Atlantic Canada airport thread

[Marty_Mcfly]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Probably because of the ill fated Pascan misadventure.....

I think it may be from this. But now is definitely the time to get a direct St. John's-Moncton flight from AC, WestJet, or Porter.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Marty_Mcfly

I think it may be from this. But now is definitely the time to get a direct St. John's-Moncton flight from AC, WestJet, or Porter.

Yes please!

[Marty_Mcfly]

Moncton's proximity to everything is a huge plus. I've been trying to plan the cheapest way to take a visit back to PEI this summer....so far my best option is to fly to Halifax and get a shuttle bus back and forth to Charlottetown. Flying into Charlottetown or Moncton connecting through Halifax is ~$800

[MonctonRad]

I e-mailed WestJet yesterday about establishing a link between Moncton and St. John's. This is what I said:

I have been following with interest the inauguration of your new international service from St. John's International Airport to Dublin, Ireland. I think this is a bold and innovative move on your part, and given the number of bookings on this flight already (including my wife and a friend of hers), I would say this is a great success for your airline. Congratulations!

I have also noted the musings on your part about additional international destinations, perhaps to Scandinavia or Paris, also served out of St. John's. If it is your intention to make St. John's an eastern hub for international operations (as it would allow you to use your standard 737's), then I say bravo. If this is indeed your intent, might I suggest that you think about improving connections to St. John's from elsewhere in Atlantic Canada. In particular, I think it is high time that you establish a direct connection between Moncton and St. John's, either with your main airline or with your new regional carrier.

WestJet already has great faith in the Greater Moncton International Airport, with daily direct flights to Toronto and seasonal direct flights to Hamilton and Orlando Florida.

I think there should be enough traffic for a St. John's route too, if you add student travel to/from Memorial University, business travel, Newfoundland ex pats returning home for visits and casual vacationers - especially if you factored in people wanting to connect to Europe via St. John's.

I think the time has indeed come to explore the establishment of a new direct service between the GMIA (Atlantic Canada's 3rd busiest airport) and the St. John's International Airport (Atlantic Canada's 2nd busiest airport). Thank you for reading my comments

This was their response:

I am glad that you took the time to suggest this to us.

WestJet is continually adding more routes and destinations as we grow. Feedback such as yours is invaluable in helping us to decide the best routes to increase frequency on or change from a touchdown flight to a non-stop flight.

I will definitely forward your suggestion to our marketing department for their use in future schedule changes.

Thanks for choosing WestJet!

Leah

Guest Relations Specialist

WestJet

A pretty generic response to be sure, but at least it's out there now. Perhaps if a few other forumers contacted them with similar comments, we might get the ball rolling. In particular, I think it would be useful if people said they would like a direct flight to St. John's so that they could make connections to Europe. I think that would pique WestJet's interest……

[SignalHillHiker]

Yeah, the Europe angle could help.

[jeddy1989]

and it's great for us! becoming a hub means better connections to connecting cities in Canada as well and lower prices making the island more accessible

[Marty_Mcfly]

If a direct Moncton-St. John's route gets made we're officially calling it the "Monctonrad route"

[ghYHZ]

Originally Posted by magee_b

Looks like NB is losing its' only direct link to a major US hub. Hopefully it won't be long until another carrier offers a direct flight.

Back in the 1990s there was extensive service between the Maritimes and Boston.

In the early ’90, Northwest Airlines (NE Express) had the Maritimes pretty well covered with routes between Boston and Moncton, Saint John, Fredericton, Charlottetown and Halifax. Moncton was particularly busy with up to five flights a day each way to/from Boston and some even up-gauged to Dash-8s.







After that……there were Delta flights on Business Express Airlines.







Now it seems that just about everything overflies BOS from YHZ going to LGA (DL) ATL (DL) DTW (DL) EWR (UA) IAD (UA) ORD (UA) PHL (US) DCA (US)…….and YQM to EWR on UA at least for a little while yet. Also summer service on DL between YYG & JFK.

The only service to Boston now is two Air Canada Express flights a day from Halifax.

And in Newfoundland.....business between St. John’s and Newark must be particularly good as it rates mainline United service on A319s and A320s where the Maritimes only see regional jets.

[Sunnybrae]

On a good note, I read this on the BNN website when Westjet reported there quarterly earnings in May....

"The carrier is also expanding its new regional subsidiary Encore into eastern Canada and has said it will offer nation-wide Encore service in 2015 and could push into U.S. markets by the end of that year."

Hopefully, Atlantic Canada well see some new routes open up.

[MonctonRad]

Interesting. Encore might be a possibility in terms of providing new cross border routes to Atlantic Canada's secondary centers. WestJet at least is not as tied to the hub-and-spoke model as Air Canada is.

Just imagine Encore routes out of the GMIA to Boston and/or NYC as well as to St. John's.

[JHikka]

Page 26 of the WestJet Scotiabank Transportation and Aerospace Conference in November 2013 lists the following locations as Potential Stations in the future for WestJet Encore (~2015):

Fredericton, NB
Gander, NL
Happy Valley-Goose Bay, NL
Labrador City, NL
Saint John, NB

The closest non-maritime Stations would be Sherbrooke & Boston. Service to Quebec City begins March 26, 2015.

[Sunnybrae]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Interesting. Encore might be a possibility in terms of providing new cross border routes to Atlantic Canada's secondary centers. WestJet at least is not as tied to the hub-and-spoke model as Air Canada is.

Just imagine Encore routes out of the GMIA to Boston and/or NYC as well as to St. John's.

Canada is too vast and the population too small to not use the hub and spoke system in my opinion. WestJet uses Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver as focus cities. Now if you really want to see some point to point, look at a Southwest Airlines route map. Sure they have some focus cities but they do some serious point to point flying.

[MonctonRad]

I'm not totally against the hub-and-spoke model, and I can see where it makes some sense, but there is certainly room for more point-to-point service in Canada as well.

For one thing, if the "hub" is shut down by weather etc, with the current model, the whole system is thrown into chaos.

Also, the hub-and-spoke system certainly helps to create winners and losers in the travel industry and can drive development and growth away from certain centres in favour of others……...

[Trevor3]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I e-mailed WestJet yesterday about establishing a link between Moncton and St. John's. This is what I said:



This was their response:



A pretty generic response to be sure, but at least it's out there now. Perhaps if a few other forumers contacted them with similar comments, we might get the ball rolling. In particular, I think it would be useful if people said they would like a direct flight to St. John's so that they could make connections to Europe. I think that would pique WestJet's interest……

Every little bit helps. We, as a town, inundated Porter with e-mails one year to the point they had to publicly come out and say they got the message, were aware of the demand, and that we had to stop because we were disrupting their customer service operation.

Next week Porter flies their first scheduled flight into YJT. So it worked. One of Brandon or Penticton did something similar and landed WestJet.

[Trevor3]

Porter Destination #20: Stephenville, NL! With this flight we now have direct flights to Halifax, Toronto City Centre and Ottawa, which also makes us the only airport other than St. John's to have a direct flight to Ottawa from the Rock, as well as flights to both YYZ and YTZ.

Water cannon serenade, the second truck is just out of frame on the left
10496144_10152135857765764_5380321955574133655_o

Red carpet treatment for the first flight
10483315_10152135862120764_3170111035310341989_o

And, safe to say she was packed! There is a baggage carousel in the middle of that room, somewhere.
10506722_10152135859790764_7294286287111452279_o
All three photos credited to Mr. John Doyle

A local travel agent recently advertised some fares they have book into Stephenville YJT this summer: Denver, Chicago, New York, Boston, Washington DC, New Orleans all under $1000 return; Toronto & Montreal under $600; Vancouver, Winnipeg and Edmonton all around $1000 return. Halifax is $300 return on Porter's website as of this posting time.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Originally Posted by Trevor3

A local travel agent recently advertised some fares they have book into Stephenville YJT this summer: Denver, Chicago, New York, Boston, Washington DC, New Orleans all under $1000 return; Toronto & Montreal under $600; Vancouver, Winnipeg and Edmonton all around $1000 return. Halifax is $300 return on Porter's website as of this posting time.

Those are actually some pretty good prices, definitely along the lines of what you'd see at YYT. Take advantage

[tekojim]

Non-stop flights between Greater Moncton International Airport and Miami being offered from February 8 to April 12, 2015, for Celebrity Cruises’ Caribbean cruise packages

www.cyqm.ca

[MonctonRad]

Interesting. Reading the press release, it sounds like this Moncton/Miami route will be exclusively for Celebrity Cruises customers. I wonder if this is indeed the case, or if other non cruise ship passengers will be allowed to fly to Miami as well. I wonder who the operator of this flight will be?

EDIT - there's something about this new service in the T&T today. The operator will be Canadian North, and will use one of their 737's. In addition to Moncton, Celebrity Cruises will also be using Halifax and a couple of Ontario cities as embarkation points. I get the impression that this service is designed only for cruise ship passengers.

It's an interesting concept. The package will be all inclusive right from the GMIA, including airport transfers to the cruise ship terminal in Miami, with the flights timed to maximize efficiency in getting you to your cruise ship. Sounds like a great concept.

[Walk then Run]

Not another low cost airlines

Any bets on how long this one may last? I give it two years tops! May give us another option if they mean Atlantic Canada when they say Eastern.

The low-cost carrier, set to launch in the spring of 2015, plans to service primarily airports west of Winnipeg, but also a few select others in Central and Eastern Canada

Full article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/jetlines-ceo-dave-solloway-pitches-new-low-cost-airline-1.2696615

[Walk then Run]

Originally Posted by Marty_Mcfly

If a direct Moncton-St. John's route gets made we're officially calling it the "Monctonrad route"

Well Monctonrad may just get his wish, I just noticed a survey on the GMIA website:

Research on Direct Air Access between Greater Moncton and St. John's, NL

The Greater Moncton International and St. John's International Airport Authorities are jointly undertaking a study on the viability of a DIRECT NON-STOP flight between St. John's and Greater Moncton. Your organization's participation in the project would be appreciated.

Take the flight route survey »

http://www.cyqm.ca/en/home/flightinformation/surveydetails.aspx