YVR Airport & Sea Island Developments Discussion

[SFUVancouver]

Great discussion!

My own humble contribution: I think that we are in a step-wise growth period at the moment at YVR with new Chinese carriers and linkages to second tier cities along with modest capacity improvements and up-gauging on established routes. The byzantine decision-making processes that lead to non-O&D passengers routing through Vancouver to support the new routes and capacity will need some time to sort out and I expect that some may be clawed back by airlines if their aspirational targets aren't met.

I agree that additional US direct routes would be welcome, but I see a more likely scenario in which capacity and frequency improvements to major US hubs to which YVR already has connection occurs before new routes are created by the US majors. I think that a trend we will see quite a bit of in the coming years is the main-lining of formerly regional/feeder routes. United Express -> United, American Eagle -> American, etc. This lets the airlines bump up the capacity of routes, improve the product, improve frequent flyer benefits, and "show the flag" to indicate the majors' commitment to the market and assist in their ongoing negotiations on landing fees, gate rentals, terminal investment, etc.

As for the question of new aircraft, I agree that the C-Series will be a major improvement for Air Canada and it will likely prompt them to prove new routes that were impossible/uneconomical with their E-190s and A320s, respectively. Meanwhile, fleet expansion and modernization is occurring with the US majors, with investment occurring in both the RJ and mainline fleets. Most of the recent aerodynamic improvements to the existing mainline fleet ("sharklets" and winglets being added) confer benefit during low level flight during take-off and landing, while offering limited benefit (even negative benefit due to parasitic drag) at cruising altitude, which means that airlines are realizing benefit primarily on short haul routes where aircraft spend proportionally more of their flight time at low altitude. The next gen narrow body aircraft (C-Series, 737Max, A320neo) all offer new/greatly enhanced engines that confer benefit primarily at cruising speeds and altitudes, which are coupled with sharklets, winglets, wing fences, etc., to confer benefit at lower altitude, plus weight savings and minor incremental aerodynamic refinements (excluding the C-Series, which is a clean-sheet exceptionally aerodynamic design). Cumulatively, this has the effect of making these next-gen aircraft substantially more economic to operate. The early proving of the A320neo is yielding close to 20% operational cost savings over the base model.

So, my point with this is that the efficiency improvements being added to current generation of mainline narrow body aircraft, or coming standard on the many hundreds of current-gen aircraft on order, don't confer a great deal of cost-benefit gains to the fleets serving YVR due to its relative geographic remoteness on the continent and the necessity for aircraft to spend the majority of their time at cruising speed and altitude where the aerodynamic benefits of the new wingtip-based improvements don't do much good. This is important because YVR functions as a quasi "long & thin" domestic long-haul flight for much of North America's population and it makes a lot more sense for the majors to hub to Vancouver than going direct. The current mainline aircraft (737s, A320s, B717 and kinda/sorta E175/190) are perfectly serviceable and the airlines adjust models and frequency to hit their load factor goals and profitability just fine. However, the game-changer for YVR will be the next-gen narrow-bodies (A320neo, 737Max, C-Series).

These aircraft, as mentioned before, feature new engines versus their predecessors and this confers substantial reductions in operating cost. In much the same way that the game-changing 787 has enabled airlines to put "long & thin" long-haul routes into profitable service, I believe that these next-gen narrow-bodies will prompt domestic carriers to exploit domestic "long & thin" routes that wouldn't make economic sense with the previous generation mainline aircraft (A320 & B737) or would exceed the range/operating economics of small mainline aircraft (E175/190 & B717). I think that as these new next-gen aircraft are deployed, we will find them being utilized with frequency on long-haul domestic YVR routes and we will see new routes (to markets that are borderline for O&D at the moment) be launched to exploit the new aircraft and take pressure off of congested hubs.

[Johnny Aussie]

With the new YVR website and the new format of presenting the statistics....

It is showing February as 1.6 million on the Facts & Stats landing page.

http://www.yvr.ca/en/about-yvr/facts-and-stats

But when you open up the Traffic Update link it shows October 2015.

Since they are rounding to the nearest 100,000 Feb could be anywhere from 1,550,001 to 1,649,999.

Feb 2015 was 1,437,469. This will mean a MINIMUM increase of at least 7.8% but I'll bet it will be much higher than that!

JA to investigate!

[Johnny Aussie]

The 2016 cruise ship season kicked off in Vancouver today.

Port of Vancouver expecting its busiest season since 2009. Still a long way to go to get back to the busiest years, but 2016 expecting 830,000 passengers (3% increase over 2015) on 228 sailings. 2002 had over 1.1 million pax whilst 2010 had a low of only 579k. Good to see the numbers are on the uptick again.

There are some larger ships this year as well.

https://www.biv.com/article/2016/4/busiest-vancouver-cruise-season-2009-sets-sail-tod/

Of course this really helps fuel the seasonality of traffic at YVR, particularly transborder.

[stiffdeadman]

Well it's official. Alaska is buying Virgin America. Perhaps this could mean Alaska re-instates YVR-LAX/SFO using VA metal as I would think some of the excess capacity that is currently flying SEA/PDX-LAX/SFO between the two airlines will be redeployed when the networks are fully merged. Being an Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan member I am happy.

http://flyingbettertogether.com/

[ShawnShank]

Air China switching down to A330-200 from 777-300ER on the current daily flight from 1st of August to 30th of September, and is also operating the second 4 weekly/daily seasonal flight on the A330-200. Seems a bit odd, was last summer at 11 weekly maximum? And if so was the overall capacity higher than 14 weekly A332?

http://airlineroute.net/2016/04/05/ca-yvr-s16/

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by ShawnShank

Air China switching down to A330-200 from 777-300ER on the current daily flight from 1st of August to 30th of September, and is also operating the second 4 weekly/daily seasonal flight on the A330-200. Seems a bit odd, was last summer at 11 weekly maximum? And if so was the overall capacity higher than 14 weekly A332?

http://airlineroute.net/2016/04/05/ca-yvr-s16/

The last sentence in the article indicates its going double daily from 25 July to 4 September.

Last summer it was 11 weekly except for about three weeks in August/early September when it went to 14 weekly.

This summer it bumps up to 14 weekly for a longer period.... More like 6 weeks.

So yeah from 1 August - 30 September it will be all A330-200s. Having recently done MEL-PEK-YVR-PEK-MEL the PEK-YVR-PEK were on 773s which were so much better than the old 332s on the MEL-PEK-MEL flights. Boo I say! Looks like it's all 773 again from 1 October when it winds back to once daily only.

[ACT7]

Originally Posted by nname

Compare that to Metro Toronto 532k and Vancouver 411k

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Canadians#Population_statistics

Richmond still beat them all in the percentage

Not to sound too picky, but GTA is closer to 600K Chinese (not including Hamilton and Oshawa CMA's, which wouldn't add a whole lot anyway). That's as of 2011:

http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/...1=Ethnic%20origin&B1=All&Custom=&TABID=1

Greater Vancouver's is closer to 435K - again 2011.

http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/...hnic%20origin&B1=All&Custom=&TABID=1

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

The last sentence in the article indicates its going double daily from 25 July to 4 September.

Last summer it was 11 weekly except for about three weeks in August/early September when it went to 14 weekly.

This summer it bumps up to 14 weekly for a longer period.... More like 6 weeks.

So yeah from 1 August - 30 September it will be all A330-200s. Having recently done MEL-PEK-YVR-PEK-MEL the PEK-YVR-PEK were on 773s which were so much better than the old 332s on the MEL-PEK-MEL flights. Boo I say! Looks like it's all 773 again from 1 October when it winds back to once daily only.

First signs of weakness on YVR-China runs it seems.

Double daily 332 is a capacity decrease from last years 11x 773 and a big capacity hit to the short period of 14x 773.

Hopefully this is just some internal shuffling of metal at Air China and not a sign of weakness on the route/market.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

First signs of weakness on YVR-China runs it seems.

Double daily 332 is a capacity decrease from last years 11x 773 and a big capacity hit to the short period of 14x 773.

Hopefully this is just some internal shuffling of metal at Air China and not a sign of weakness on the route/market.

The Chinese economy has taken rather a beating recently. That could be a factor.

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

First signs of weakness on YVR-China runs it seems.

Double daily 332 is a capacity decrease from last years 11x 773 and a big capacity hit to the short period of 14x 773.

Hopefully this is just some internal shuffling of metal at Air China and not a sign of weakness on the route/market.

Definitely odd. Especially during peak August. It could be just an aircraft utilisation issue until they get more 77Ws delivered. Who knows. At least double daily goes for a longer period. Some of the lost capacity being replaced by AC's daily 77W as it gets the new HD version so seating goes from 349 to 450.
Overall China is going to be up with CZ now daily 77W, PVG on AC going to be a daily HD 77W and the new Xiamen coming online.

[Klazu]

Sure, 777s are big and beautiful planes, but we see so many of them. Number of seats aside, I am personally happy to see more rarer A330s at YVR. Currently I think only China Eastern flies one to YVR and perhaps some of the YUL flights are also on Air Canada A330s? Lufthansa's flight to MUC is on A340s?

[nname]

Air China goes double daily on the same day as Xiamen commence their service to YVR, hmmm

[teriyaki]

We also get the occasional A330 from Air Transat, but yea they're more rare than the 787 and 777's now, who woulda thunk.

[ShawnShank]

Originally Posted by Klazu

Sure, 777s are big and beautiful planes, but we see so many of them. Number of seats aside, I am personally happy to see more rarer A330s at YVR. Currently I think only China Eastern flies one to YVR and perhaps some of the YUL flights are also on Air Canada A330s? Lufthansa's flight to MUC is on A340s?

MUC is daily A333 at first (May 1st onwards) then splits to 4 weekly A333/3 weekly A346 on May 14th and stays that way

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

Definitely odd. Especially during peak August. It could be just an aircraft utilisation issue until they get more 77Ws delivered. Who knows. At least double daily goes for a longer period. Some of the lost capacity being replaced by AC's daily 77W as it gets the new HD version so seating goes from 349 to 450.
Overall China is going to be up with CZ now daily 77W, PVG on AC going to be a daily HD 77W and the new Xiamen coming online.

Seems to be a big loss of premium across the board though. No first and significantly less business on the CA A330 and the 77HD from Air Canada loses a lot of high yielding seats as well.

Originally Posted by Klazu

Sure, 777s are big and beautiful planes, but we see so many of them. Number of seats aside, I am personally happy to see more rarer A330s at YVR. Currently I think only China Eastern flies one to YVR and perhaps some of the YUL flights are also on Air Canada A330s? Lufthansa's flight to MUC is on A340s?

Lufthansa to Munich is a split 330/340, Edelweiss is a 330 as well. Everything AT sends is A330. To asia the proposed Tianjin, Beijing Capital and Hainan are all 330. 777 is vastly superior to the 330 in every way, the way I see it we have more than enough already.

[trofirhen]

Does all of this - more A330s than 777s - indicate an actual or impending downturn?

[Infrequent Poster]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

With the new YVR website and the new format of presenting the statistics....

It is showing February as 1.6 million on the Facts & Stats landing page.

http://www.yvr.ca/en/about-yvr/facts-and-stats

But when you open up the Traffic Update link it shows October 2015.

Since they are rounding to the nearest 100,000 Feb could be anywhere from 1,550,001 to 1,649,999.

Feb 2015 was 1,437,469. This will mean a MINIMUM increase of at least 7.8% but I'll bet it will be much higher than that!

JA to investigate!

Am I missing something here? Why does it show october 2015? This is a mistake?

[nname]

Originally Posted by trofirhen

Does all of this - more A330s than 777s - indicate an actual or impending downturn?

Most of the Chinese carriers have a large fleet of A330s and much smaller fleet of 777/787. Since Vancouver is one of the few cities in NA that is reachable by the A330s, they would prefer sending those here and deploy the 777s to longer routes.

[Klazu]

Wow, there is much more A330 action than I knew! I do sometimes wonder about the Air Transat and Edelweiss flights though, if they are for real or just a myth. I have never seen either airline at YVR. They must be flying on some odd hours or departing from some strange gates, as I am always on a lookout for some new plane tails and still have never seen one.

I think you guys worry too much about the premium seats. Almost none of us enjoys the luxury of flying Business, not to mention First frequently, so why does it matter so much? I doubt YVR's success depends on the number of premium seats and if the airlines see better investment in lower product, who are we to judge them? They are choosing to fly the product that is most profitable for them. I doubt the demand for premium seats depends on their availability, but the opposite is true and an important factor.

Anyways, just my 2c. Like said, I like seeing different planes and airlines, so more the mix, the better. Also, Economy Class has normally more leg room on other plane types than 777 or 787, so it is good to have those planes as an option as well. Or maybe it is just the case with Air Canada, perhaps.

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

Seems to be a big loss of premium across the board though. No first and significantly less business on the CA A330 and the 77HD from Air Canada loses a lot of high yielding seats as well.

Yes it is. But I think it's temporary. Probably is just a temporary shuffle due to fleet utilisation. Who knows. Let's also not forget YVR is not a high premium market. It's definitely larger than most people think but it's not a YYZ, LAX or SFO etc.

Originally Posted by trofirhen

Does all of this - more A330s than 777s - indicate an actual or impending downturn?

It's just one route shifting to a 330 for two months. But it's going to be double daily for longer than last year. We need to know the reason why this is happening before we can jump to any conclusions.. How do you see this as an impending downturn? The other A330 routes people are discussing here are current exisiting routes that have not down-gauged. In fact China Eastern holding at double daily and posted right through next winter at the moment, LH to MUC is a capacity increase with the 346 being put on the route 3 days per week. Tianjin and Beijing Capital only have 330s as their long haul fleet.

Originally Posted by Infrequent Poster

Am I missing something here? Why does it show october 2015? This is a mistake?

Just a tech glitch when they turned on the new site I am sure.

Originally Posted by nname

Most of the Chinese carriers have a large fleet of A330s and much smaller fleet of 777/787. Since Vancouver is one of the few cities in NA that is reachable by the A330s, they would prefer sending those here and deploy the 777s to longer routes.

That is also a plausible explanation.