YEG - Edmonton International Airport Part III - Page 3

EdmTrekker · #41 Posted **Mar 10, 2014, 6:54 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by CMD UW

^I dont think so. I think LHR will continue to be a popular route.

We will know soon enough...and I hope your right and that FI flights are strong as well.

hilman · #42 Posted **Mar 10, 2014, 6:55 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by EdmTrekker

Good Morning,
Edmonton International Airport
Passenger Statistics for February 2014

February Highlights
Overall 567,439 passengers (1,151,355 Year-to-date)
Domestic 392,278 passengers (801,334 Year-to-date)
Transborder 123,450 passengers (242,064 Year-to-date)
International 51,711 passengers (107,957 Year-to-date)
Rolling-12-Month 7,041,317 passengers

Growth%
Overall 4.8% (5.3% Year-to-date)
Domestic 4.3% (4.7% Year-to-date)
Transborder 6.0% (6.2% Year-to-date)
International (5.4%) (8.0% Year-to-date)
Rolling-12-Month 5.0%

Looks like they erroneously have the international as a negative for the overall growth (49,058 passengers in Feb 2013), it should be +5.4 %.

Nice numbers, I just got back from Phoenix and the US Airways flights were full both ways (including first class).

EdmTrekker · #43 Posted **Mar 10, 2014, 7:02 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by hilman

Looks like they erroneously have the international as a negative for the overall growth, it should be +5.4 %.

Nice numbers, I just got back from Phoenix and the US Airways flights were full both ways (including first class).

2nd month they made errors...someone needs to be held accountable for releasing info that has not had second set of eyes prior to release?

hilman · #44 Posted **Mar 10, 2014, 7:06 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by EdmTrekker

2nd month they made errors...someone needs to be held accountable for releasing info that has not had second set of eyes prior to release?

I agree, I emailed them on both occasions, the lesson should have been made on this release.

Coldrsx · #45 Posted **Mar 10, 2014, 7:48 PM**

Has anyone advised them of this error?

hilman · #46 Posted **Mar 10, 2014, 8:48 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

Has anyone advised them of this error?

I have emailed Linda Li on both occasions.

mode · #47 Posted **Mar 11, 2014, 4:31 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by EdmTrekker

We will know soon enough...and I hope your right and that FI flights are strong as well.

I think the Air Canada Heathrow service will continue to do well, but I am not optimistic that will help the route stay. Forgive me for expatiating a bit. From the Edmonton point of view the problem is that Air Canada operates a Hub-and-Spoke airline model. For this model to work very well all flights must go through the hub. This maximizes destinations and load factors, and maximizes yield on a system wide basis. Air Canada's hub is at Toronto, although they also have little hublets at Montreal, Calgary, and Vancouver. Non-hub routes like the Edmonton-Heathrow one work against their business plan and they are always looking for ways to reduce them.

Consider the nonsense we heard that the reason the winter Heathrow service was suspended was because it was not profitable. Air Canada loses tons of money every winter. All their routes lose money. Just this week it was announced that Air Canada's system wide transatlantic load factor for February was barely 65 per cent. If they suspend flights when they are unprofitable they would have to shut the whole airline down each winter. However, they can and do remove some capacity, and non-hub routes like Edmonton-Heathrow are the first to go. Notice that they lose very little revenue this way. Every passenger can be placed on a connecting flight through a hub; there is lots of spare capacity. Even if the Edmonton flight was totally booked all year round it would still make sense to them to axe it and route everyone through the hub. I fear next winter the same thing will happen, unless the airport coughs up some money in incentives.

Having said this, there is still hope. The logic of the hub model breaks done a bit in the presence of competition. I see two main rays of sunshine from the Icelandair entry. First, whereas the Air Canada Heathrow flight operates against their business model and they are always looking for a way to stop it, The Icelandair flight exactly fits the business model of that airline and they are motivated to have it succeed. Icelandair is a small airline and cannot possibly provide all Edmonton's European needs, but they may give Air Canada pause the next time they consider reducing service. Secondly, and in my opinion more importantly, the Icelandair launch seems to have gone very well. I wish we had better sources of information, but I suspect loads will be very good. Word gets around, and other European airlines may move Edmonton up their prospects list. Even if progress is slow on this, Air Canada may be motivated to solidify the Heathrow flight just to keep British Airways out!

There are many other issues to discuss, as I think Edmonton's air service prospects over the next 10 to 15 years are interesting. Sorry to waste bandwidth.

deeb · #48 Posted **Mar 11, 2014, 6:16 AM**

What I don't understand (and maybe some of you know more about this than I do) is why YEG can't get a flight to FRA on Lufthansa? Is it because of their alliance with Air Canada and them being told basically to "stay out"? I understand that their YYC flight was pulled but that can be attributed to AC also running a FRA flight (along with the several other flights to Europe on various airlines from YYC).

In my opinion, this is the connection to Europe that YEG needs. A summer seasonal A330 direct to FRA would run with excellent load factors would it not? I think that FRA makes way more sense over LHR due to a few reasons:
1. Connections at FRA are very efficient and you would be one stop to practically anywhere in the world (LHR connections are a hassle on AC as usually they require a terminal change).
2. FRA would provide us with a direct European connection to the Star Alliance network (last year to get to Rome I had to fly YEG-LHR-FRA-FCO).
3. Probably more of a personal thing, but I've always enjoyed the LH product and prefer to fly with them over AC.

Anyways, I think we could easily fill a ~220pax aircraft daily to FRA without hurting Air Canada's precious hubs.

tuffyy · #49 Posted **Mar 11, 2014, 6:50 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by deeb

What I don't understand (and maybe some of you know more about this than I do) is why YEG can't get a flight to FRA on Lufthansa? Is it because of their alliance with Air Canada and them being told basically to "stay out"? I understand that their YYC flight was pulled but that can be attributed to AC also running a FRA flight (along with the several other flights to Europe on various airlines from YYC).

In my opinion, this is the connection to Europe that YEG needs. A summer seasonal A330 direct to FRA would run with excellent load factors would it not? I think that FRA makes way more sense over LHR due to a few reasons:
1. Connections at FRA are very efficient and you would be one stop to practically anywhere in the world (LHR connections are a hassle on AC as usually they require a terminal change).
2. FRA would provide us with a direct European connection to the Star Alliance network (last year to get to Rome I had to fly YEG-LHR-FRA-FCO).
3. Probably more of a personal thing, but I've always enjoyed the LH product and prefer to fly with them over AC.

Anyways, I think we could easily fill a ~220pax aircraft daily to FRA without hurting Air Canada's precious hubs.

Its because LH is a star Alliance partner and shares traffic on the AC YYC-FRA route. LH attempted to compliment the YYC route with its own flight but it was dropped due to low yields and over capacity on the route.

There is a thin margin for YYC-Europe traffic and at the moment it seems to be at just the right point, add anymore and traffic will begin to slow for one of the carriers in another case of over capacity.

BA is at the moment just keeping its head afloat in YYC and the 787 flights should help make the route more profitable, however with AC adding more seats on YYC-LHR with its 77W operations this summer it my well be the demise of BA at YYC.

I think YEG's best bet is to solidify a consistent year round YEG-LHR route with a carrier who will stick to the route (BA). As mentioned by MODE and others there are very few Transatlantic flights performing well at this time of the year. So AC's reasoning in the short suspension of the route made no sense to many directly involved in the industry infact it was laughable to many with any route knowledge and access to numbers.

I believe you will see the YEG-KEF flight move to daily sooner than later as it is proving to be a very popular flight for YEG-Europe connections as a number of people from other cities are also using the route to get to Europe.

Coldrsx · #50 Posted **Mar 11, 2014, 2:24 PM**

^concur, I see it as daily as well.

cyeg66 · #51 Posted **Mar 11, 2014, 3:20 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by tuffyy

BA is at the moment just keeping its head afloat in YYC and the 787 flights should help make the route more profitable, however with AC adding more seats on YYC-LHR with its 77W operations this summer it my well be the demise of BA at YYC.

Agree with everything else that you stated except perhaps for this. Keep in mind, I'm aware this is the YEG thread... AC sending the B77W to LHR ex-YYC isn't anything new, though it's true they hadn't 'bothered' to upgrade their service beyond an A333 for the last summer or two. BA sending new metal in the form of the B788, barring any further 787 embarrassments or technological catastrophes, should do well in attracting/maintaining fliers to try out their product on the new birds. They don't come cheap but they're a good airline with pretty good product, with the possibility to poach a few more AC customers if they can market the new plane properly. Speaking of which, it sure would be nice if BA would split flights YYC 4x and YEG 3x every week.

And when AC runs away crying from YEG (secretly celebrating that they can finally pull the flight), BA could then increase to daily at the behest of their YYC flights. EIA would hold a ticker tape parade.

Cage · #52 Posted **Mar 11, 2014, 3:57 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by hilman

I have emailed Linda Li on both occasions.

Might get a more immediate response from Ben Freeland. He's a pretty good guy and PR go getter. He also operates the FlyEIA twitter feed and their website.

hilman · #53 Posted **Mar 11, 2014, 4:09 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cage

Might get a more immediate response from Ben Freeland. He's a pretty good guy and PR go getter. He also operates the FlyEIA twitter feed and their website.

Linda is the one who emails out the passenger numbers every month.