Calgary International Airport II

[cyeg66]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

Get ready cyeg66 !......your airport already sees more turboprops than YUL and YYZ. It's gonna get even worse ! Good for the movements though !

Yippee, "SOB"340's entering the fold. At least WS is boosting their jet numbers a little bit simultaneously. Gawd, it's been dead for the last couple years. We're desperate for anything, we'd be happy with fleets of Navajos and Chancellors flying sched.

[Tobuz]

American Airlines to resume service between YYC and ORD ... but only summer seasonal.

(They used to operate this year round, before dropping it a few years ago.)

https://paxnews.com/news/airline/aa-adds-new-western-canada-flights-ups-capacity

American Airlines will expand its Western Canada service in 2018, with flights from Vancouver and Calgary to Chicago O’Hare International Airport, while increasing capacity from other Canadian gateways.

Flights from YVR will launch on May 4 and will operate year-round, using 160 seat Boeing 737-800 aircraft, while flights from YYC will operate on a summer-seasonal basis, starting on June 7 using 76 seat Embraer E-175 aircraft. Both new services will offer a Business Class cabin, Main Cabin Extra seating and inflight WiFi.

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by Acey

In my opinion the big underserved market for us remains ATL... hopefully DL's CSeries will be a fit for that.

technically Boston and Washington are the largest unserved markets from YYC to the States.

O&D by city pair in 2016.

YYC-BOS 37,569, up 15% compared to 2015.
YYC-IAD 35,670 up a few percent from 2015.
YYC-ATL 20,090, down 7% compared to 2015.

[Chinook Arch]

O&D doesn't really matter in this case. ATL would mean better connections.

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

technically Boston and Washington are the largest unserved markets from YYC to the States.

O&D by city pair in 2016.

YYC-BOS 37,569, up 15% compared to 2015.
YYC-IAD 35,670 up a few percent from 2015.
YYC-ATL 20,090, down 7% compared to 2015.

[Chinook Arch]

Originally Posted by Acey

In my opinion the big underserved market for us remains ATL... hopefully DL's CSeries will be a fit for that.

Totally agree. Calgary has decent connections to the large hubs in each part of the U.S. except for the SE. ATL would be perfect.

[DoubleK]

Why is Atlanta any better than Houston? The map I was looking at on flightconnections.com looks to be pretty similar between the two.

(I'm not trying to be argumentative, I'm asking out of curiosity)

[Cage]

Originally Posted by Tobuz

American Airlines to resume service between YYC and ORD ... but only summer seasonal.

The big news here is no codeshare with WS. When AA dropped YYC-ORD and YVR-ORD WS took up the slack and AA codeshared on the route. Subsequently WS could not make YVR-ORD work so they consolidated to YYC-ORD.

Now I'm seeing that WS and AA are no longer codesharing on the ORD services. Another data point (rumor mill) I have is that WS will go exclusive with DL. AA going back onto ORD to both YYC and YVR seems to suggest that a breakup is about to happen.

This is the best description of the WestJet codeshare relationship:
via Imgflip Meme Generator

I wonder aloud if Westjet will eventually move off YYC-ORD? What are the loads like for this route?

Originally Posted by Acey

In my opinion the big underserved market for us remains ATL... hopefully DL's CSeries will be a fit for that.

Agreed, YYC needs an ATL route, hopefully 2x weekday service. It would open up the Skyteam alliance to a lot more Calgarians.

Originally Posted by DoubleK

Why is Atlanta any better than Houston? The map I was looking at on flightconnections.com looks to be pretty similar between the two.

(I'm not trying to be argumentative, I'm asking out of curiosity)

Biggest reason why ATL is better than IAH is because Skyteam and Delta primary hub. ATL is an omnidirectional hub for DL with connections up and down the eastern seaboard. SLC is a dead hub for DL and SEA requires a major refurbishment before DL can make it into a proper hub. Longterm, between SLC, LAX, and SEA; something has to give and I predict its SLC that will be dehubbed in favour of a split hub in LAX and SEA.

Second reason is the afore mentioned Skyteam possibilities. Combine ATL, MSP, SEA/SLC, with KL-AMS and Skyteam is a viable alternative to Star for us YYC frequent flyers who needs an alliance.

Houston is great O&D and connection airport, but with 6 flights per day plus overlap with ORD and DEN UA hubs, we need a viable alternative to Star (AC/UA).

[PPAR]

The ATL hub also offers connections to South Africa flights, which IAH does not.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by PPAR

The ATL hub also offers connections to South Africa flights, which IAH does not.

LHR, FRA, AMS, JFK are also one stop connections YYC-XXX-JNB.

LHR, FRA, AMS, LGW are onestop connections YYC-XXX-CPT.

Finally, the YYC-ATL-JNB on DL would cause a miss connect in ATL.

[Tobuz]

News article in Metro Calgary:

Calgary Fire Department plans to terminate contract with airport

Nov 29 2017

Calgary’s fire chief said they’re looking to renegotiate their contract with the YYC Calgary International Airport, and they’re hoping the airport authority will start picking up the tab for specialized coverage.

Chief Steve Dongworth told Calgary City Council that they’ve given the authority a year’s notice to end their contract to provide coverage on the runway.

“One of the challenges we have is (...) we’re subsidizing it and we want to remove that subsidy and get full cost recovery for our costs,” said Dongworth.

He said the coverage they’re looking to renegotiate is not for the airport terminal, which would be handled by residential fire crews. Rather, it’s the specialized crash trucks and crews which are trained to respond to a runway emergency that are in question.

He said one other problem they have is that the four-person crew they provide for these situations is too small.

“We’ve done some research recently of airports of similar size and activity, and we see airports with eight firefighters on duty at any one time,” said Dongworth.
He said they’re not looking to put eight people on at one time, but they would like to see more than four.

The full article is available here:

http://www.metronews.ca/news/calgary/201...-to-terminate-contract-with-airport.html

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by Chinook Arch

O&D doesn't really matter in this case.

Kind of does, especially on a 3,100 km sector.

Sure, ATL has better connections to Central/South America and the Carribean compared to MSP, but how many people per day go to those markets from YYC? Of that, what percentage already goes through YYZ, IAH or DFW? DL would be fighting for peanuts, and relying on a 3100 km flight to feed it. Better strategies out there, for now.

As Acey said, maybe the CSeries might change the economics of YYC-ATL, so the route might happen in a few years.

Originally Posted by Acey

Except, obviously, the biggest hub on planet earth at ATL and the connections to the SE/Caribbean/South America it would provide, dwarfing BOS.

What's our O&D to MSP? Probably nowhere near enough to justify the mainline service we currently have.

YYC-MSP O&D is more than YYC-ATL. 29,310 in 2016.

Now obviously, having several non stops per day on the route helps the O&D. If DL were to launch ATL, the direct flight would help stimulate the O&D as well.

[Tobuz]

Originally Posted by Acey

Likelihood of WS to Skyteam in the next decade?

A decade’s a long time! But in the shorter term, it seems unlikely.

Without a J/F product offering, and without their own lounges, I doubt they’d even be welcomed in any alliance.

As long as they stay focused on being a ‘budget’ economy-class carrier, I think the closest they’ll ever come is code-shares and interlines (ie status quo).

[CrossedTheTracks]

Originally Posted by Tobuz

A decade’s a long time!

No kidding! Today's Cranky Flier blog post features WestJet, and all things it has changed/still is changing in a 10 year span!

Canada’s WestJet used to bask in simplicity. It made huge margins while big brothers Canadian and Air Canada saw their dominance chipped away. But now, WestJet is anything but simple. ... This seemed like a good time to pause and look at just how complex this airline has become… and then scratch my head wondering how it keeps succeeding.

Full post here: http://crankyflier.com/2017/11/30/westjet-just-keeps-adding-complexity-and-somehow-it-works/

[Cage]

Originally Posted by Acey

Likelihood of WS to Skyteam in the next decade?

100% Likely within the next 10 years. 50% likely within the next 2 years.

December 6th is the WestJet investors day. Look for clarity on the strategic direction of the company from this meeting.

[casper]

Originally Posted by Tobuz

A decade’s a long time! But in the shorter term, it seems unlikely.

Without a J/F product offering, and without their own lounges, I doubt they’d even be welcomed in any alliance.

As long as they stay focused on being a ‘budget’ economy-class carrier, I think the closest they’ll ever come is code-shares and interlines (ie status quo).

Sounds like they are opening their own lounges in Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto.

Honestly the hard product in plus is on parts with the business class hard product on Air France for a narrow bossy.. The soft product is still poor but easy to address.

[casper]

Originally Posted by Cage

100% Likely within the next 10 years. 50% likely within the next 2 years.

December 6th is the WestJet investors day. Look for clarity on the strategic direction of the company from this meeting.

Let's hope they make the leap now instead of waiting.

[s211]

Originally Posted by casper

Honestly the hard product in plus is on parts with the business class hard product on Air France for a narrow bossy.. The soft product is still poor but easy to address.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

Why is Atlanta any better than Houston?

Thanks to Cage and PPAR for the responses. Much appreciated.

[msmariner]

Just read that AC has added seasonal service to YCD (Nanaimo) to Toronto starting June ‘18. Do you think this will affect their service to from YCD to YYC?

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by msmariner

Just read that AC has added seasonal service to YCD (Nanaimo) to Toronto starting June ‘18. Do you think this will affect their service to from YCD to YYC?

No