YVR Airport & Sea Island Developments Discussion

[ACT7]

Originally Posted by trofirhen

I thought that one of the main reasons the Gulf carriers; not only Emirates, but also Qatar Airways, were being kept out of YVR and YYC was so that they couldn't jump in first and siphon off the market to India.

I heard that AC was waiting to acquire 787 metal for just such a route as YVR-DEL. Maybe I'm wrong, but other than EK putting their cards on the table and revealing they were after YYZ daily, (not YVR nor YYC), Qatar Airways also mentioned - in a presss release, somewhere -- that they wanted not only YUL, but of course YYZ and also Western Canada (presumably YYC and YVR).

The whole "flights to India" thing seems cryptic to me.

I do think the 'India thing' is a bit of smokescreen sometimes. It's true that the loads are predominantly sub-continent on EK and EY out of YYZ, but it is a low yield market and almost every NA carrier has failed miserably at making a go of it. I could see the 787 making it the most efficient but I still think it's a money losing venture. AI can't even seem to make money on NA and they probably have the lowest cost structure of any airline offering the service. True, they're a mess in general but still.

Either way, YVR won't see AC operate to DEL before YYZ-DEL is fully operational and stable. Remember that AC is having a hard time making Asia work out of YVR and that is a much higher yielding, higher load market for Vancouver.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by Gordon

If AC has the choice the would likely run the service out of Toronto.

Does SFO or LAX have good service to India?

Along with Air India, which flew out of YYZ many years, and is returning next March, to both Armritsar and Delhi, as well as Jet Airways to Delhi?
If AC used 787s, from YYZ) would this mean over the Pole, therefore more economical, or exactly what?

And what happened to that talk of YVR - India service? It was mentioned earlier on in the thread

[ACT7]

Originally Posted by trofirhen

Along with Air India, which flew out of YYZ many years, and is returning next March, to both Armritsar and Delhi, as well as Jet Airways to Delhi?
If AC used 787s, from YYZ) would this mean over the Pole, therefore more economical, or exactly what?

And what happened to that talk of YVR - India service? It was mentioned earlier on in the thread

I personally think AC has been playing the YVR card for a long time to give the appearance of not focusing almost exclusively on YYZ. If you look at the AC destination list out of YVR, it's skeletal at best, especially when you consider the fact that YVR is supposedly a hub for AC. It's really more of a decently serviced focus city. These are not the actions of an airline looking to 'fortify Vancouver as a hub' to use their words. My opinion is that YVR-DEL is not on the table for the foreseeable future - at least not with Air Canada.

[Valley_Refugee]

Is it more probable that airllines using this the 787 will fly into Vancouver? Has not AC placed an order (or was that just speculation)?
Where would possible destinations for the Boeing 787 be, out of YVR?

Yes, it has been widely known for a very long time that AC has 37 firm orders for 787s, delivery starting 2014. The company has said most major Canadian airports will see 787 service. The 787s will largely be replacing 767s at first.

[casper]

Originally Posted by ACT7

I personally think AC has been playing the YVR card for a long time to give the appearance of not focusing almost exclusively on YYZ. If you look at the AC destination list out of YVR, it's skeletal at best, especially when you consider the fact that YVR is supposedly a hub for AC. It's really more of a decently serviced focus city. These are not the actions of an airline looking to 'fortify Vancouver as a hub' to use their words. My opinion is that YVR-DEL is not on the table for the foreseeable future - at least not with Air Canada.

The american airlines have this fascination with the concept of hubs where every flight is to/from a hub. I think both Air Canada and WestJet are more focused on making money and if they have a competitive advantage flying from/to Vancouver they probably will. They fly to Asian, Hawaii and Australian from Vancouver because they can make money doing it. They fly from Toronto to some Asia destinations because it is a shorter route from most destinations in the East that connect via Toronto.

From Saskatoon as an example I have access to direct-non-stop flights to Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. If they followed the American hub model I would have to connect through Calgary and Toronto to go anywhere.

Over the last three years, Air Canada, as examples, has introduced new routes to Europe from Montreal, a new Edmonton to London route; a new Calgary to Tokyo route and a new Ottawa to Frankfurt route. The Saskatoon and Regina to Ottawa route is also new. They are not exclusively focused on the Toronto hub.

I suspect the problem for Air Canada from Vancouver is there are few new East-West connections they can make in Vancouver that don't involve competing against an Asian airline.

[ACT7]

Originally Posted by casper

The american airlines have this fascination with the concept of hubs where every flight is to/from a hub. I think both Air Canada and WestJet are more focused on making money and if they have a competitive advantage flying from/to Vancouver they probably will. They fly to Asian, Hawaii and Australian from Vancouver because they can make money doing it. They fly from Toronto to some Asia destinations because it is a shorter route from most destinations in the East that connect via Toronto.

From Saskatoon as an example I have access to direct-non-stop flights to Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. If they followed the American hub model I would have to connect through Calgary and Toronto to go anywhere.

Over the last three years, Air Canada, as examples, has introduced new routes to Europe from Montreal, a new Edmonton to London route; a new Calgary to Tokyo route and a new Ottawa to Frankfurt route. The Saskatoon and Regina to Ottawa route is also new. They are not exclusively focused on the Toronto hub.

I suspect the problem for Air Canada from Vancouver is there are few new East-West connections they can make in Vancouver that don't involve competing against an Asian airline.

I don't entirely disagree with you but a hub system for airlines is essential to make money or it wouldn't have evolved the way it has over the last half century. Point-to-point traffic can be minimal in most cases - how do you think ATL developed into the hub it has become? It's not because everyone wants to visit Atlanta or that it has more business traffic than other U.S. cities.

AC has focused on YYZ because it is very simply the largest market in Canada and has 100 million to draw from within a 2 1/2 hour flight. It's very deliberate effort to ramp up U.S. flights to use YYZ as a connection has worked extremely well as is evidenced by the growth in transborder and international pax traffic.

Yes, AC can make money on flights from YVR to SYD but that flight also starts and ends in YYZ, so absent that leg, it remains to be seen how viable the trans-pacific leg would be on its own. The same holds true for YYC-NRT. Not saying that it wouldn't be viable, but unless AC drops the YYZ portion, we'll never know.

[Valley_Refugee]

From Saskatoon as an example I have access to direct-non-stop flights to Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. If they followed the American hub model I would have to connect through Calgary and Toronto to go anywhere.

AC is perhaps slightly less spoke driven than American carriers, BUT I have to disagree with you...Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver are all Air Canada hubs or focus cities and Saskatoon is a sizeable city (for Canada). If you take an airport like Kansas City, Delta offers service to Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, La Guardia, Salt Lake City, Cincinnati...all of which are DL hubs or focus cities. See the comparison? If Saskatoon had a direct flight to Prince George or Thunder Bay or Quebec City, your point would be stronger.

Outside the 8 largest airports - the six above plus Montreal and Halifax - AC offers few point to point flights. Indeed, Winnipeg and Edmonton are barely focus cities. AC is largely a traditional hub and spoke airline.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by ACT7

I personally think AC has been playing the YVR card for a long time to give the appearance of not focusing almost exclusively on YYZ. If you look at the AC destination list out of YVR, it's skeletal at best, especially when you consider the fact that YVR is supposedly a hub for AC. It's really more of a decently serviced focus city. These are not the actions of an airline looking to 'fortify Vancouver as a hub' to use their words. My opinion is that YVR-DEL is not on the table for the foreseeable future - at least not with Air Canada.

Thank you for that feedback. I know these are difficult economic times, but I still think YYZ dominates everything - sometimes unecessarily - and that, as you say, Vancouver is really more of a "decently serviced focus city."

It's a real drag, and is a Canadian syndrome that goes on and on and on. Like a chameleon, it changes colours, but it's always there: the hegemony of YYZ and AC backing it up.

[moosejaw]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

I believe Korean is still planning to fly the A388 to ATL in the near future.

Its scheduled for 2013 but they still have to widen the existing taxiways and they still need a jetway which i haven't seen done yet at that terminal. ATL is a ver congested airport, not a lot of room. Funny this article discusses how the A380 is impacting US airports

http://www.thestreet.com/story/11450450/...-squeezes-into-the-us-airline-model.html

[deasine]

Originally Posted by ACT7

I do think the 'India thing' is a bit of smokescreen sometimes. It's true that the loads are predominantly sub-continent on EK and EY out of YYZ, but it is a low yield market and almost every NA carrier has failed miserably at making a go of it. I could see the 787 making it the most efficient but I still think it's a money losing venture. AI can't even seem to make money on NA and they probably have the lowest cost structure of any airline offering the service. True, they're a mess in general but still.

Either way, YVR won't see AC operate to DEL before YYZ-DEL is fully operational and stable. Remember that AC is having a hard time making Asia work out of YVR and that is a much higher yielding, higher load market for Vancouver.

Agreed. 787 only reduces a cost of business, but it isn't eliminating the cost entirely.

The North America to India direct scenario is similar to UK/Europe to Australia. It's not that it's not possible to fly direct or via another city between the two destinations, but it's about profitability and margins. Many carriers have been slowly pulling out or reducing its service in the Europe/Australia market because it's just not making that much money. Often times, a business class ticket to Sydney via Singapore from London on BA is not much more expensive than a ticket from London to New York. That's a lot less distance to cover: lower costs, more capacity for other routes. Similarly, North America to India is a pretty long distance, and with that capacity dedicated to these routes, one could probably deploy more service on another shorter route and make more money.

There's a reason why Jet Airways runs all its business from India to North America via Brussels.

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

Pretty surprised the business isn't there considering the amount of Aussies that come up here, the amount of Canadians that go down there and the deep business connections between Vancouver and Australia due to their shared mining focuses.

Oh there's quite a bit: YVR-SYD is also one of the hardest routes to upgrade with points/eUpgrade certificates on AC. In fact AC is upgrading the capacity to 10 weekly between YVR and SYD for a short duration in the winter season to take advantage of Australians and their Christmas/Summer vacation and the ski season out here in the Northern Hemisphere. NZ is also increasing the flights up to the west coast destinations, including Vancouver.

QF won't fly to YVR, and really I think QFs situation, they've dug themselves a hole they can't fly out of. At one point, they were pondering about purchasing some 777s, but decided to rely on A380s for their long-haul service. Everyone in the airline industry knows that the costs of flying A380s are extremely high (therefore, you have to achieve consistent high load factors), there are only certain routes that can sustain an A380, and they have a limited range compared to the 777s. Look, now QF has to partner with EK because its international division is doing so poorly. Moreover, they've cancelled their order on 787s (only Jetstar is going to take the first few 787s), which really reduces the hope of them flying to YVR.

[SpongeG]

i know someone who just went to palm springs for the weekend, her flight back went via edmonton with a layover, thats pretty weird - is that normal?

[twoNeurons]

Look at Europe. It's a bunch of countries with one major city:

France has Paris(10M), but how many flights go to Marseille or Lyon (1.6M ppl)?
Norway, Sweden and Finland only need to concentrate on one city, their capitals.
UK, a kingdom with 60M people, almost double the population of Canada only truly has London (10M).

Canada really only has 4 major cities. Vancouver, Calgary/Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal.

Yes, Canada is large enough (geographically) to have at least 3 airlines. However, politically, it is able to concentrate its efforts in one city. We can all imagine what it would be like to have BC Air, Air Alberta, Air Ontario and Quebecair, all with governments concentrated on local markets, because this is what it would likely be like if they were separate countries, but you can bet that if that were the case, direct flights from smaller markets like Victoria, Kelowna, Abbotsford, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, Ottawa and Quebec City would all be even more funneled to their local hub than they are now.

That being said, Vancouver's position on the edge of the Pacific does have specific advantages when flying to the Far East.

It's very much a hub and spoke system and would be even MORE hub and spoke were it not for the geographical challenges.

It is for this reason that Air Canada always feels pressure to consolidate in YYZ, but thankfully for Vancouver can't do it 100%.

[Gordon]

Has WestJet discontinued it's YVR - OrD Route completely or just for the summer Season?

[casper]

Originally Posted by ACT7

I don't entirely disagree with you but a hub system for airlines is essential to make money or it wouldn't have evolved the way it has over the last half century. Point-to-point traffic can be minimal in most cases - how do you think ATL developed into the hub it has become? It's not because everyone wants to visit Atlanta or that it has more business traffic than other U.S. cities.

AC has focused on YYZ because it is very simply the largest market in Canada and has 100 million to draw from within a 2 1/2 hour flight. It's very deliberate effort to ramp up U.S. flights to use YYZ as a connection has worked extremely well as is evidenced by the growth in transborder and international pax traffic.

Yes, AC can make money on flights from YVR to SYD but that flight also starts and ends in YYZ, so absent that leg, it remains to be seen how viable the trans-pacific leg would be on its own. The same holds true for YYC-NRT. Not saying that it wouldn't be viable, but unless AC drops the YYZ portion, we'll never know.

I am not suggesting that Air Canada is trying to be a point-to-point airlines. It obviously builds its schedules around connections occurring in major airports. It is not as focused on the hub-system as the US airlines. For example, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg and Vancouver are all major airports in the West where passengers make connections. In the East it is Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. In the US system a given airline would not have that many hubs that close together.

I have done the Geneva - Montreal - Toronto flight in the past and the fact you have to get off the plane, collect baggage, clear customs go through security again in Montreal basically means there is little difference between having both segments on the same flight number or not. I suspect it is the same for Vancouver. You might trick the odd passenger into thinking they are on the same flight but the frequent flyer knows better.

My experience is with Air Canada you end up with a single boarding pass and the same seat assignment for both segments. On United they don't even do that they issue two separate boarding passes sometimes with different seat assignments. I have done United on the Melbourne - Sydney - LAX flight (you also need to get off the plane in Sydney with all your bags and then take a different seat. I have also done United on the Chicago - Regina - Saskatoon route; that one is a little better in that United does not have rights to carry passengers between Regina and Saskatoon so you stay on the plane and clear customs on arrival in Saskatoon.

Getting back to Vancouver, I suspect Air Canada routes that flight to Toronto so it does not sit on the group in Vancouver waiting until it is time to turn it around and send it back to Sydney; instead it is making money with passengers heading back to Toronto and lets it rotate the aircraft with other planes for maintenance etc.

[Valley_Refugee]

Thank you for that feedback. I know these are difficult economic times, but I still think YYZ dominates everything - sometimes unecessarily - and that, as you say, Vancouver is really more of a "decently serviced focus city."

AC serves upwards of 45 destinations from Vancouver. Hardly a "decently served focus city." Last I checked, AC weekly departures from YVR were about half as many as from YYZ...not bad considering metro Vancouver is 1/3 the size and much more isolated from other population centres.

[Hourglass]

^

Not to mention that it is the 2nd-busiest hub in terms of number of weekly flights in Air Canada's network.

If you're comparing against Delta or United, it may seem a small number of flights by comparison, but then again, the US has 10x the population.

[deasine]

^Not to mention, DL and UA are practically the largest carriers in the world.

Originally Posted by casper

Getting back to Vancouver, I suspect Air Canada routes that flight to Toronto so it does not sit on the group in Vancouver waiting until it is time to turn it around and send it back to Sydney; instead it is making money with passengers heading back to Toronto and lets it rotate the aircraft with other planes for maintenance etc.

Not sure about your last part: it isn't typical for AC to replace the YVR-YYZ route on their HKG and SYD routes with another aircraft unless there was an unexpected maintenance issue.

[twoNeurons]

Originally Posted by casper

I am not suggesting that Air Canada is trying to be a point-to-point airlines. It obviously builds its schedules around connections occurring in major airports. It is not as focused on the hub-system as the US airlines. For example, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg and Vancouver are all major airports in the West where passengers make connections. In the East it is Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. In the US system a given airline would not have that many hubs that close together.

You make some good points, but I don't think the comparison with the US is completely sound.

Edmonton and Winnipeg are about as major an airport as Portland or Sacramento. There are very few overseas flights. You have to go through SFO, LAX or SEA. Calgary has more flights but serves a strong and wealthy business community and is within reasonable driving distance of 2 million people. Even still, there aren't too many flight options over an ocean.

Winnipeg and Calgary/Edmonton mostly have flights due to the geographical challenges of Canada being short and wide, population-wise. Driving to a BIG city isn't all that feasible.

I'd be inclined to agree with you when it comes to transfers, although I believe I still get two boarding passes on AC.

[ACT7]

Originally Posted by Valley_Refugee

AC serves upwards of 45 destinations from Vancouver. Hardly a "decently served focus city." Last I checked, AC weekly departures from YVR were about half as many as from YYZ...not bad considering metro Vancouver is 1/3 the size and much more isolated from other population centres.

Well I wouldn't call 45 destinations a hub - maybe a strong focus city. 17 of those are Jazz flights to regional destinations, mainly BC, and another 6-8 are domestic. And how many of those weekly departures are YYZ and YYC?

[Klazu]

Originally Posted by ACT7

Well I wouldn't call 45 destinations a hub - maybe a strong focus city. 17 of those are Jazz flights to regional destinations, mainly BC, and another 6-8 are domestic. And how many of those weekly departures are YYZ and YYC?

You are correct that most of the AC destinations from YVR are definitely local inside BC, and YVR is only the third best served city after YYZ and YUL. It's very obvious when you look at the route map they have on their magazine. From their online route map it's not that obvious, as you can't have more than one city selected at once.