Canadian Airport Thread

[LeftCoaster]

Doubtful it's cancelled all together, but we'll see. Not great news for YYC either way.

[whywhyzee]

Surprised it hasn't made it on here yet, I made this account mainly to share this bit of info:

YYZ infield terminal opens today; in 8 minutes as of me writing this post. It will handle 7 airlines ( WOW, Icelandair, UIA, Aer Lingus, Condor, Azores and Primera).

Glad to be on here, always great info.

[lubicon]

Originally Posted by G.S MTL

rumour has it BA is pulling out of YYC. Last flight Oct 27 ... perhaps seasonal but BA doesn't do seasonal. So it might be cancelled all together.

IIRC, and if it does happen it would be the second time BA has withdrawn from YYC.

[Alexcaban]

Originally Posted by whywhyzee

Surprised it hasn't made it on here yet, I made this account mainly to share this bit of info:

YYZ infield terminal opens today; in 8 minutes as of me writing this post. It will handle 7 airlines ( WOW, Icelandair, UIA, Aer Lingus, Condor, Azores and Primera).

Glad to be on here, always great info.

Any photos?

[whywhyzee]

Originally Posted by Alexcaban

Any photos?

I am sure they will appear soon. I'm currently stuck at work, though I do have an update. BA's LGW flight is using the terminal currently, making it the first flight to use the IFT since the refugee flights. The Sunwing Royalton 737 Max is also at the terminal, but I do believe it is sitting on the ramp, not actually being serviced. The same can be said of an AC A320. Not unusual, this is frequently done to relieve congestion on gates.

From what I knew prior to today, it will be T3 carriers only using the terminal, adding BA's LGW (I highly doubt the two LHR flights would use it, that would be suicide on a very competitive route) to the list makes 8.

[YYCguys]

Originally Posted by whywhyzee

Surprised it hasn't made it on here yet, I made this account mainly to share this bit of info:

YYZ infield terminal opens today; in 8 minutes as of me writing this post. It will handle 7 airlines ( WOW, Icelandair, UIA, Aer Lingus, Condor, Azores and Primera).

Glad to be on here, always great info.

Do you know how the passengers will access the terminal? Are there suitable amenities out there?

[hollywoodcory]

From what I've gathered, BA is only temporarily suspending the route due to aircraft maintenance (The 787 engine issues). It's resuming at the end of March its regular schedule. Curious to see if AC will take advantage and add more seats on to LHR, but I doubt it.

In slightly more positive news for YYC, looks like Frontier is pleased with its service, as its adding two weekly flights to LAS starting in August.
https://news.flyfrontier.com/frontier-ai...nother-15-routes-with-fares-as-low-as-39

[YOWflier]

Originally Posted by le calmar

Depend is not the right word, but it is easily accessible to Ottawans. I fly out of YUL regularly.

And that's our most crippling limitation here. Note that I'm not targeting you personally... just saying that everyone who does that unknowingly (or maybe knowingly) does our airport, city, and region a significant disservice. I'm not so much talking about people who board a flight here and transfer there, but rather those who get in a car/bus/train and catch a flight there as their point of origin. It cannot be understated how catastrophic that practice is to us.

[Pinus]

It really is a shame how the airlines are using YYC as a funnel for prairie passengers. YYC really takes away from cities like YEG and YWG to be able to establish more non-stop flights to international destinations. It is a shame that certain cities have their growth stifled byvone particular other city. Its truly hard for us to support growth at YYC as all it does is hurt us in the end. And that is the fault of the airlines.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by hollywoodcory

From what I've gathered, BA is only temporarily suspending the route due to aircraft maintenance (The 787 engine issues). It's resuming at the end of March its regular schedule. Curious to see if AC will take advantage and add more seats on to LHR, but I doubt it.

I'd guess it's a bunch of factors in play:

- Relative downturn in Alberta's economy compared to the heyday
- Addition of Westjet YYC-LGW year-round flight in 2016
- Ending of Westjet codeshare with BA (also in 2016)
- Limitations of BA's 787s, with current engine problems (as you mentioned)
- Opportunity cost of LHR slots and BA's current fleet

[wave46]

Originally Posted by Pinus

It really is a shame how the airlines are using YYC as a funnel for prairie passengers. YYC really takes away from cities like YEG and YWG to be able to establish more non-stop flights to international destinations. It is a shame that certain cities have their growth stifled byvone particular other city. Its truly hard for us to support growth at YYC as all it does is hurt us in the end. And that is the fault of the airlines.

It's the nature of hub operations.

Based on things like geography, economic performance and tourist attractions in the Prairie provinces, Calgary is the clear winner for setting up a hub.

[casper]

Originally Posted by YYCguys

Do you know how the passengers will access the terminal? Are there suitable amenities out there?

It was used during construction of the new terminal 1 expansion. Just after you enter domestic departures in Terminal 1 across and to the right is a customer service counters and escalators that go up to connect with international departures. There are also escalators going down to a bus loading bay. They ran buses from there out to the infield terminal. There is an airside roadway that runs under the runways/taxiways.

I have no idea from where at Terminal 3 they would do the same.

Back in the day they had standard news stands, fast food clone outlets that you find in many airport. Not certain what they are doing this time.

Interesting mix of airlines being pushed out there.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by casper

Interesting mix of airlines being pushed out there.

It looks like a group of airlines that won't have to worry about connections at Pearson and is cost-sensitive.

Do the IFT gates get a discount?

[zahav]

Originally Posted by hollywoodcory

From what I've gathered, BA is only temporarily suspending the route due to aircraft maintenance (The 787 engine issues). It's resuming at the end of March its regular schedule. Curious to see if AC will take advantage and add more seats on to LHR, but I doubt it.

In slightly more positive news for YYC, looks like Frontier is pleased with its service, as its adding two weekly flights to LAS starting in August.
https://news.flyfrontier.com/frontier-ai...nother-15-routes-with-fares-as-low-as-39

It is only a seasonal suspension yes, temporary is misleading as that would be more for like a week, or a couple months due to severe weather (like happened with Puerto Rico). This is very clearly a seasonal shutdown, consiously done to coincide with the entire winter season. It shouldn't be understated, BA doing this is not a good sign on the route's performance. BA is a fairly stable and consistent carrier all over its global network, it doesn't go bananas on expansion and then dial it back like some carriers. And this has been year round since 2006, so the fact that 12 years later it can't keep it up, again not a good sign. And they clearly stated it is due to demand, not equipment:

BA said in a statement it regularly reviews its schedule to ensure it is flying to destinations popular with its customers during the months they wish to fly.

“As such, British Airways will be temporarily suspending flights between Calgary and London over the winter period.”
The airline says it will rebook passengers onto alternative flights or offer them a full refund. https://globalnews.ca/news/4255207/briti...ry-to-london-flights-starting-fall-2018/

I am sure WS is going to get this void in capacity right filled though and traffic won't be impacted, just like they did with Aeromexico unintentionally (WS was already planning to start its own Mexico City service before AM announced its pullout, but was good timing since their flights mustve gotten a bookings boost. It's just not reflecting well on the airport to have lost (even seasonally for BA) two of its already small # of international carriers

[Pinus]

Originally Posted by wave46

It's the nature of hub operations.

Based on things like geography, economic performance and tourist attractions in the Prairie provinces, Calgary is the clear winner for setting up a hub.

And yet countries like Australia are promoting the growth of both their mid-sized and large cities with a plethira of international flight. There is no growth-stifling hub-and-spoke model there. We are stifling the growth potential of many of our cities for the benefit of others. Very sad.

[whywhyzee]

Inaugural UIA KBP-YYZ is on the way, FR24 shows it arriving at 10 past 2 in the afternoon. Service will be flown 3x weekly on the 763.

Great to see the second new airline in the past week commence service, and potentially even more important, another international 767. What may seem like commonplace will soon be just a memory, I for one will miss the 767s!

[lubicon]

Originally Posted by wave46

It looks like a group of airlines that won't have to worry about connections at Pearson and is cost-sensitive.

Do the IFT gates get a discount?

I wonder if that might be the key to getting either Sunwing or Transat to move. Logically it makes sense to move them as they do not operate a hub model, everything is point to point I believe. But they would not want to give up the convenience of T3, especially for the benefit of a competitor (WestJet) unless it was worth it.

[hollywoodcory]

Originally Posted by zahav

It is only a seasonal suspension yes, temporary is misleading as that would be more for like a week, or a couple months due to severe weather (like happened with Puerto Rico). This is very clearly a seasonal shutdown, consiously done to coincide with the entire winter season. It shouldn't be understated, BA doing this is not a good sign on the route's performance. BA is a fairly stable and consistent carrier all over its global network, it doesn't go bananas on expansion and then dial it back like some carriers. And this has been year round since 2006, so the fact that 12 years later it can't keep it up, again not a good sign. And they clearly stated it is due to demand, not equipment:

BA said in a statement it regularly reviews its schedule to ensure it is flying to destinations popular with its customers during the months they wish to fly.

“As such, British Airways will be temporarily suspending flights between Calgary and London over the winter period.”
The airline says it will rebook passengers onto alternative flights or offer them a full refund. https://globalnews.ca/news/4255207/briti...ry-to-london-flights-starting-fall-2018/

I am sure WS is going to get this void in capacity right filled though and traffic won't be impacted, just like they did with Aeromexico unintentionally (WS was already planning to start its own Mexico City service before AM announced its pullout, but was good timing since their flights mustve gotten a bookings boost. It's just not reflecting well on the airport to have lost (even seasonally for BA) two of its already small # of international carriers

When I called the BA reservation line yesterday morning, they told me "The route has been temporarily suspended due to aircraft maintenance." Later in the day, when the press caught wind of it the story slightly changed.

Curious to see who picks up the extra capacity this winter, as I highly doubt AC will upguage their LHR flights and WS doesn't have enough widebodies to make WS1/2 daily quite yet.

[Canadian74]

Maybe it opens the door for someone like Wow Air 2-3 weekly

[LeftCoaster]

I really don't think the Icelandic airlines are going to be jumping into what is clearly a weak market in the middle of winter, that is both Canada and Iceland's low season.

I think the answer is clear, with the downturn in the oil patch this route was no longer a money maker in the winter and the demand is primarily tourism based which is going to be cyclical, like most Canadian markets.

If BA doesn't come abck in the summer than it's a different conversation, as I think someone will need to fill that demand, but the winter doesn't seem to be as strong without the business travel.