a few Americans. For GRU, hard to say, we'll see.

True. Most of the draw will come from Western Canada as a whole. The population of the 4 western provinces isn't much less than Ontario which serves GRU via YYZ, and is more than Quebec + Maritimes, which serves GRU from YUL so the population is there. It's tight but I think it's enough.



They won't though. It's only a better feed for people coming from southeast Asia, but those people don't need to go through YVR for that, they have dozens other hops. AC would need a larger source of Canadian passengers.
Is it a good fit for WS out of YYC? maybe not, but it's a better fit WS from YYC than AC from YVR.

MSP or anything east... well you just need to plot the route on a map to see what's the issue of that.

DL would want to feed the passengers to their ATL hub, and AC will try to compete aggressively to feed into their YYZ/YUL hub, plus AA through DFW or UA through ORD. Comparing the distance, through ATL or ORD is almost the same as direct flight, through DFW is +7.5%, through YUL is +8%, and through YYC for WS is +37%!!!! No matter what WS do, there's no way to compensate the extra fuel burn for that...

As for Asian connection... SE Asia is probably too much of a detour through NA and going through Middle East is a much shorter route. It's all about Japan, Korea, and part of China...

[hollywoodcory]

WS appears to be at least partially publishing its S26 this weekend. Some of it is already visible via codeshares.

Only seems to go up June 21. Guess it’s being done in patches to gauge US demand?

[Myst]

Originally Posted by Dominion301

YHZ are the first of the 8 main airports with 2025 year-end results:

There is other earlier than expected results in post 3985, my fellow statistically minded friend

[Surrealplaces]

Originally Posted by nname

As for Asian connection... SE Asia is probably too much of a detour through NA and going through Middle East is a much shorter route. It's all about Japan, Korea, and part of China...

I agree YVR would be better than YYC for connecting passengers from those countries, but relying on connecting passengers is not enough for AC to do a direct to GUR, as those countries have lots of options to get to GUR.

[Calfan12]

Originally Posted by hollywoodcory

I could be wrong, but I think the flights are maxed on the Chinese side, so almost no chance for Hainan to return. Any increase in flights would certainly result in more for YVR before YYC.

YYC-China will probably have to wait for WS to get more 787s.

Agree, Calgary YYC - China flights ✈️will return in a few years time when (WS) WestJet gets deliveries more Boeing 787’s✅.

Even Montreal YUL Canada’s 3rd busiest airport doesn’t have a direct flight to China currently- (pre pandemic they did on Air China) & when YUL - China resumes again in a few years time, likely will be (AC) Air Canada flying it✅.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by Myst

There is other earlier than expected results in post 3985, my fellow statistically minded friend

Why thank you. I missed that one.

[hollywoodcory]

WS updated its S26 schedule, updated until June 21. Several more US routes got yanked during that time period:

YYC-HNL
YYC-OGG
YEG-ATL
YEG-SEA
YLW-SEA
YVR-BNA
YVR-SFO
YVR-SAN
YVR-BOS
YVR-MCO
YYZ-LAX

At the same time, YYC-BOS is upped to 10x weekly.

[2009]

YLW Kelowna International just posted their Dec 2025 passenger numbers. They had a record year at 2,315,432 passengers for 2025!


Also Kelowna's new terminal expansion opens this week.
• Video Link

[jc_yyc_ca]

https://www.travelpulse.ca/news/airlines...s-to-quito-europe-resumes-calgary-mexico

Some interesting new routes from AC. Mostly Toronto and Montreal to Latin America with some additions for Europe. Also some winter flights from Calgary to Mexico.

Flight From To Departs Arrives Days Season
AC962 Montréal (YUL) Quito (UIO) 17:40 00:10 (+1) Wed, Fri, Sun Dec. 4, 2026 – Mar. 26, 2027
AC963 Quito (UIO) Montréal (YUL) 09:00 15:15 Mon, Thu, Sat Dec. 5, 2026 – Mar. 27, 2027
AC960 Toronto (YYZ) Quito (UIO) 17:55 00:10 (+1) Sat Dec. 5, 2026 – Mar. 20, 2027
AC961 Quito (UIO) Toronto (YYZ) 09:00 15:10 Sun Dec. 6, 2026 – Mar. 21, 2027

Year-Round Europe Flights from Toronto
As of late October 2026, Air Canada will operate year-round flights from Toronto to Manchester and Copenhagen.

Europe flight schedule:
Flight From To Departs Arrives Days Effective
AC908 Toronto (YYZ) Manchester (MAN) 21:00 09:00 (+1) Mon, Wed, Fri, Sun Oct. 25, 2026
AC909 Manchester (MAN) Toronto (YYZ) 12:00 15:05 Mon, Tue, Thu, Sat Oct. 26, 2026
AC828 Toronto (YYZ) Copenhagen (CPH) 21:15 10:15 (+1) Tue, Thu, Sat Oct. 27, 2026
AC829 Copenhagen (CPH) Toronto (YYZ) 11:45 14:45 Wed, Fri, Sun Oct. 28, 2026



New Calgary Sun Routes (Winter 2026–27)
Air Canada will add new non-stop winter service from Calgary to Mexico beginning in December.

Calgary sun flight schedule:

Flight From To Departs Arrives Days Season
AC2120 Calgary (YYC) Cancun (CUN) 08:30 15:50 Mon, Wed, Fri, Sun Dec. 11, 2026 – Apr. 11, 2027
AC2121 Cancun (CUN) Calgary (YYC) 16:50 21:00 Mon, Wed, Fri, Sun Dec. 11, 2026 – Apr. 11, 2027
AC2122 Calgary (YYC) Puerto Vallarta (PVR) 10:50 16:40 Tue, Thu, Sat Dec. 10, 2026 – Apr. 10, 2027
AC2123 Puerto Vallarta (PVR) Calgary (YYC) 17:40 21:45 Tue, Thu, Sat Dec. 10, 2026 – Apr. 10, 2027

[thenoflyzone]

https://www.aircanada.com/media/more-glo...round-and-resumes-calgary-mexico-routes/

A321XLR base at YYZ will enable MAN and CPH to go year round.

Interesting that UIO is 3x weekly from YUL but only 1 weekly from YYZ. They must be seeing stronger demand to Ecuador from Montreal, and/or the European connections to Spain out of YUL make more sense.