YEG - Edmonton Int Airport

[Hallsy's Toupee]

Halifax is the main hub for the Maritimes, which is about 2 million people. Throw in Newfoundland and that's another 500,000 people.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by LO 044

I see Halifax has AC LHR service, TS LGW service, Cubana Havana, Santa Clara and Holguin service, Condor FRA service and FI KEF service. Now THAT is what i call impressive connections for a City with a population just under 400,000 people. If Tom takes requests, mine would be Condor service to FRA.

All services you mentioned are seasonal with exception of AC LHR, which is less than daily in the winter.

The catchment area for YHZ is closing in on 2 million as they can lay claim to all of NS, NB, PEI.

However the biggest reason why YHZ works but not YEG is the n/s stage length is half the distance. Makes the European routes mor profitable at lower yields. Additionally the connection options have a big backtrack and consequently time disadvantage to the n/ s services.

[Rocket252]

WestJet to Launch Ireland Service from June 2014
by JL
Update at 1420GMT 15NOV13

WestJet in Summer 2014 season will be expanding its operation to Europe for the first time, offering Toronto – St. John’s – Dublin service on board Boeing 737-700 aircraft. This route to operate from 15JUN14 to 04OCT14 (from Canada).

WS016 YYZ1715 – 2143YYT2315 – 0700+1DUB 73W D
WS017 DUB0820 – 0955YYT1125 – 1321YYZ 73W D

[LO 044]

^Rocket you beat me to it. I find this route very surprising. I didn't even think any of WS 737's are ETOPS equipped.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by LO 044

^Rocket you beat me to it. I find this route very surprising. I didn't even think any of WS 737's are ETOPS equipped.

Pretty sure they have to be to operate YVR-Hawaii.

[Rocket252]

This is an interesting step for Westjet. They certainly want to extend out to Europe but are limited in range. The logical next step for them would be to go with 787s which we hope would allow flights out of YEG.

[s211]

Originally Posted by LO 044

The moral of the story is that no aircraft will be waiting very long to depart YEG even if the 3rd runway isn't built for 100 years.

This.

[Hallsy's Toupee]

I first misread the Dublin flight as a direct from YEG. But upon closer reading, the only directs are from Toronto and St. John's...everyone else has to connect in T.O. including Cowtown.

[Bigtime]

Correct it is a "direct" flight from YYZ, stopping in YYT and then continuing on to Dublin.

[Rocket252]

Why Dublin?

Any special significance with choosing this destination?

Flight distance perhaps?

[dansk]

Ryan Air is based there. They make mention to the low cost in their news release.

[Daveography]

^ That would be my guess too; super-cheap Ryanair connections.

[lubicon]

Originally Posted by LO 044

^Rocket you beat me to it. I find this route very surprising. I didn't even think any of WS 737's are ETOPS equipped.

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Pretty sure they have to be to operate YVR-Hawaii.

Bigtime is correct.

[cyeg66]

Originally Posted by s211

This.

Time, space, and sheer lack of give-a-shit'tedness to the subject matter preclude my delving into a particularly boring and technical discussion about how surprisingly soon the runway *may be* needed. I agree that it's not needed in the near term, but it goes a little bit beyond airfield layout. One stroke of a pen by some dillhole in YOW is all that's required to seriously hamper YEG. One thing's for certain, someday, it'll be needed. At the very least, acquire the space for its eventual construction. Not too terribly costly in the interim.

For LO 044's sake, my YYC reference was a poke at the CAA and how they successfully lobbied NavCan to be 'inventive' in maximizing the current runways and putting off building a parallel for the better part of 20 years. I forget what the actual number was, but something like only 2 or 3 of the 50 busiest airports in N. America had more movements than YYC and didnt have parallel runways. LGA and DCA were two of them. I think there was another. In due time, YEG will find itself in the same boat, with similar traffic levels to YYC today. With YXD closing, the gap is narrowing a little.

Edit:Nope, checked the top-50 list, just LGA and DCA, heavily slot-constrained airports.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by Rocket252

Why Dublin?

Any special significance with choosing this destination?

Flight distance perhaps?

IATA slot conference is going on yesterday to tomorrow, DUB is a slot controlled airport so WS obviously got their DUB slot pair from this conference.

DUB only special significance is that WS was able to get a slot pair where as they were not able to get a slot pair at other airports. Specifically LGW, perhaps WS was not able to convince their codeshare partners to give or sell WS a slot pair. I am kind of shocked that BA did not let WS trial YYZ-YYT-LHR.

Originally Posted by dansk

Ryan Air is based there. They make mention to the low cost in their news release.

Yes there is a lot of low cost at DUB, however Euro LCC do not codeshare or interline with anyone and their fee structure is very anti-tourist (for example only one small personal item allowed as carryon, must be under 10lbs, fees for checkin and boarding card generation at the airport, no sympathy for delayed flights must buy whole new ticket and old ticket is wasted money).

[LO 044]

Originally Posted by Cage

IATA slot conference is going on yesterday to tomorrow, DUB is a slot controlled airport so WS obviously got their DUB slot pair from this conference.

DUB only special significance is that WS was able to get a slot pair where as they were not able to get a slot pair at other airports. Specifically LGW, perhaps WS was not able to convince their codeshare partners to give or sell WS a slot pair. I am kind of shocked that BA did not let WS trial YYZ-YYT-LHR.

Yes there is a lot of low cost at DUB, however Euro LCC do not codeshare or interline with anyone and their fee structure is very anti-tourist (for example only one small personal item allowed as carryon, must be under 10lbs, fees for checkin and boarding card generation at the airport, no sympathy for delayed flights must buy whole new ticket and old ticket is wasted money).

Cage i couldn't agree with you more. It would have been very interesting to see WS compete directly with AC on that route.

And for the LCC carriers that is correct. You get what you pay for and on the low cost flights you really pay for it in extras. I've tried so many combinations flying YEG-LHR and then connecting to a low cost carrier and that's not even for the cost but so i could get to an airport i wanted to go to and it still never made sense.

Originally Posted by cyeg66

In due time, YEG will find itself in the same boat, with similar traffic levels to YYC today. With YXD closing, the gap is narrowing a little.

Really? I would be quite shocked at this seeing the whole state of YEG vs YYC current operations. Saying that, what are the typical amount of aircraft movements for YEG and YYC? Is this information available directly from both airports' webpages? If YEG traffic matches YYC traffic in due time would it not be wise of YYC to be looking at a 3rd runway? Just sayin.

[LO 044]

A bit off topic but an interesting story.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/birth-of-baby-boy-diverts-plane-to-yellowknife-1.2426993

More interesting is that the captain of the flight made some comments to the story.

Peter van Heijst

Ladies and gentlemen,

Since I was the captain on this flight, I'd like to give some background info.

The Syrian lady started her trip out of Istanbul, Turkey. She had told KLM that she was 6 months pregnant. My decision to divert was based on this information. Yellowknife gave us a 40 minutes gain. I would like to thank the doctors on board and the people at Yellowknife for their support.
Since the baby was born in the air, in a Dutch registered plane, he formally was born in The Netherlands. And Dutch law says the nationality of a baby is the nationality of the mother. So Mohamed is a Syrian boy.

Best regards.

I had always thought that flying over the airspace of a country would deem a new baby a citizen of that country. I guess you learn something new every day.

[Bigtime]

Very interesting, and always cool for the pilot to comment and give some great information in the process!

[cyeg66]

Originally Posted by LO 044

Really? I would be quite shocked at this seeing the whole state of YEG vs YYC current operations. Saying that, what are the typical amount of aircraft movements for YEG and YYC? Is this information available directly from both airports' webpages? If YEG traffic matches YYC traffic in due time would it not be wise of YYC to be looking at a 3rd runway? Just sayin.

For comparison, YEG was only around 110K movements in 2005, when traffic was more split between it and YXD. In 2012, it was about 142k and should increase to (by my guesstimates) 155k in 2013 (YTD growth in the 9% range). I think we'll see closer to 170k in 2014, possibly higher. In the 2020-25 window, prob close to 200k. All depends.

YYC, by contrast, was approx 250k in 2005 (had a greater mix of VFR then) and is today at about 242k. (YTD growth under 1%). Incidentally, of the major airports in Canada (excl. Ft. Mac) only YEG (9%), YVR (2%), and YYC (1%) are posting an increase in movements.

You can check it all out in TC web pages. Search "TP 141" (monthly figs) or "TP 577" (annual) and it breaks it down for you. You can learn a bit as to what mix of traffic an airport plays host to. Quite telling, actually.

[dansk]

Thanks ^ good figures.