Calgary International Airport II

[Blader]

^^^
Tnx Cage for the link - this is interesting

Originally Posted by Page 11
Subject to agreement of terms and any requisite approvals by the relevant competition authorities, Air
Canada and Air China intend to form a comprehensive revenue sharing joint venture in respect of all their
flights between China and Canada.

Does this mean the intention is to move Air China to A++, joining UA and LH?

[Cage]

Originally Posted by Blader

^^^
Tnx Cage for the link - this is interesting



Does this mean the intention is to move Air China to A++, joining UA and LH?

The above reference is to the AC CA joint venture that has been on the to be determined books for the past 2 years.

Last May at the calgary chamber lunch, Calvin Rovenescu mentioned that dealing with Chinese requires a lot of patience and things take an ultra long time to complete with the Chinese government.

The agreement is expected to be like ATI++ but only between AC and CA.

Technology and processes at CA are a big obstacle to doing anything with them. For a time, all of star was ready to drop CA because CA would not allow award space on their flights, not recognize top tier status benefits, and CA would unilaterally drop codeshare and interline itineraries that would leave pax stranded.

My dream transpacific joint venture would be AC, UA, and NH. The technology and processes are aligned and NH knows how to treat their premium guests.

[Blader]

Cage, a thing that intrigues me is power by the hour aircraft leases. IIRC, this started with end of lease 767s? It seems that power by the hour is engine related rather than the entire aircraft. That said, it seems to be a tool that mitigates a degree of market volatility.

Originally Posted by Page 25
Aircraft maintenance expense
In 2016, aircraft maintenance expense of $880 million increased $107 million or 14% from 2015,
reflecting an increase in expenses related to end of lease maintenance provisions when compared to
2015, an unfavourable currency impact of $49 million and the effect of having additional Boeing 787 and
777 aircraft in the fleet which have engines under power-by-the-hour arrangements. The increase in
end of lease maintenance provisions was mainly due to Air Canada having recorded credits in 2015 due
to lease extensions. Partly offsetting these increases was the impact of cost reduction initiatives.

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by Cage

Collection of quotes from the 2016 Q4 and Full Year Management Discussion & Analysis for AC.
https://www.aircanada.com/content/dam/ai...en/quarterly-result/2016/2016_MDA_q4.pdf

Congrat's to YXE on getting a MLL.

Interesting, YXE getting a MLL.

I know YTZ, YQB and YYJ are busier airports, and yet none of them have a MLL. YTZ and YYJ probably because of lack of space, but YQB is currently expanding the terminal.

Could be AC transports more passengers at places like YYT, YXE and YQR, which do (or will) have MLL's. Or more customers at those locations would utilize a MLL.

[casper]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

Interesting, YXE getting a MLL.

I know YTZ, YQB and YYJ are busier airports, and yet none of them have a MLL. YTZ and YYJ probably because of lack of space, but YQB is currently expanding the terminal.

Could be AC transports more passengers at places like YYT, YXE and YQR, which do (or will) have MLL's. Or more customers at those locations would utilize a MLL.

YYJ has the space it is in the wrong area. The third floor is currently accessed by an elevator and is currently an under used public observation area. However it is before security. I believe some version of the master plan had that shifting to airside some day and being converted into a lounge. I am not aware of any active work on it.

YXE also has a good number of corporate head offices for a city its size. Not certain how that translates into top tier frequent flyers. Given when I lived there I did reasonably well getting upgraded into business on the YXE-YYZ flights I would suspect they don't usually sell a lot of seats.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by Blader

Cage, a thing that intrigues me is power by the hour aircraft leases. IIRC, this started with end of lease 767s? It seems that power by the hour is engine related rather than the entire aircraft. That said, it seems to be a tool that mitigates a degree of market volatility.

Power by hour leases have been around for a long time. What's new is the inclusion of just the engine compnonent being separated from the rest of the airplane,

The normal use of power by hour lease is older generation aircraft that is fully paid off. If the aircraft is newer, the lease rates are too high owing to the fact that downtime still generated a cash out flow.

[Cage]

New terminal update from my experiences last week.

(1) BA checkin area on aisle/post 5 had their self service bag drop machines removed. Overall this is a good move as only AC and WS were ever interested in self service bag drop. The required IT work was too cumbersome for the nonanchor airlines.

(2) UA has sucessfully removed their self checkin kiosk app from the kiosks that were not directly on aisle/post 12-13-14. There was an ongoing issue with UA pax checking in at the kiosks infront of the vacant AA, KL, or BA checkin areas and then proceeding directly to security with their checked bags. Only to find out that they missed the UA checkin step to drop their bags.

The problem with the empty checkin desks is that there is no indication of the airline they are supposed represent, the monitors all show the same YYC information screens.

I suspect that DL will have similar issues now that they have moved to aisle 14.

(3) There is a new process flow for transborder connections. Previously transborder connection were processed through a dedicated preboard security checkpoint that existed between the international duty free and USCBP. New process for low demand times has transborder connection [ax being lead to the side of checkpoint E where they join all other transborder pax.

This process appears to have somewhat solved the capacity issues at checkpoint E. There is now a second lane open at checkpoint E, so I'm assuming this is staffed by CATSA officers from the connections checkpoint.

(4) Checkpoint D now has 2 additional CATSA Plus lanes available for overflow. The new lanes can also be configured to handle additional traffic for transborder operations. On day one of the new terminal, checkpoint D only had 2 CATSA Plus lanes ready for operation.

However the problem is that inorder to utilize these new CATSA plus machines, transborder connections preboard security must also be staff. This is because transborder connections pax have to walk upstream through the new screening lanes inorder to get to the front of checkpoint E.

(5) Back to the checkin area. The self bag drop system needs to be re-examined for the following reasons:

The AC checkin for 844 (FRA) and 850 (LHR) had 50 people in the checkin assistance area. Each person had an oversize bag of ski/snowboard equipment or other oversize materials. While there were six agents activating pax bags, there was only one bag drop for oversize.

Both the WS and AC self bag drop checkin area has huge amount of wasted space. For the same space as 6 self bag drop machines there could be 12-16 regular checkin desks.

The self bag drop machines don't have a workforce reduction (as anticipated), an agent is required to demonstrate and troubleshoot each pax use of the machines. So for WS, they have 4-6 staff members for their self bag drop machines. AC has two over stressed agents for their operation.

The airport designers under estimated the number of pax that would demand traditional agent delivered services. At the checkin hall, there is about 30-50% of pax that refuse to use the self serve kiosk machine. At both AC and WS this has resulted in long lineups for checkin assistance despite all checkin desks being operated. This will be an interesting situation come the very busy summer peak.

[Bigtime]

FINALLY flew through the new terminal, YYC-PHX last week. I won't echo all the comments already posted here so a few quick thoughts:

-Beautiful facility
-Very easy to check in and do bag drop (this was a 5:30pm flight so not busy at the time)
-Security and customs empty so very friendly staff that made it quick and painless
-No big deal walking through the duty free, but tricky how they make it a bit of a maze
-Love all the food options, really great for the kids
-Kids loved the big play area in the central hall
-Info screens updated with our gate number, but never did switch to tell us to go to the gate. We wandered down casually and I was not surprised at all to see boarding had already begun. They need to get that fixed, easy for those of us in the know to deal with but not others.
-Parked close to customs on arrival, so a quick walk, they need art on that blank wall on the left side though.
-Attendant at the customs machines very helpful and easily directing folks where to go after done with the machine.

That's all I got, biggest issue was the info screen not updating to tell people on our flight to head to the gate. The central area felt empty at first but as others flights got near it started filling up and while not packed had a nice bustle to it without feeling crowded.

[rotten42]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

That's all I got, biggest issue was the info screen not updating to tell people on our flight to head to the gate. The central area felt empty at first but as others flights got near it started filling up and while not packed had a nice bustle to it without feeling crowded.

I've found it is just better to rely on your airline app or even google. They seem to always have the gate number before it is up on the board....or ask the agent. Some will tell you..some won't.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by rotten42

I've found it is just better to rely on your airline app or even google. They seem to always have the gate number before it is up on the board....or ask the agent. Some will tell you..some won't.

I think Bigtime was saying the gate did appear, but subsequently, the screen did not update status to "boarding".

[Bigtime]

That is correct, and yes I did notice that the App showed us the gate at around the same time as the screens in the terminal.

I didn't mind not knowing the gate way earlier, I quite enjoyed chilling out in the central area as the kids tired themselves out for the flight at the park area.

[Bigtime]

Just saw this on a.net and not sure if it's been mentioned before but it looks like WestJet has acknowledged that they are going to take 10 737 Max 9's with entry into service of 2018.

[MalcolmTucker]

Range of the Max 9 from Calgary:

http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gc?PATH=&RANG...RANGE-STYLE=best&RANGE-COLOR=&MAP-STYLE=

[Bigtime]

Hmm, that opens up a lot of Caribbean possibilities from YYC. Right now WS funnels you to YYZ to hit a lot of those destinations. I wonder if we could support some seasonal flights to places like Curacao or St. Maarten, definitely don't need to be daily. Even 1 or 2 weekly for vacation traffic would be sweet.

Also non-stop to Panama City would be sweet, perhaps they do some partnering with COPA down there?

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Acey

Based on the fleet plan, looks like they're locked in with those pesky -600's for life

I guess since they flat out own them and there is slim to no chance of anyone wanting to take them off their hands they'll fly 'em hard until the day the bean counters say they cost more than they make.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Just saw this on a.net and not sure if it's been mentioned before but it looks like WestJet has acknowledged that they are going to take 10 737 Max 9's with entry into service of 2018.

http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1356219&sid=a3042ec52cdbe3eb43d72448555de165

I'm not shocked that WS ordered the max9. However I am shocked they ordered the max9 for 2018 delivery. It is all ready known that Boeing is doing incremental performance improvements to the max9 program, so the longer airlines wait for the max9 the better performance will be achieved. This is particularly why AC max9 will be among the last to be delivered.

The new VP Network and Commercial development at WS, as well as the three new managers hired from UA, are all very familiar with the 739 size airplane. So I'm going to place bet that WS will use the max9 on existing routes rather than going straight to new routes that are at the edge of the operating envelope.

Adjusting Malcolm Tucker's gcmap for conservative route development and you can start to see where WS might put the max9. For clarity I reduced the nm's to 3500 and shifted the market to YYZ. From the map there are lots of opportunities for UK, Netherlands, and Northern France from YYZ or YUL. Overnight WS could add GLA, EDI, DUB, LGW from YYZ using the new max9. Additionally, Znotins wont have to staff a standby recovery crew and fueller services at Gander.

[Policy Wonk]

Almost exactly a year ago someone at WestJet told me that constraints at Terminal 3 were going to necessitate larger aircraft operate between YYZ and YYC/YVR. But whether that was a job for the 767 or a larger 737 was a subject of some disagreement.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by Acey

I'm guessing a 16W/162Y config.

If WS marketing team were smart, they would fit out the max9s with 12W/162Y configuration but put the 763 style plus seats into W and put in ovens into the forward galley. This would provide them with a consistent product for the select transAt services they want to develop, so whether its a 763 (or other widebody) or a max9, the customer has a similar experience in both cabins. Additionally there is a lot of ancillary revenue from hot and cold food services on YVR/YEG/YYC/LAX/SFO to YYZ.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by Policy Wonk

Almost exactly a year ago someone at WestJet told me that constraints at Terminal 3 were going to necessitate larger aircraft operate between YYZ and YYC/YVR. But whether that was a job for the 767 or a larger 737 was a subject of some disagreement.

The answer has to be a larger 737, the 763 is not suited for the job. The problem with the 763 is wingspan adjustment is such that instead of parking 3 737s only 2 763s can be handled in the same place. YYZ T3 has two locations on C concourse where the 2 widebody or 3 narrowbody problem occurs. To make matters worse the combination of 2 narrowbody aircraft and 1 widebody aircraft cannot be done either, so the addition of a single widebody aircraft will knock out two gates.

The larger wingspan from the widebody aircraft is most acute at EWR T3. 18 737 size aircraft can be parked on concourse C where as only 10 wide body aircraft can do the same.

ETA: The T3 airlines are going to have to resign themselves to the fact that the Infield Terminal will have to be reopened at some point, probably sooner rather than later.

[LO 044]

With everyone talking about the 321LR and the 739Max and all the possibilities of overseas flights, are these aircraft automatically ETOPS certified? Is it the aircraft that's certified or the route in conjunction with the aircraft that's certified? For some reason i thought AC had only two of their 319's ETOPS certified and i was curious how the whole system works and what it costs to have an aircraft ETOPS certified.