Canadian Airport Thread II

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by RomanR27

Porter will announce YXU-MCO/FLL/CUN/MBJ today.

Which probably means they’ll announce YXU-YVR/YOW/YHZ/YEG and maybe YYC and/or YUL for summer 2027 at a later time.

I wonder when the PUJ and MEX (or NLU) announcements will be?

[Myst]

Originally Posted by Dominion301

I’m assuming you’re referring to Canadair and good old autocorrect overwrote it.

Gah - yes.

I swear I fixed more than once… somehow you go back and edit, and magically it grabs and changes again.

[Dominion301]

Heart Aerospace’s X1 hybrid electric demonstrator and precursor to the production ES-30 took to the skies for the first time a couple of days ago just a bit south of Montreal out of PLB / Plattsburgh: https://www.heartaerospace.com/newsroom/...ght-of-world-s-largest-electric-aircraft

The all-electric 27 minute flight’s fuel cost was only USD $5.

[Surrealplaces]

Looks like there is good demand for the YYC - AUH. They've bumped up the date for the inaugural flight.

https://openjaw.com/newsroom/on-the-town/2026/08/12/etihad-moves-calgary-launch-forward/

Months before Etihad Airways' inaugural Calgary flight is set to depart, demand has already prompted the airline to move up its launch. The nonstop service between Calgary and Abu Dhabi will now begin 25OCT26, instead of November, allowing business travellers to attend ADIPEC, one of the world's largest energy conferences.

[Calfan12]

Beijing Capital Airlines in October 2026 plans to resume service to Canada, as the airline opened reservations for Hangzhou – Qingdao – Vancouver route as of Friday 14AUG26. Airbus A330-300 aircraft to serve this route once a week from 02OCT26, switching to -200 from 16OCT26.

JD471 HGH0835 – 1020TAO1220 – 0840YVR 333 5
JD472 YVR1040 – 1540+1TAO1740+1 – 1925+1HGH 333 5

https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/260815-jdoct26yvr

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by RomanR27

Porter will announce YXU-MCO/FLL/CUN/MBJ today.

Nothing seems to have come of this yet. This page https://www.flyporter.com/en_ca/flights-from-london-ca has been floating around for a few months showing PUJ and CUN but it doesn't go to any schedule or booking page. This showed up around the time that Porter and Transat announced a partnership for vacation packages and the thought was Porter would start doing the flights to the Caribbean but when you look at those flights for PUJ and CUN on the Transat vacation site still show A321 aircraft. Would be a significant capacity reduction to have Porter doing those flights, unless the idea was that they would use Porter for additional flights on top of the already scheduled Transat flights

[hollywoodcory]

WS has finally filed the rest of its winter schedule this weekend, and should hit the booking system later tonight.

YYC-MEX appears to (at least in December) be going up to 6x weekly and keeping YYC-ATL at double daily straight through the winter.

[casper]

Originally Posted by Dominion301

Heart Aerospace’s X1 hybrid electric demonstrator and precursor to the production ES-30 took to the skies for the first time a couple of days ago just a bit south of Montreal out of PLB / Plattsburgh: https://www.heartaerospace.com/newsroom/...ght-of-world-s-largest-electric-aircraft

The all-electric 27 minute flight’s fuel cost was only USD $5.

Fantastic news. Disappointing that they relocated from Sweden to the US. However if they can pull this off, Canada would be a great market for this aircraft. Good thing Air Canada has an early order for this aircraft.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by casper

Fantastic news. Disappointing that they relocated from Sweden to the US. However if they can pull this off, Canada would be a great market for this aircraft. Good thing Air Canada has an early order for this aircraft.

Agreed. YVR-Vancouver Island operating costs would drop significantly if they can get the batteries to last for at least 2000 cycles.

[hollywoodcory]

So WS ended up filling the freed up 787 capacity from the shorter GRU season with more PVR

Both CUN and PVR now show 9-11x weekly (13 at its peak for CUN) on the 787.

[Surrealplaces]

Originally Posted by hollywoodcory

So WS ended up filling the freed up 787 capacity from the shorter GRU season with more PVR

Both CUN and PVR now show 9-11x weekly (13 at its peak for CUN) on the 787.

Mexico keeps getting busier, I wonder f part of it is people switching to Mexico rather than Arizona, Florida, etc..

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by Surrealplaces

Mexico keeps getting busier, I wonder f part of it is people switching to Mexico rather than Arizona, Florida, etc..

That and Cuba too

[AuxTown]

Interesting we are seeing Mexico travel growing like this. We travel to different spots every year including Mexico, DR, Jamaica, Florida. No question that Mexico is doing the most to make themselves super tourist friendly. When we were there in March it was probably the fastest and most friendly international customs that I have seen in a long time. We are so privileged to have so many great warm-weather options.

[Bourkky]

Interesting informations coming from last Wednesday Air Canada's Q2_2026_Townhall. Only available to employees I believe.

Some quotes from Mark Galardo:

Regarding Lagos:

this would probably be a late winter 2027 start with a 787.

Regarding next summer:

Well, in the last week of August, we have a major comms press release strategy on our Summer 27 new routes. I think it's going to be the most exciting public revealing of a new routes that we've ever done in Air Canada. There's actually 3 pillars that go into it all part social, part engaging with our customers, part can you guess where we're going? I think you all be really excited to see what we have in store. And we'll have new routes from all three of our hubs.

They should start to tease us next week haha !!

[Dominion301]

YOW's July pax stats. Interestingly not only did transborder buck the trend for a 4th consecutive month but also grew more in % terms than domestic. However, July was still World Cup traffic too.

Sector / Jul-25 / Jul-26 / % Change
Dom: 359,522 / 365,526 / +1.7%
TB: 51,115 / 52,592 / +2.9%
Int'l: 29,318 / 32,719 / +11.6%
TTL: 439,955 / 450,837 / +2.5%

Sector / YTD 2025 / YTD 2026 / % Change
Dom: 2,061,674 / 2,164,857 / +5.0%
TB: 457,901 / 449,361 / -1.9%
Int'l: 309,421 / 384,887 / +24.4%
TTL: 2,828,996 / 2,999,105 / +6.0% - YTD July 2019 was 3,011,094 so the pre-pandemic gap is down to 12K

July % of traffic recovered vs 2019 / YTD vs 2019
Sector / July / YTD % recovered
Dom: 98.5% / 94.6% - that's the closest any month domestically has come to full recovery thus far
TB: 111.5% / 103.6%
Int'l: 132.2% / 133.7%
TTL: 101.8% / 99.6%

12 Months Rolling / % Change vs Year End 2024
Dom: 3,757,467 / +9.5%
TB: 717,771 / -3.2%
Int'l: 561,107 / +29.3%
TTL: 5,036,345 / +9.3%

[JonToms]

WestJet Finishes Retrofitting Densified 737’s Back to Original Seating

https://aviationweek.com/air-transport/a...8ef493fff51341c2777461e7b6182cf29c7e8021

[samuelx88]

Originally Posted by JonToms

WestJet Finishes Retrofitting Densified 737’s Back to Original Seating

https://aviationweek.com/air-transport/a...8ef493fff51341c2777461e7b6182cf29c7e8021

Do they still have any 737s in Sunwing or Swoop colours or they did repaint the remainder of their fleet?

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by Bourkky

Interesting informations coming from last Wednesday Air Canada's Q2_2026_Townhall. Only available to employees I believe.

Some quotes from Mark Galardo:

Regarding Lagos:

Regarding next summer:

They should start to tease us next week haha !!

We’ve seen secondary Spanish and Italian destinations pop up left and right. Time for Greece to join in on the action.

I would think non stop flights to Crete are a matter of when, not if. Just came back from there. What an amazing island.

The runway at the current airport in Heraklion is a bit short for non stops flights to Canada, but the new airport there is opening in 2028. So I can see AC announce service there for 2028, or if they don’t want to wait, they can fly to Chania in the meantime.

Maybe Thessaloniki and/or Cyprus as well. Who knows. But for sure more Greece must be in the cards….

[optimusREIM]

Originally Posted by samuelx88

Do they still have any 737s in Sunwing or Swoop colours or they did repaint the remainder of their fleet?

I believe the last one just recently got re-painted.

[Nick]

There are still quite a few Sunwings and I think 4 Swoops left. They finished painting all of the Swoops of either the -8 or Max.