Calgary International Airport II

[Denscity]

Originally Posted by s211

Isn't B774 short for B777-400 series?

Admittedly, I'm an air newb so happy to be corrected.

That's what I was gonna say. Tho im no expert either.

No such thing as 777-400 series. He meant 744 = Boeing 747-400

[Canadian74]

YYZ growth is impressive. Hope it gets close to 41 million this year.

[Johnny Aussie]

Similar trends eventuating in Australia.

Airports with a heavier dependence on resource industries are starting to show declines. Those airports with a lesser dependency on mining / oil and gas still chugging a long quite well. Perth airport, for example, down over 3.6% in April. Brisbane showing signs of struggling with domestic numbers. Many intra-Queensland routes and many intra-Western Australia routes are trending down well over 10% and some down well over 20%. Northern Alberta seems to be showing similar signs of struggle. Just basic economics and supply and demand at work.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by Canadian74

YYZ growth is impressive. Hope it gets close to 41 million this year.

Toronto is absolutely legitimately a world city. It is the fourth largest in North America, and is a cultural hub by its diversity and connectedness. Often from Calgary's view point we list Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver together as the big three, but in reality, it is Toronto and then Montreal and Vancouver in the second tier, and then the third tier, headlined by Calgary, sitting behind them. Years ago it was Toronto and Montreal in tier 1, and then Vancouver, but while Montreal is still cool and European'esque, it has really been left in the dust by Toronto.

Anyway - enough tangent for the airport thread.

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by suburbia

Toronto is absolutely legitimately a world city. It is the fourth largest in North America, and is a cultural hub by its diversity and connectedness. Often from Calgary's view point we list Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver together as the big three, but in reality, it is Toronto and then Montreal and Vancouver in the second tier, and then the third tier, headlined by Calgary, sitting behind them. Years ago it was Toronto and Montreal in tier 1, and then Vancouver, but while Montreal is still cool and European'esque, it has really been left in the dust by Toronto.

Anyway - enough tangent for the airport thread.

In very general terms, yes, but according to the Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC), most of the major Canadian cities are subdivided even further into different categories.

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/world2012t.html

Toronto is an Alpha city.
Montreal is a Beta +
Vancouver is a Beta
Calgary is a Beta -
Ottawa and Edmonton are high sufficiency cities.
Halifax and Winnipeg are sufficiency cities.

The following is a general guide to the rankings.

Alpha and Alpha- cities are cities that link major economic regions into the world economy.
Beta level cities are cities that link moderate economic regions into the world economy.
Gamma level cities are cities that link smaller economic regions into the world economy. (Canada has no Gamma cities)
Sufficiency level cities are cities that have a sufficient degree of services so as not to be obviously dependent on world cities.


And the population numbers, one of the aspects that determines where a city is located, corroborate this as well.

Toronto just hit a metro area population of 6 million.
YUL also just hit 4 million this year.
YVR is 2.3 million (2011)
YYC is 1.2 million. (2011)

All four are in different brackets and are quite far from catching up to the next bigger city. Just like Toronto is far from catching up to Alpha + or ++ cities such as NY, London, Paris or Hong Kong.

Another study done by the Chicago consulting firm A.T Kearney in 2014 lists a global cities index (GCI), ranking cities from 1 to 42 based on a rating of business activity, human capital, information exchange, cultural experience and political engagement. Basically they measured how globally engaged a city is and they used 26 metrics to get there. Now i admit, some of these metrics are secondary, such as richness and quality of culinary offering, but still, it helps to paint the whole picture.

http://www.atkearney.com/documents/10192...pdf/3628fd7d-70be-41bf-99d6-4c8eaf984cd5

Page 4. Figure 2.

NYC is #1, with a rating of 61.7
Toronto is # 13 with a rating of 32.4
Montreal comes in at # 30 with 25.4, so not that far off from Toronto, and ahead of cities like Zurich, Rome, Sao Paulo, Mexico City and Atlanta.
Vancouver is not on the list.

So once again, Toronto is ahead of the pack, yes, but Montreal is firmly in second place, Vancouver a distant third, and then all the rest.

[Johnny Aussie]

Yup well now that we all know where we stand in this world we can all go back to our corners.

Without a doubt Toronto is by far the most dominant city in Canada both in power and size. All other cities in Canada pale in comparison.

In Australia the gap between SYD and MEL is less pronounced than Toronto and Montreal. SYD still has the edge but MEL is making huge gains not just in population but also power.

When I moved to Melbourne... Montreal was a bit larger than Melbourne but now MEL almost 4.5 million and our airport now over 32 million per annum.
Still blows me away a city of almost 4 million (YUL) only pumping through about 14 million pax. Even little Vancouver now has more international pax per annum and the spread is widening with YUL this year. Even tiny little YYC has more pax than YUL last year... that may change this year but not bad for a tiny little prairie city of 1.4 million

[Canadian74]

Originally Posted by suburbia

Toronto is absolutely legitimately a world city. It is the fourth largest in North America, and is a cultural hub by its diversity and connectedness. Often from Calgary's view point we list Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver together as the big three, but in reality, it is Toronto and then Montreal and Vancouver in the second tier, and then the third tier, headlined by Calgary, sitting behind them. Years ago it was Toronto and Montreal in tier 1, and then Vancouver, but while Montreal is still cool and European'esque, it has really been left in the dust by Toronto.

Anyway - enough tangent for the airport thread.

I know. I used to live there and still visit often

[Cage]

So putting the airport back into the Calgary airport thread, I have been doing a bit of travelling this past week. Specifically YYC DEN EWR MUC ARN / ARN TLS LGW / LHR FRA / FRA ORD YYC.

While in ARN met up with head of network planning for SAS. Learned that SAS short haul effciency is a paltry 8.5 hours per day. This flying the same 737 fleet composition as WS. On coming home I learned that west Calgary residents want to join up with northeast and southeast calgaryians and pile onto the airplane noise complaint bandwagon.

Curfews and lack of redeye flying is the primary cause for SAS 8.5 hours fleet utilization in comparison it WS 11.5 hours. In a crude blunt instrument explanation this is the effects of aircraft noise restrictions gone wrong. Airfares go up when an airline is required to have more equipment run for short hours in the day just to get equivalent pax numbers.

While in LHR I got a tour of the new terminal 2, which due to the walking distances involved should be rebranded from star alliance terminal to Fit Bit terminal. If you have a flight through T2 bring your walking shoes. From a Calgary perspective, hopefully the compact transport system is a sucess, otherwise Calgary airport should just partner up with Fitbit.

Also on T2 tour had interesting conversation regarding the central hold room and wait for gate to be called concept. Apparently this system significantly improves passenger satisfaction with the airport, particularly among infrequent and/or nervous flyers. The infrequent or nervous flyer arrives at the airport 3-4 hours before departure and traditionally heads straight to the gate after security. This flyer then has poor airport experience as they wait at the hold room getting bored or more nervous. The better alternative is to provide the a distraction at a minimum, so holding the pax as long as possible in the central area imorives their experience. Additionally the central area provides greater variety of amenities owing to the larger travelling population.

Also a key differenetiator for T2, they put duty free away from security area so at pax walk into the large rotunda rather than mandatory walk through retail. Calgary will have the obligatory duty free walk with the new terminal. The LHR T2 parochial has increased sales among the frequent travel crowd because they no longer resent the duty free section. When the frequent traveller has spare time, they will seek out duty free for something to do. Also T2 is looking at putting satellite duty free into the midfield T2B concourse to cater to the frequent traveller who initially heads for the first class lounge and then finds they need a few duty free items but is reluctant to walk back to T2A.

After going through T2 I'm a lot more comfortable with the new YYc approach of central hold room and retail complex. Hopefully YYC can attract a variety of retail experiences for all travellers.

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

When I moved to Melbourne... Montreal was a bit larger than Melbourne but now MEL almost 4.5 million and our airport now over 32 million per annum.
Still blows me away a city of almost 4 million (YUL) only pumping through about 14 million pax. Even little Vancouver now has more international pax per annum and the spread is widening with YUL this year. Even tiny little YYC has more pax than YUL last year... that may change this year but not bad for a tiny little prairie city of 1.4 million

You really don't know the reason for this?

one word: ISOLATION.

YYC, YEG and MEL are relatively isolated cities compared to places like YUL or YOW. Hence why those airports are more heavily used by the local population. YUL is within a 6 hour drive from places like YYZ, BOS, NYC, basically a population basin of nearly 35-40 million people. It also has decent train service to YYZ, YOW, YQB, YHZ, New York, etc.

YYC has no train service. So if you want to get out of Cowtown, you're flying. Not necessarily the case in Montreal.

Same for MEL. If you want to leave, chances are your only option is to fly. Driving is out of the question for most people, as SYD is 878 km away, an almost 9 hour drive. ADL is also far. Same reason why PER, a city of 2 million, handles 13 million passengers. Isolation.

YOW has the same population as YYC and YEG. And yet why does it only see less than 5 million passengers, whereas YEG and YYC see significantly more traffic? Part of that is isolation.

If you take YUL and put it in the middle of Australia or Alberta (basically, isolated), it would be pumping out 20-25 million passengers a year.

As for YVR handling more intl passengers (non transborder) than YUL, i beg to differ.

2014 YVR intl pax - 4,555,820
2014 YUL intl pax - 5,561,286

[Bokimon]

Ok that's great Noflyzone. Thanks for your proYUL input, I can see that your presence transcends both the civil aviation discussion forums as well as SSP threads now.
There are also dedicated YEG and Dorval threads too in the other subsections of this forum incase you have not checked those.

Yes! It's obvious YYC will probably fall into 4th place this year but squeaking out even a marginal growth is still good news that the city needs to hear in light of the economic and political turbulence so far this year.
The enviable volumes of european O/D is a huge advantage that a city as wealthy as ours can accommodate especially as there are probably few 3rd-4th place domestic Beta cities in the world producing similar outputs for all domestic and international flights. (I don't know any, maybe Denver?)
We will be jostling with YUL for the next few years since both total numbers always seem to come close, though the International front we will have to wait until after your turn before we get our chance at PEK.

Hypothetically if we were to relegate London to one daily flight by one airline only, an A380 type could work since it absorbs the most seats, same with our 20 something daily YVR runs. Of course if this type of biz model was realistic many secondary cities would have A380s and 748s. When WJ had those pax stranded in YYZ last winter, they chartered a 747 and filled it up to the brim and it absorbs what, 2.5-3 737-8s? It felt like a regional SE Asia run between Japan and Korea!

I think the new terminal will offer a great experience to all passengers as design implementation has been based on international airports of various european and asian countries to be used in YYC IFP.
The design architect Sahuri specializes in Airport architecture so their team really helps to understand how people are traveling these days and how best to deliver a product to improve the overall transiting and guest experience thus making people happier and satisfied. I suppose a well designed airport can help achieve our lifelong pursuit of happiness

Speaking of which Terminal trials will happen sometime in 2016, YYC will need thousands of guinea pigs to roam around its facilities and stress out its various systems. I only wish they put in a viewing deck somewhere to suit all the planespotters like myself.

Oh and did anybody seen the Tartan tail yet?? I've yet to hear reports of it actually being used on the Glasgow runs which was the reason for the special tail scheme.

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by Bokimon

Ok that's great Noflyzone. Thanks for your proYUL input, I can see that your presence transcends both the civil aviation discussion forums as well as SSP threads now.
There are also dedicated YEG and Dorval threads too in the other subsections of this forum incase you have not checked those.

I simply answered a question bud.
Assuming that a city's population has a direct and linear correlation to it's airport's passenger numbers is a bogus claim. YOW, YYC and YEG are perfect examples, all nearly identical population basins, and yet each airport handles a different passenger count.
There are a myriad of factors at play here; economic wealth, purchasing power, cultural travel habits, and also, city isolation. This is all that i am trying to illustrate.

Originally Posted by Bokimon

Yes! It's obvious YYC will probably fall into 4th place this year

Not necessarily. YYC has plenty of time to play catch up. Alberta's economy might not be too stellar at the moment, but neither is Quebec's.

Originally Posted by Bokimon

though the International front we will have to wait until after your turn before we get our chance at PEK.

No official press release yet on CA to YUL, which i find weird. I want to see if they will go ahead with that awesome yet ridiculous fifth freedom segment to HAV and back.

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

As for YVR handling more intl passengers (non transborder) than YUL, i beg to differ.

2014 YVR intl pax - 4,555,820
2014 YUL intl pax - 5,561,286

Definition of International is plane takes off in one country and lands in another country. Canada is the only country that seems to separate this figure. Even the US doesn't take out Canada and Mexico in its international figures. So to compare on a global scale unfortunately one must include all international travel. Speaking of YUL too I'd be curious how much of the international is to say the Caribbean/Mexico etc... be a pretty big chunk. By definition YVR handles more international than YUL.

[Bokimon]

I also forgot to mention Cargo. I am hoping CX's stint is playing well so far.
We are fortunate to have both a european and asian link for freight.
I am hopeful that this will continue to thrive despite the current outlook and someday maybe the big US operators can upgauge their equipment.
Otherwise I think Atlas should just stop doing odd charters and just launch a permanent weekly daytime service since they fly up here so often..

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

Definition of International is plane takes off in one country and lands in another country. Canada is the only country that seems to separate this figure. Even the US doesn't take out Canada and Mexico in its international figures. So to compare on a global scale unfortunately one must include all international travel. Speaking of YUL too I'd be curious how much of the international is to say the Caribbean/Mexico etc... be a pretty big chunk. By definition YVR handles more international than YUL.

Ok fair enough. In that case the count is 9.2 million for YVR and 9.1 million for YUL. A wash really.

[cyeg66]

thenoflyzone, we're all well aware of the reasons for YUL's comparatively dismal airport numbers for a large city. Lord knows, it's been regurgitated ad nauseum. You just happened to miss that Johnny was goading you into doing that. The way you insinuated yourself into a thread brandishing a mallet, (over what was a joke, no less) you can expect to get bugged a bit.

On a sidenote, what exactly is your beef with anything Alberta/YYC. Did your corn flakes have extra sprinkles one morning? It's not such a bad place, you know, but then again, I speak from experience, having lived in both.

P.s. Don't take things so seriously. You'll need to go on heart medication and that won't bode well for your next medical..

Originally Posted by Cage

On coming home I learned that west Calgary residents want to join up with northeast and southeast calgaryians and pile onto the airplane noise complaint bandwagon.

Sounds like the biggest complainers are in signal hill, they're right at the "entrance" point for the west downwind in south flow, so arrivals from YVR/YYJ/YXX/YLW/LAX/SFO etc. all fly right over them when landing south, whereas they didn't before the parallel opened. They're so high up with clean wings at this point, I don't even know how there's a valid complaint to be made.



Here I am living at 5 miles out right on the centerline for a runway at YEG, aural paradise compared to where I was before, two miles out on the final for 11 at YYC (which is all but silent now, and I'm sure Panorama and Evanston have quite enjoyed the last year)

[cyeg66]

Right at that downwind point, planes slow to 220 or 210 kts (much to my chagrin) so what residents may hear is the throttling back (kind of a whooshing sound) and in some types, perhaps the dropping of a little flap. Like you said, 90% of the time, they're so high (11000+ feet) at that point that their arguments can be thrown out with the baby and bath water. Makes no sense at all. Again, the noise footprint/corridor is prob only 70% (anecdotal) of what it used to be. 🞵🞵🞵 is with Calgarians complaining about this? Grow a pair!

[alexle]

New animation of the International Terminal at YYC.

• Video Link

[lubicon]

I live in the NW (Tuscany) and can assure you that noise is way DOWN since the parallels opened. There is practically no departure traffic anymore and what little there is, is much higher it seems when it passes. Arrival traffic is quiet anyhow so nothing to 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 about. If anything the AC are going to be much lower at my place when landing south than they are further south around Signal Hill. I don't know what the hell those people are listening to, you can barely hear the planes at my place let alone a few miles south where there are even higher.

Bunch of whiners.