Calgary International Airport II

[wave46]

Originally Posted by Cage

From the WS investor day December 6th, the following new route possibilities with introduction of Dreamliner

Asia: NRT, ICN
Sun: CUN, MBJ, PUJ, maybe VRA
Europe: LGW, AMS, FCO, CDG, DUB, MAN, GLA, BHX

Most of Asia is proposed from YVR, however WS will have difficulty simply mimicking AC and foreign airline routes. I can see a path whereby WS gets international route rights out of YYC because they are innovative/new. More importantly, WS may find the competitive environment from YVR to be too much and instead look at the YYC market more favourably.

The Sun destination flying would be a good use for the 763s. Summer 763 flying could be a mix of transcon with a few Europe trips flown (e.g. YEG-LGW and YYC-DUB, YWG-LGW. All a few times per week).

Europe has the Skyteam bases all covered. Also a very heavy british isles network that appears to be TS network duplication. At the investor day conference, WS execs mentioned several times they are interested in going after TS type of markets and traffic rather than AC.

I thought the 763s would be turned into beer cans after Westjet got their Dreamliners. The 737MAX should be able to make it to sun destinations from Calgary, right?

I'm surprised that ICN and NRT are so high on the list to Asia - I would've thought Beijing and Shanghai would have been first there.

Going for the Air Transat/AC Rouge model makes sense. I'm not sure this country could support two full-service airlines, in addition to foreign carriers. I guess they'll be rotating the Dreamliners between smaller destinations through the days of the week.

[casper]

Originally Posted by wave46

I thought the 763s would be turned into beer cans after Westjet got their Dreamliners. The 737MAX should be able to make it to sun destinations from Calgary, right?

I'm surprised that ICN and NRT are so high on the list to Asia - I would've thought Beijing and Shanghai would have been first there.

Going for the Air Transat/AC Rouge model makes sense. I'm not sure this country could support two full-service airlines, in addition to foreign carriers. I guess they'll be rotating the Dreamliners between smaller destinations through the days of the week.

I was told Amazon way buying up every 763 they could find (including some of the long lost Australian siblings to the WestJet 763 for cargo conversion.

[Canadian74]

Originally Posted by wave46

Going for the Air Transat/AC Rouge model makes sense.

did westjet change plans? I thought they were planning 3-class B787s

[hollywoodcory]

It appears AM has changed a few of its flights to be operated by the 737-700 instead of 737-800. Not sure if it’s temporary or a permanent change. It’s a capacity change of nearly 40 sears per flight.

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by hollywoodcory

It appears AM has changed a few of its flights to be operated by the 737-700 instead of 737-800. Not sure if it’s temporary or a permanent change. It’s a capacity change of nearly 40 sears per flight.

Looks like until the end of March. I think it was Acey (?) who alluded to the flights not meeting load expectations. Perhaps reduced capacity to reflect this?

[hollywoodcory]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

Looks like until the end of March. I think it was Acey (?) who alluded to the flights not meeting load expectations. Perhaps reduced capacity to reflect this?

Hopefully WS jumping into MEX in March doesn’t have a negative effect on their loads.

[hollywoodcory]

Originally Posted by Acey

It will... and the flight is already getting railed. I'm fully expecting WS to be the nail in the coffin but I'm trying not to turn this into the YEG thread by assuming the worst.

No doubt the — OTP doesn't help, given the heavy reliance on connections.

Well I get WS trying to push Frontier out with DEN and defending its territory, but isn't WS / AM codeshare partners? Seems odd they'd be out to push them out as well.

Hopefully they if anything just reduce frequency instead of outright cancelling the service altogether.

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by Acey

Yeah I mean Cage can speak more to the intricacies of this but the sole intent of this new WS service doesn't necessarily have to be to push AM out for that to still end up being the final result. WS can feed from YQU, YMM, YLW, YEG, etc on both ends and the timing works better vs AM timing that's better for intra-Mexico. Hopefully this slightly different feed allows the services to complement each other.

CSeries would be perfect for MEX-YYC, methinks

[Cage]

Originally Posted by Acey

It will... and the flight is already getting railed. I'm fully expecting WS to be the nail in the coffin but I'm trying not to turn this into the YEG thread by assuming the worst.

No doubt the — OTP doesn't help, given the heavy reliance on connections.

If WS is the nail in the coffin, then the coffin is made of bad flight times on the YYC end and possibly the MEX end as well.

UA serves 35+ Mexican cities from IAH. The 6am YYC-IAH beats redeye AM flight and connects to most of Mexico flights. At most going through IAH will force an overnight in IAH. As a business traveller, I would push the UA option and only take the AM option if my boss demanded it. Even then, there would be repercussions as I am unlikely to take the travel opportunity to Mexico again.

[hollywoodcory]

WS is moving the summer seasonal YVR-Whitehorse to YYC this summer. Also their full summer schedule is being released January 29.

[Lancaster]

Originally Posted by hollywoodcory

WS is moving the summer seasonal YVR-Whitehorse to YYC this summer. Also their full summer schedule is being released January 29.

Looks like YVR to become a feeder to the hub at YYC instead. No more split hubbing.

[suburbia]

Likely extremely modest numbers, but wanted to point out that any tourist draw that Red Deer develops will likely help YYC numbers, and also potentially hotels in the northern portion of the city. The CFR moving from Edmonton to Red Deer was the impetus for the thought actually. If you're traveling from say eastern Canada for that, you may choose to land in Calgary because of the flight options. Red Deer might not have hotel capacity, but even if they do, Calgary could still be an accommodations choice, allowing visitors days post-even to explore a larger city or visit the mountains.

[CloudInspector]

Originally Posted by Acey

I'm not so quick to say WS is moving away from a hub-type operation at YVR, given the large volume of transborder traffic that connects there. One flight does not a trend make.

I agree and given Saretzky’s speech at the Vancouver Board of Trade and the recent investor day presentation, YVR is indeed a hub and should be a large 787 base. Maybe YYC will eventually be a feeder to the YVR hub!

[craner]

Originally Posted by Acey

Heard a rumour from a reasonably higher up at WS that they are seeking SkyTeam by 2020.

What is "SkyTeam" ?
(non aviation geek here).

[DoubleK]

Major airline alliance

[CloudInspector]

Originally Posted by Acey

No kidding. Around noon, damn near every bag spinning on a domestic carousel at YYC or YEG is a YVR bag that originated in Hawaii. If I see that no longer being the case, maybe I'll entertain the notion that YVR is not a WS hub. Especially given the near zero importance of a YXY flight. It's meaningless.

Absolutely. I’m not sure where the desire for the YYC hub to flourish at the expense of YVR comes from. From both the investor day presentation and the Vancouver Board of Trade speech, it looks like the wide body flying will be from all three hubs:

YVR: Asia, Australia/South Pacific, South America and Europe
YYC: Sun destinations, Europe and Asia
YYZ: Asia, South America, Europe and the Middle East

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by CloudInspector

Absolutely. I’m not sure where the desire for the YYC hub to flourish at the expense of YVR comes from. From both the investor day presentation and the Vancouver Board of Trade speech, it looks like the wide body flying will be from all three hubs:

YVR: Asia, Australia/South Pacific, South America and Europe
YYC: Sun destinations, Europe and Asia
YYZ: Asia, South America, Europe and the Middle East

I don’t think anyone was alluding to that...
Just a bit of a stretch (actually a HUGE stretch) to equate losing hub status due to the loss of a 3 weekly seasonal tourism based route.
Recently WS has commenced or recommenced flights to YHZ, YHM, YXU, YCD, YQU and soon MEX from YVR. YVR has lost YMM but YMM flights to both YEG and YYC have also been heavily stripped on both AC and WS.
2018 could be a very crazy year with Flair expanding, Swoop starting and possibly Jetlines. Now more than ever each airline is going to have to protect its turf wherever it can based on the assets and resources each one has. I definitely don’t think AC is going to abandon YYC but WS is certainly going to protect its YYC hub from any possible threats. YXY is a perfect example.

[hollywoodcory]

WS has loaded some of its summer schedule already. Some changes I've noticed so far:

-BNA is up to 3x weekly, operating Monday, Wednesday, Friday (at least in May).
-DFW looks like it starts 4x weekly, before going daily in June.
-SFO & ORD both join the 10am departure bank this year (They were mid-afternoon departures last year.)
-IAH still shows 2x daily (except on Saturdays)

The 10am transborder bank now consists of: (Not all operate on the same days though)
-PHX / LAX / LAS / PSP / BNA / SAN / JFK / ORD / SFO / DEN / MCO

[Cage]

I will wade into the WS YVR ops are or are not a Hub.

First off we need to separate the layman's definition of hub vs airline operations hub definition. Stick a camera or microphone infront of any airline executive and they better call any airport with greater than 20 flights/day as hub status, to do otherwise would damage the airline brand in the eyes of the local civic boosters.

A proper and modern definition of hub would depend on number of departures, percentage of connecting vs O&D pax, and number of connection possibilities. A traditional approach would also include a minimum 100-250 daily departures, however I discount this metric as its too USA and European centric.

Westjet does not have a hub operation at YVR, rather their operation should be classified as a Focus City. However this distinction is lost on all but a few industry insiders.

Excluding the Hawaii operation, YVR is the end of the line for most WS viable connections. Combined with a strong O&D market, this makes WS YVR ops a prime example of a Focus City, similar to DL BOS, UA LGA, and LH TXL.

WS YXY operations is a prime example of the local context. By moving to YYC from YVR, the YXY operations more than quadruple the number of commercially viable connection possibilities.

The WS YVR ops reminds me of the original AC YVR ops before the end of the Hollis Harris era. YVR was the end of the line unless your final destination was YYJ or Hawaii. After the 90s expansion to KIX and HKG 4x/wk, it could be somewhat argued that AC had a hub, but it wasnt until the merger with CP that AC got a true hub at YVR.

WS YVR is in a similar situation, put a half dozen Asian flights through YVR and they have a true hub operation.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by hollywoodcory

WS has loaded some of its summer schedule already. Some changes I've noticed so far:

-BNA is up to 3x weekly, operating Monday, Wednesday, Friday (at least in May).
-DFW looks like it starts 4x weekly, before going daily in June.
-SFO & ORD both join the 10am departure bank this year (They were mid-afternoon departures last year.)
-IAH still shows 2x daily (except on Saturdays)

The 10am transborder bank now consists of: (Not all operate on the same days though)
-PHX / LAX / LAS / PSP / BNA / SAN / JFK / ORD / SFO / DEN / MCO

Cats out of the bag, WS will do YHZ-LGW with the max8, presser is due tomorrow. Flight will be WS24/25 and operate daily basis.

YHZ will be one more way to fly one stop to LGW from YYC on Saturdays in the months of July and August. Other possibilities include YEG, YWG, and YYZ.