YVR Airport & Sea Island Developments Discussion

[Rusty Gull]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Have you ever even flown on an Embraer jet (this is the 'net, why do I even bother asking). The 2+2 seating arrangement is far better than Westjet's 3+3 737 (or Air Canada's 3+3 Airbus' for that matter)

This whole "Central Canada's out to get us" parochialism is tireseome.

And sorry, I don't work for Air Canada.

You don't work for Air Canada - or so you claim - but you sure do have a vested interest in them.

Maybe, just maybe What Next, you can explain to me why your pals at Transport Canada were trying to quash the sentiments of at least one aviation academic at last year's Open Skies Summit, who said exactly what Air Emirates is now saying - that the feds are protecting Air Canada's ass, at the detriment of the Canadian consumer?

You are condescending, aren't you What Next? The Embraer is not as special as you think - I recently flew one domestically from Tokyo on JAL.

You are also very good at creating red herrings - hoping to distract forumers here from the REAL issue - that Canadian taxpayers and the federal government are propping up Air Canada and Pearson International Airport. (and frankly, I don't care where Pearson or AC are headquartered. As an advocate of free markets, I despise the notion of any business getting preferential treatment from the feds).

You have lost all credibility on this forum, WhatNext.

Oh - and your jab against Surrey and North Van on another thread (you referred to North Van as "Surrey on the Slope") is equally childish and classless. Obviously, your perception of Surrey doesn't go beyond a few sensationalist headlines about Whalley - and you haven't clued in to the fact that many forumers at SSP are indeed living in Surrey!

Get a life please.

[MalcolmTucker]

How are taxpayers propping up Air Canada again? They haven't received any government funds since they were privatized.

[Millennium2002]

Well... the fact that Emirates is involved in this discussion is going to make things really messy.... but if we just pull them out of the equation for a moment and re-evaluate where Vancouver is... I say that we may still be lacking some important connections and competition to Europe and Asia that may be of use to us.

[Spork]

Originally Posted by Sir.Humphrey.Appleby

How are taxpayers propping up Air Canada again? They haven't received any government funds since they were privatized.

1) http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/air-canada-gets-bailout-from-ottawa/
2) Protectionism by keeping the market tightly controlled

[Rusty Gull]

Originally Posted by Sir.Humphrey.Appleby

How are taxpayers propping up Air Canada again? They haven't received any government funds since they were privatized.

Any time a body of government grants a business a license to engage in essentially monopolistic behaviours, it costs taxpayers - both through indirect subsidies and depleted tax revenues due to a depleted business environment.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Spork

1) http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/air-canada-gets-bailout-from-ottawa/
2) Protectionism by keeping the market tightly controlled

A loan from a government controlled bank is not a bailout. By that standard, Porter has gotten a bailout too, as have most Canadian corporations that export.

As Vancouver benefits greatly from protectionism (I doubt YVR would have developed as it has if it was in a common market with SeaTac for the past 50 years) it is hard to pick and choose. Protectionism bad when it means a loss of a flight to a hub without any O & D traffic ie: Singapore, Dubai, protectionism good when it means direct service to many destinations that otherwise would have a hub along the way.

If you want to be against protectionism of one form in air travel, you have to be against it all.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Rusty Gull

Any time a body of government grants a business a license to engage in essentially monopolistic behaviours, it costs taxpayers - both through indirect subsidies and depleted tax revenues due to a depleted business environment.

If all our long haul routes were served by foreigners, I am pretty sure there would be little heavy air craft maintenance domestically, little spare parts manufacture, and therefor the loss of all those jobs and the taxes they generate to overseas.

If there was demand for a 6 times a year flight from Vancouver, any Canadian that can provide that service can. They could start nearly instantaneously. No change in treaty. Just a simple diplomatic note designating a carrier on the route.

Why does it not happen? There is not any demand for the route.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Rusty Gull

You don't work for Air Canada - or so you claim - but you sure do have a vested interest in them.

Maybe, just maybe What Next, you can explain to me why your pals at Transport Canada were trying to quash the sentiments of at least one aviation academic at last year's Open Skies Summit, who said exactly what Air Emirates is now saying - that the feds are protecting Air Canada's ass, at the detriment of the Canadian consumer?

You are condescending, aren't you What Next? The Embraer is not as special as you think - I recently flew one domestically from Tokyo on JAL.

You are also very good at creating red herrings - hoping to distract forumers here from the REAL issue - that Canadian taxpayers and the federal government are propping up Air Canada and Pearson International Airport. (and frankly, I don't care where Pearson or AC are headquartered. As an advocate of free markets, I despise the notion of any business getting preferential treatment from the feds).

You have lost all credibility on this forum, WhatNext.

Oh - and your jab against Surrey and North Van on another thread (you referred to North Van as "Surrey on the Slope") is equally childish and classless. Obviously, your perception of Surrey doesn't go beyond a few sensationalist headlines about Whalley - and you haven't clued in to the fact that many forumers at SSP are indeed living in Surrey!

Get a life please.

Whoa, lighten up Frances.

As to condescending: it appears in your world that someone can't disagree with your point of view with regards to Emirates without being an Air Canada employee or having some sinister "vested interest". (Full disclosure: at some point after the CP merger I owned Air Canada shares and managed to escape without too much of a haircut). I hope you enjoyed your Embraer E-jet flight on JAL, particularly not having to deal with middle seats.

I assume, as Sir.Humphrey.Appleby pointed out, you are equally outraged that a Federal body, the Toronto Port Authority, shuts out all competition from Toronto Island Airport to favour Porter Airlines? And likewise outraged by the Federal government's requirement that Air Canada provide service in English and French, a requirement which it does not apply to any other Canadian carrier?

As to the "Surrey on the slope" comment, many people of a certain age who grew up in Vancouver would be familiar with it, as it alludes to North Van's historically blue collar roots. Just like the old "living in Richmond means never having to say you're Surrey". (edit: I notice in your outrage you ignored the smillie beside the comment)

Geesh.

[mezzanine]

Originally Posted by Sir.Humphrey.Appleby

A loan from a government controlled bank is not a bailout. By that standard, Porter has gotten a bailout too, as have most Canadian corporations that export.

From Spork's nytimes link:

Ottawa will kick in 250 million dollars — 150 million through Export Development Canada and 100 million dollars from the government’s Canada Account.
The Canada Account is used for financing that is considered to be in the “national interest,” but is either too risky or too large for Export Development Canada to accept on its own, the newspaper said.

Originally Posted by Sir.Humphrey.Appleby

As Vancouver benefits greatly from protectionism (I doubt YVR would have developed as it has if it was in a common market with SeaTac for the past 50 years)

Well, on some level that's true, but you're really pushing the rhetoric limit here. I would counter that if the border did dissolve in some common market treaty but Canadian Airlines survived the Asian Economic crisis in the late 1990s (like by having american airlines buy a controlling stake, which the feds deemed offside and promptly disallowed), we would have AA transborder flights hubbing here for Canadian's Trans-pacific hub. I suppose they would't be 'transborder' flights though... ;-)

[mezzanine]

Originally Posted by Sir.Humphrey.Appleby

If all our long haul routes were served by foreigners, I am pretty sure there would be little heavy air craft maintenance domestically, little spare parts manufacture, and therefor the loss of all those jobs and the taxes they generate to overseas.

Well, the current situation isn't so great with air canada at YVR..

Air Canada has served notice that it plans to lay off more than 1,000 machinists seconded to work at maintenance and overhaul company Aveos Fleet Performance in Montreal, Winnipeg and Vancouver.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbi...ircanada-aveo-layoffs.html#ixzz0ngWB904f

If there was demand for a 6 times a year flight from Vancouver, any Canadian that can provide that service can. They could start nearly instantaneously. No change in treaty. Just a simple diplomatic note designating a carrier on the route.

Why does it not happen? There is not any demand for the route.

I doubt that it's that simple. IMO simple economies of scale and major improvements to pearson favor AC maximizing their hub at TO for the foreseeable future.

From AC investor literature:

Multi-hub Strategy and Seamless Transfers at Toronto

Since the opening on January 30, 2007 of the latest development at Toronto Pearson Airport, Air Canada operates all its transborder flights from Terminal 1.
This provides Air Canada with the ability to more seamlessly transfer passengers to and from the U.S. to Europe and Asia. This is a major improvement from the prior challenges of checking out of Terminal 2 and checking into Terminal 1 or vice-versa. Air Canada’s Toronto operations are now consolidated in one terminal, in one of North America’s newest and most convenient facilities from which to travel internationally.

http://www.aircanada.com/en/about/investor/documents/2006_AIF.pdf

[mezzanine]

I'm not against AC, but I do think that Emirates at YVR isn't a bad thing. If anything, it will make AC step up its game at YVR, and give us ++ connections to africa and south asia. The crappy part is AC fear-mongering about Emirates - they are not open to giving YVR flyers more options.

Emirates' ownership profile should be a non-issue. If Emirates is able to compete down prices on certain routes because of its deep (State) capital reserves, it would again be consumers which reap the benefits. As Paul Krugman is said to have once quipped, the best policy response to foreign State subsidies is "to send a thank-you note to the embassy." Quoted in Alan O. Sykes, International Trade: Trade Remedies, in Research Handbook of International Economic Law 62, 106 (Edward Elgar Publishing 2007).

Given Air Canada's primacy of place in influencing Canadian air transport policy, see, e.g., Michael E. Levine, Why Weren't the Airline Reregulated?, 23 Yale J. on Reg. 269, 294-95 (2006), it seems unlikely that Canada will accede to Emirates' demands. The "benefit" is that Air Canada will be able to keep itself afloat in markets where it lacks a bona fide competitive advantage; the "cost" will be felt by consumers.

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/aviation/2010/03/air-canada-says-no-to-competition.html

[jlousa]

I am far from a AC fan and only ever fly them if I can't get a similar flight with another airline. That said it's standard economics that you should care if they want to use up state funds subsidizing our flights. It's a principle rule that the company that can afford to lose money the longest will end up making the most money. All they have to do is subsidize the flights for long enough that the competition dries up, the won't continue subsidizing the flights past that stage.

[mezzanine]

Originally Posted by jlousa

I am far from a AC fan and only ever fly them if I can't get a similar flight with another airline. That said it's standard economics that you should care if they want to use up state funds subsidizing our flights. It's a principle rule that the company that can afford to lose money the longest will end up making the most money. All they have to do is subsidize the flights for long enough that the competition dries up, the won't continue subsidizing the flights past that stage.

I suppose, but the market forces are all skewed here (see Spork's link on AC's bail-out in 2009). I am unsure how a YVR-Dubai flight would disrupt AC/star alliance international network out of YVR. (For instance, I am an aeroplan member, but when going to europe, I always try to fly LH direct fromYVR. Those flights are always sold at a higher price compared to stopping over in YYZ or YYC.) Singapore flew YVR-Inchon-Singapore without much debate on Seoul-YVR 'dumping'.

In all fairness, IMO a lot of the recently lost flights from YVR are from the recent economic crisis (KIX, SIA). I worry what things will look like when the economy improves.

Finally, let's say that emirates did rely on state capital more than the next airline (AC sure relies on it). If emirates did think it would be a strategic move to service YVR, then i'm sure they would run the numbers to make sure that their effort is sustainable within their business plan (ie with state subsidies). IMO star alliance intl flights would still see an interest serving vancouver in spite of this (FRA, LHR). If emirates was losing buckets of money, they would withdraw and things IMO would revert back to the present situation.

From the Aviation law link:

First, suppose that Rovinescu is correct and Emirates possesses excess capacity, it does not follow that the carrier is going to "dump" services into the Canadian market in any economically precise sense. Similar to the concept of predatory pricing in antitrust law, dumping refers to the practice whereby a foreign firm (or firms) sells its goods or services at a price below what it charges for the same goods/services in its home and/or third country markets. No showing has been made that Emirates plans to do this.

Second, even if Emirates engaged in dumping, any loss sustained by Air Canada would be outweighed by the surplus given to airline consumers. Passengers flying to or from Canada would have access to more flights to or from more destinations, and with potentially cheaper prices than Air Canada is capable of providing.

Third, dumping is similar to, but not synonymous with predatory pricing, i.e., selling below marginal cost. Again, there is no evidence that Emirates would sell air services to consumers at a loss. It would be an irrational tactic anyway. Were Emirates capable of driving competitors out of certain markets with predatory prices, the carrier would still have to recoup its losses at a later date by resetting its prices to a supracompetitive level. All that would do, however, is attract other carriers back into those markets to take advantage of the new price structure. Eventually, rates would be competed down to the competitive level, leaving Emirates to either eat the losses it sustained during the predatory period or forcing it to reengage in predation to again drive out competitors. All during this time, though, consumers would benefit by having access to cheap airfares.

[SpongeG]

Most Europe-bound flights cancelled out of YVR

By: ctvbc.ca

Date: Thursday Apr. 15, 2010 4:13 PM PT

Four flights bound for Europe out of Vancouver were cancelled Thursday, after clouds of ash caused by volcanic activity in Iceland closed airports across the continent.


Two flights bound for London Heathrow airport as well planes headed for Frankfurt and Amsterdam were grounded, and one flight to London Gatwick airport has been delayed.


Two inbound flights were cancelled from London and Amsterdam.


Air Canada says it has cancelled all flights to and from London's Heathrow airport, Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris and the Frankfurt airport until further notice.


Airports across Europe were forced to close after an erupting volcano in Iceland spewed a treacherous ash cloud, closing all air space over Britain, Ireland and Nordic countries.


Experts say the ash, comprised of bits of sand and glass the consistency of talcum powder, compromises visibility for pilots and aircraft engines.


The Vancouver International Airport is recommending that passengers with flights scheduled for European destinations check the YVR website (yvr.ca) or with their airlines to stay updated on flight status.


With files from The Canadian Press

http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local...lled_100415/20100415?hub=BritishColumbia

[Yume-sama]

Hah. I loved one experts opinion when he was asked when the eruption will end.

"History tells us anywhere from a few hours to several thousand years"

Sorry, no flights to Europe for 10,000 years

[Locked In]

Apparently the last time this volcano erupted it continued to pour out ash for 18 months. How on earth would they deal with that?

[Locked In]

double post

[Yume-sama]

Build a cross ocean maglev!!

Well, if it were to last thousands of years.

[SpongeG]

people they showed on global news were not happy - the one woman was like i wanna go home now not on sunday or monday!

um did you not pay attention to the volcano and europe being shut down to air traffic?

[MalcolmTucker]

Fly to Spain and train? Develop much higher altitude airplanes? Fit aircraft with a more advanced radar to help steer around ash.

Best idea is to just wait I guess, soon air lines will be flying again to the continent at least (Frankfurt), will just have to take a much longer route.