Calgary International Airport II

[Pegasus]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

Yes...

Construction work affecting the Lounge is expected to last 18 months, so we’ve taken this opportunity to give our Maple Leaf Lounge a makeover! When all this is over in September 2015, we’ll be serving up a brand new expanded Maple Leaf Lounge with new features and enhanced amenities to serve you better than ever.

Yes, expanded and enhanced, but nothing too descriptive.

They have also had to put restrictions on guests and lounge pass usage during this period due to the temporary reduction in size.

Somebody on flyertalk posted this photo of the floorplan of the expanded lounge upon completion.

http://instagram.com/p/qXwd89prXx/

Does anyone know if there are there any plans to have a Maple Leaf lounge inside the new US departure area? Or at least "free passes" for coffee at Starbucks

[Cage]

Originally Posted by Pegasus

Does anyone know if there are there any plans to have a Maple Leaf lounge inside the new US departure area? Or at least "free passes" for coffee at Starbucks

Nothing definitive, but the situation is grim chance there will be a MLL in the new international terminal.

The biggest leading indicator that AC will maintain one MLL for YYC is the current MLL is being greatly expanded to handle the current requirements. Additionally, I had several conversation with AC head honchos that lead me to believe there will not be an MLL for Transborder or International operations. From an international traffic perspective, there is insufficient number of flights and business class seats to warrant an MLL. From Transborder traffic perspective, there is insufficient demand on pure AC perspective to warrant MLL. In order to get transborder lounge, AC would have to partner with UA. The problem with UA is that their lounge privileges for north America are highly restrictive for their own elites (due an American legacy corporate policy whereby frequent travelers can expense the annual lounge membership fees - there is a large revenue source for the American airlines. However, when in Canada, UA has a hard time getting Canadian's to reciprocate and buy additional services (economy plus, premier access, lounge membership).

In AC defense, the airport is not incentivized to providing lounges, simply put, the airport loses out on Duty Free, Retail, and Food & Beverage revenue for each passenger that uses an airline provided lounge. This lost revenue has to be made up by surcharging the lease rates. Gone are the days when airports would cut a deal with airlines for cheap lease rates at the lounge. To make matters worse for the airports, their best high value customers skip over the airport revenue generators to spend maximum time in the lounge.

Not all is lost on prospect for MLL in new terminal. There is precedent with YOW whereby the airport played hardball on providing for a MLL in the new terminal. For the first few years the YOW MLL was located in the old terminal. YOW Airports original plan was for a common use airport provided lounge so the airport could get additional revenue. The Ottawa Lounge plan failed and the airport went back to AC to put in a proper MLL.

Finally, from my source at AC, the MLL design team is tapped out right now. They have new lounges in FRA, LHR, and LGA plus refurbishments in YVR and YUL. The MLL design team also had to coordinate with the 787 interior design team, the 777 business class refurbishment teams, and 737 interior design team as the 787 project is completed.

[Jay in Cowtown]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

And LGA is the worst of the bunch imo.

Yup, very much so!

I wish Westjet hadn't of dropped Newark... I hate AC's departure out of there.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

And LGA is the worst of the bunch imo.

Originally Posted by Jay in Cowtown

Yup, very much so!

I wish Westjet hadn't of dropped Newark... I hate AC's departure out of there.

EWR with only one runway operational is the worst for NYC area airports. The other runway is being renovated all summer long.

The advantage to EWR is UA hub plus ease of access using the PATH train plus link train (which is also temporarily inoperative due to maintenance).

The advantage to LGA is ease of access to Manhattan.

The advantage of JFK is new terminal 4 (plus the improvements made by DL) and JetBlue's terminal 5 (there are a number of innovations that make this terminal unique - best among them is a Sunterra like market in the food court, build you own salad and fresh prepared meals).

EWR lack of runway capacity is its biggest downfall.

For LGA the biggest downfall is old cramped terminals plus near constant delays and inefficient operations.

For JFK, access from Manhattan is the biggest deterrent. Followed a close second by multi-terminal operations that do not permit alliances to be co-located.

[CorporateWhore]

As someone who lived in and flies back to NYC all the time, I always prefer LGA over the others. It's a total 3rd-world shithole, but it's a small shithole, so the fastest and easiest to get in and out of. It's also the closest to the city, so has the cheapest cab rides.

JFK is the nicest, but it's really really far away from the city (so expensive to cab it) and the traffic there/back can be horrendous. That and my flight almost always has delays (usually something to do with taxing or getting out of the gate).

Personally I hate going to EWR. Everything I want to do or be at is on the NY side (that's also a more general personal philosophy, ha), so the journey from EWR is always way too long. Sure you can take the trains, but if you have a lot of luggage, they can be a pain in the 🞵🞵🞵🞵. Plus the place always seems to have annoyingly long security lines, and not much to do on the other side.

[VIce]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

LOT 787 action again today, couldn't stick around for the Pullmantur 744 unfortunately

Saw another on my way out the door today

[Bigtime]

Yup, came in around 1pm. Scheduled to depart any minute but I don't see it on Flightradar24 yet.

[Canadian74]

How come I don't get any Flightaware alerts even though I have them set up to email if any 787 arrives in YYC.

[Nick]

Do your updates cover the B789 type? This one's AC type designator was B789

[Canadian74]

I have aircraft type set as "787". I also have an alert for "777" but I only get KLM 772 alerts and no Air Canada 77W alerts.

Edit: Changed the aircraft type to "B788" and added new alerts for "B77W" and "B789". Hopefully they work next time.

[Bigtime]

A few of the LOT inbound flights have been funny and not shown up, yet every single AC 787 flight has sent an alert to me.

FlightAware still not perfect with some of the international flights, but it's still so much better than used to be. YYC used to just be a "this is outside of FA's area" or whatever the message was and everything was a complete toss up.

[Canadian74]

Any other websites?

[Bigtime]

You could always look at Flightradar24 to see flights in the air. You can add filters and only view specific types, airlines, etc. So you could select only 788's and zoom out to the whole world and see every one in the air within coverage range.

Anything with ASD-B (so anything European, and as far as I can tell all Air Canada heavies) will work much better on FR24.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by Cage

WS requires swing gates for operational purposes and not for customer convenience.

To give some perspective on the efficiency impact of swing gates. In JetBlue instance the implementation of T5i international wing with 5 gates for international arrivals will increase fleet efficiency by 1 aircraft equivalent because Jetblue will no longer have to tow aircraft from T4. The running cost for their 320s is about $50 million USD.

Kennedy comes across as a disaster to me. The amount of time they have to spend waiting to get cleared into the ramp because a bunch of guys are coming out... seems like a very inefficient airport.

[Bokimon]

^ Yeh I think its high time The PANY does something about this. With over 50 million pax travelling between the airports each year, they need to build a high speed rail express to link all 3 airports to Penn Station or Grand Central Terminal. That would certainly help numb the existing pain of the NYC airports vast operational inefficiencies.

Other than that, more 787s trickling in probably a few more times this month plus a SATA joining in on the mix. More charters like these please! Bring back the Tristar Gloryhole..

[DIESEL]

Antonov 124 coming in tonight from the NASA landing Facility

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/VDA4271

[lubicon]

Well the 🞵🞵🞵🞵 weather last night sure made for a great airshow! Took my son to the driving range at Harvest Hills and everyone launching off 35L was doing an immediate left turn as soon as they were airborne. They were still south of the driving range by the time they made the turn which is pretty impressive once you realize where that is. You don't see that too often.