Atlantic Canada airport thread

[J81]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

Not enough people in the Maritimes lol, what a load of BS.

The Maritimes are the smallest, most densely populated provinces in Canada. There’s many valid reasons for funding better bus services, and not just for getting people to the airports, but for general tourism and intercity connectivity… The Maritimes are sitting on top of like 50+ million people in the US Northeast and they have no way to get here other than flying here or driving here… talk about a huge missed opportunity !

Also, I never said I never take the bus, just that I don’t often take the bus, and that I’ve never taken a bus to another maritime airport, because it’s never been a viable option… but it should be.

I’d happily take a bus to the Halifax Airport or just to the Saint John airport if taking a bus to either place was a convenient, affordable option. Who the hell wants to drive all the way to Halifax and pay for parking at the airport if you could get there on a bus for a bit more than the price of gas, and be able to sit back, relax, and not worry about parking once you get to the airport?

Its never going to be convenient. Nobody is going to take a 10am bus for a 1800 flight out of YHZ. Ppl are just going to drive their own car and park it their for 120$ for the week or get someone to drive them. You act as if parking a car in the long term lot is such a hassle lol. Its just ridiculous. Youre whole argument about busses is ridiculous like the majority of your arguments on this forum.

If youre chosing to fly out of YHZ from any maritime city its for convenience sake. Adding a bus trip to get there is defeating the purpose.

[gtsoc]

Originally Posted by J81

If youre chosing to fly out of YHZ from any maritime city its for convenience sake. Adding a bus trip to get there is defeating the purpose.

Not to mention, what happens when your plane is inevitably late and you've missed the last bus for the night? Now you're on the hook for a hotel until the next day.

I don't mind the three hour drive to YHZ, but I am doing it in my own car on my own time.

[lirette]

There might be enough population to support the bus service to YHZ, but there is not enough people *without* a vehicle to support such a bus service. The maritimes is extremely car centric, and the type of folks who are going on a European vacation out of the Halifax airport and live in Moncton / SJ etc likely make enough salary that they also have a vehicle and can pay gas or hotel rooms or whatever may be involved logistically. They also likely do not want to have to deal with a bus service to take them home after a 6 hour flight across the atlantic. You just want to get in your car and get home.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by J81

Its never going to be convenient. Nobody is going to take a 10am bus for a 1800 flight out of YHZ. Ppl are just going to drive their own car and park it their for 120$ for the week or get someone to drive them. You act as if parking a car in the long term lot is such a hassle lol. Its just ridiculous. Youre whole argument about busses is ridiculous like the majority of your arguments on this forum.

If youre chosing to fly out of YHZ from any maritime city its for convenience sake. Adding a bus trip to get there is defeating the purpose.

It could be a lot more convenient than currently. Like there’s such things as night busses. I’d happily take a bus to my next flight to Europe out of Halifax, even if it got me there 6 hours earlier than I had to be there or something. Driving my own car there and leaving it parked for a week or two is a significant expense, but it’s more so that I’d rather just sit back and not have to drive.

As for all my arguments being the same, all of your arguments seem to be about keeping things the same.

I don’t really agree that there’s not enough people in the Maritimes, or enough people in the Maritimes without cars to make it worth it to invest in a better bus service. I think a lot of people would end up using busses to get to airports in maritimes cities other than the one they live… or take local transit to the airport for that matter.

Finally, and again, we’re sitting on top of 50+ million people in the US Northeast, many of whom don’t have cars and could consider taking a bus to the Canadian Maritimes for their next vacation.

Your arguments that no one wants to take a bus to or within the Maritimes is bunk.

[Taeolas]

I think bus service to support airports only work within a 2 hour radius of the airport.

KW to Pearson worked well. London to Pearson probably worked but only due to volume letting the runs happen regularly enough that you didn't mind "missing" a bus window.

Bus to Halifax is a bit far for the NB cities, Moncton is barely in range. And we'd need the volume of flights leaving Halifax to really support being fed by a Bus (or even an Air Shuttle bus service).

Bus support to YQM might make better sense, but it should be more of an Air Shuttle service that you schedule your trips (on demand) than a regularly (leave every 9, 12, 3, 6, 9) type service. That's also what I remember KW to Pearson was basically as well, though I think they had enoughvolume that they could afford regular schedule service too.

[lirette]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

It could be a lot more convenient than currently. Like there’s such things as night busses. I’d happily take a bus to my next flight to Europe out of Halifax, even if it got me there 6 hours earlier than I had to be there or something. Driving my own car there and leaving it parked for a week or two is a significant expense, but it’s more so that I’d rather just sit back and not have to drive.

As for all my arguments being the same, all of your arguments seem to be about keeping things the same.

I don’t really agree that there’s not enough people in the Maritimes, or enough people in the Maritimes without cars to make it worth it to invest in a better bus service. I think a lot of people would end up using busses to get to airports in maritimes cities other than the one they live… or take local transit to the airport for that matter.

Finally, and again, we’re sitting on top of 50+ million people in the US Northeast, many of whom don’t have cars and could consider taking a bus to the Canadian Maritimes for their next vacation.

Your arguments that no one wants to take a bus to or within the Maritimes is bunk.

I completely recognize that you are willing to sit at an airport for 6 hours if it means being able to take a bus, but I think you greatly overestimate the general publics willingness to do such a thing. Most airline travellers are extremely impatient at even the slightest delays, and even though it makes travel way less stressful to book longer connection times at pearson and other airports the majority of travellers will pick the fastest overall travel time when given the option.

The entire benefit of choosing a flight out of Halifax IMO is the direct option and not having to travel backwards to Pearson to fly overseas. Adding a bus into the equation to me I'd rather just fly from Moncton (or Fredericton or SJ) and arrive back at home after my overseas travels.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by lirette

The entire benefit of choosing a flight out of Halifax IMO is the direct option and not having to travel backwards to Pearson to fly overseas. Adding a bus into the equation to me I'd rather just fly from Moncton (or Fredericton or SJ) and arrive back at home after my overseas travels.

Agreed. The only real advantage of using YHZ for most NBers is for direct European travel. If your terminal destination is domestic, transborder, or elsewhere in the world, most people would choose to fly to Toronto, Montreal or Calgary direct in order to make their connections (no backtracking).

Consequently, the daily passenger load on any bus service to YHZ would be quite small, and the economic viability of such a route would be highly questionable.

[KnoxfordGuy]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

Would sure be nice if there was a much more convenient and affordable bus service to YHZ for the rest of the Maritime’s 1.5 million people.

Stats nerd here. The Maritimes are home to currently 2.14 million people. OK. As you were lol

[OliverD]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

It could be a lot more convenient than currently. Like there’s such things as night busses. I’d happily take a bus to my next flight to Europe out of Halifax, even if it got me there 6 hours earlier than I had to be there or something. Driving my own car there and leaving it parked for a week or two is a significant expense, but it’s more so that I’d rather just sit back and not have to drive.

As for all my arguments being the same, all of your arguments seem to be about keeping things the same.

I don’t really agree that there’s not enough people in the Maritimes, or enough people in the Maritimes without cars to make it worth it to invest in a better bus service. I think a lot of people would end up using busses to get to airports in maritimes cities other than the one they live… or take local transit to the airport for that matter.

Finally, and again, we’re sitting on top of 50+ million people in the US Northeast, many of whom don’t have cars and could consider taking a bus to the Canadian Maritimes for their next vacation.

Your arguments that no one wants to take a bus to or within the Maritimes is bunk.

While I'm definitely on board with improving intercity bus service in the Maritimes, the idea that there is some sort of untapped market for tourists to come here by bus from the northeast U.S. seems ridiculous to me. And any demand for that can be filled by charter buses which you would need anyways to see sights in the Maritimes.

[NBNYer]

Originally Posted by KnoxfordGuy

Stats nerd here. The Maritimes are home to currently 2.14 million people. OK. As you were lol

I think he meant Maritimers who don't live in HRM. So the 1.5M figure would be about right.

[Taeolas]

Public Transit in the Maritimes is something we need to invest heavily in across all aspects, especially Bus and probably Train. As I mentioned in the HSR thread in the main Canada board, Bus service in general is anemic in the Maritimes, and basically isn't used because it isn't useful. We need multiple routes a day between NB's Big 3 and Halifax and Charlottetown, and at least 2 routes a day to the remaining cities and big communities.

We also need regular bus service into Quebec so we get a link to the Rest of Canada, and we should have regular (a few times a week) service into either Houlton/Calais to connect to the States, or even a Transborder route that goes right to Bangor via Woodstock and/or St Stephen.

Once we have a robust useful bus network (and hopefully a growing PAX rail network), piggybacking airport shuttle services on top of that comes naturally. But trying to build a transit network around Airport shuttles is foolhardy... especially since pretty much all of our airports are noticeably outside of their cities (YQM is the closest to being "within" Moncton; YFC and YHZ are certainly not in Freddy/Halifax by any definition of the term. I'm not familiar with YSJ, but it certainly doesn't seem to be "close" to the main city either.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by KnoxfordGuy

Stats nerd here. The Maritimes are home to currently 2.14 million people. OK. As you were lol

I meant like the rest of the Maritimes’ population that live outside of the HRM.

I guess I poorly worded that tho, and I shoulda said the other 1.6 or 1.7 million or something? lol but yes, anyways

Originally Posted by OliverD

While I'm definitely on board with improving intercity bus service in the Maritimes, the idea that there is some sort of untapped market for tourists to come here by bus from the northeast U.S. seems ridiculous to me. And any demand for that can be filled by charter buses which you would need anyways to see sights in the Maritimes.

Is it really that ridiculous when you consider just how massive and diverse of a population exists to the south of us? Not everyone wants to rent a car, take a flight, or show up on a cruise ship. There’s even some people who don’t want to fly because of the associated carbon footprint.

If you’re a car-less resident of New York or Boston and wanted to take a trip to New Brunswick to see Saint John and Fundy National Park, how would you get up here other than take a flight that connects via Toronto, Montreal, or maybe Halifax? A bus would be cheaper and take around the same time as a flight that connects via Toronto or Montreal, depending on the layover times.

Charter bus tours are an option, but they’re going to cost a lot more than a regular bus service would, and are usually targeted at the elderly, and group tours, not younger people looking to take spur of the moment vacations. I seems ridiculous to me that there’s no bus connection between New England and the Maritimes, and especially ridiculous that there’s no bus to Halifax from Yarmouth for people arriving in Nova Scotia on the CAT ferry.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by Taeolas

I think bus service to support airports only work within a 2 hour radius of the airport.

KW to Pearson worked well. London to Pearson probably worked but only due to volume letting the runs happen regularly enough that you didn't mind "missing" a bus window.

Bus to Halifax is a bit far for the NB cities, Moncton is barely in range. And we'd need the volume of flights leaving Halifax to really support being fed by a Bus (or even an Air Shuttle bus service).

Bus support to YQM might make better sense, but it should be more of an Air Shuttle service that you schedule your trips (on demand) than a regularly (leave every 9, 12, 3, 6, 9) type service. That's also what I remember KW to Pearson was basically as well, though I think they had enoughvolume that they could afford regular schedule service too.

I think it depends on how extensive the bus service is, like if there’s multiple busses driving between the major CMA’s with Halifax as the central hub, that could mean multiple busses arriving daily at YHZ in the early morning, mid afternoon, and evening, which could work for many flights.

Saint John’s already losing our direct flight to Halifax, so of course I’d like to see us get improved bus service to Halifax to make up for that loss… and if it could actually work for catching a flight at YHZ, bonus!

Local transit to local airports really shouldn’t be such a Herculean ask either, like here in Saint John, if we had two or even three busses with service to/from YSJ daily, it would be a viable option for a lot of flights out of our tiny little airport.

Originally Posted by lirette

I completely recognize that you are willing to sit at an airport for 6 hours if it means being able to take a bus, but I think you greatly overestimate the general publics willingness to do such a thing. Most airline travellers are extremely impatient at even the slightest delays, and even though it makes travel way less stressful to book longer connection times at pearson and other airports the majority of travellers will pick the fastest overall travel time when given the option.

The entire benefit of choosing a flight out of Halifax IMO is the direct option and not having to travel backwards to Pearson to fly overseas. Adding a bus into the equation to me I'd rather just fly from Moncton (or Fredericton or SJ) and arrive back at home after my overseas travels.

Obviously I’d prefer to wait around a lot less than 6 hours, but I was just using that as an example, if the bus system was well funded enough, the wait would be much less than that hypothetical number I threw out there… especially if the system included overnight busses.

[someone123]

The thing with YHZ is it's right on the main highway, so it can just be a stop for a bus or, someday, a train going to Truro/Moncton/onward, and people from Halifax would take the same service from the south.

I'd guess most people would do connecting flights from Saint John.

[nwalbert]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Agreed. The only real advantage of using YHZ for most NBers is for direct European travel. If your terminal destination is domestic, transborder, or elsewhere in the world, most people would choose to fly to Toronto, Montreal or Calgary direct in order to make their connections (no backtracking).

Consequently, the daily passenger load on any bus service to YHZ would be quite small, and the economic viability of such a route would be highly questionable.

this isn't really accurate. I know people from Moncton who drive to halifax to fly out West, and especially Newfoundland and Europe.

As Halifax continues to expand so aggressively its going to get harder and harder for Moncton I think.


The idea that a centralized NB airport would not drastically improve air service for all NBers is probably not realistic. It would provide a central airport for 900,000 NBer's that could start to compete with what Halifax has.

I agree with others, it will not happen for political reasons, but we also have to be realistic that status quo isn't going to improve much.

[nwalbert]

Originally Posted by someone123

The thing with YHZ is it's right on the main highway, so it can just be a stop for a bus or, someday, a train going to Truro/Moncton/onward, and people from Halifax would take the same service from the south.

I'd guess most people would do connecting flights from Saint John.

If you lived in Moncton, driving down to the Halifax to catch a flight makes a ton of sense. The folks I know who travel frequently for business in Moncton, fly out of Halifax more often than Moncton.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by nwalbert

this isn't really accurate. I know people from Moncton who drive to halifax to fly out West, and especially Newfoundland and Europe.

That is undoubtedly true, and the last two times I flew out of Halifax was to Orlando and to London.

Still, you can fly direct from Moncton to Calgary and Edmonton, you can fly to Deer Lake and St.John's on PAL out of Moncton, and we have multiple sun flights to the DR, Jamaica and Mexico. Maybe some day after the Trumpian blockade is lifted we will get our Cuban flights back too.

I do agree that the strength of YHZ is the multiple direct European flights. Flights to the USA also have some advantages out of Halifax too (at least if they are direct and to the east coast), but, I am not flying to the USA as long as the incontinent orange asshole occupying the White House is in power.

[Ire Narissis]

The last time I flew (to Seattle), I drove all the way to Halifax instead of flying from my home airport (YSJ) because the fare on Westjet was fully half the Air Canada fare out of Saint John. At that point it was a net savings even with the added cost of driving to Halifax and parking.

[J81]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

It could be a lot more convenient than currently. Like there’s such things as night busses. I’d happily take a bus to my next flight to Europe out of Halifax, even if it got me there 6 hours earlier than I had to be there or something. Driving my own car there and leaving it parked for a week or two is a significant expense, but it’s more so that I’d rather just sit back and not have to drive.

As for all my arguments being the same, all of your arguments seem to be about keeping things the same.

I don’t really agree that there’s not enough people in the Maritimes, or enough people in the Maritimes without cars to make it worth it to invest in a better bus service. I think a lot of people would end up using busses to get to airports in maritimes cities other than the one they live… or take local transit to the airport for that matter.

Finally, and again, we’re sitting on top of 50+ million people in the US Northeast, many of whom don’t have cars and could consider taking a bus to the Canadian Maritimes for their next vacation.

Your arguments that no one wants to take a bus to or within the Maritimes is bunk.

I never said nobody wants to take a bus in the maritimes. I said nobody in the maritimes wants to take a bus to YHZ to catch a flight. As evidenced by the replies on this thread, people tend to agree with that.

Do I think we should have much better transportation options in the Maritimes? Absolutely. I also think municipal public transit should connect to their respective airports on a fairly regular schedule. I have used trams, busses, subways and LRT in many cities to get to and from airports because of the convenience and cost effectiveness.

I stand by my assertion that there just isnt enough interest in people in Fredericton or YSJ to hop on a bus to catch a flight in YHZ. Why would you take a 4hr bus ride that will drop you off at an airport at an inconvenient time to catch a flight unless you had gobs of time to waste. It has already been pointed out that travellers are impatient and just arent interested in that scenario.

The only way that works is in a scenario like KLM does between Ottawa and YUL or AC does between Kitchener and YYZ. Could WJ theoretically setup an express service between YSJ/YFC and YQM to get to YHZ for the evening bank of flights to Europe? Probably, but the fact they havent says a lot.

[michael_d40]

Originally Posted by Ire Narissis

The last time I flew (to Seattle), I drove all the way to Halifax instead of flying from my home airport (YSJ) because the fare on Westjet was fully half the Air Canada fare out of Saint John. At that point it was a net savings even with the added cost of driving to Halifax and parking.

Ironically last time I flew to Seattle was out of YHZ as well but that’s because I prefer flying United and the price was excellent. (1400 return business class) So I went YHZ-EWR-SEA instead of using a New Brunswick airport.