Calgary International Airport II

[MalcolmTucker]

A couple spots break the 60 minute rule on YYC-LHR for Trent 1000 engines. http://www.gcmap.com/map?P=yyc-LHR%0d%0a...X=720x360&PM=*&PC=%23ff0000&RC=%23000080

[thenoflyzone]

I was just going to post this. RR engine issues were my first guess.

But the fact that they did choose YYC over another B787 station tells me the route is not one of their best performers. Because essentially all they want to do is to remove a frame from the network in order to create down time to replace/maintain the engines.

Staying within 60 min diversion time for LHR-YYC is not an issue. It can easily be done.

And yes, there is a reason why BA doesn't have many seasonal routes. They are the most premium airline in Europe. Business clients don't want seasonal. They want dependable year round service.

[outoftheice]

Definitely take it with a grain of salt but someone over at airliners.net is reporting the BA flights will resume in the spring. Time will tell I guess. In terms of Frontier and Las Vegas I'm sure they'll do well. Completely anecdotal but I've found direct flights out of YYC with WestJet are pricier than from other markets and the flights are normally packed full. This is one route where there's probably room for some low cost competition.

[LeftCoaster]

The BA YYC-LHR flights are bookable in May 2019, no reason to think they won't be back.

I don't think this is a great sign of the routes strength but I definitely think the ongoing 787 engine issues BA is having is a contributing factor as well.

Interesting news about Frontier, they must be pleased with their Denver service to be adding a new destination so quickly. I wonder if they will look to grow at YEG and YVR as well.

[Johnny Aussie]

Yes it looks BA is suspended from 28 October - 30 March only.

So a 5 month hiatus.

Hopefully this is just an anomaly or perhaps the route does become seasonal.

Again, based on BA's history, they don't seem to fly long haul routes seasonally. Perhaps they are starting to do that or this is just a one-off suspension.

Coincidentally the suspension of BA is the exact same timeframe as YYC-NRT on AC less one day.

Still overall a bit of a smack for winter long haul intl ops this winter.

Long haul ops will be 24 flights per week to Europe and 3 to Asia.

[YYCguys]

Originally Posted by Acey

They aren't.

Of course someone from AC has to say that because ya’ll think you’re better than every one else!

[hollywoodcory]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/br...-calgary-london-winter-1.4693267?cmp=rss

BA has broken its silence. Someone from YYC posted on the FB spotters page they are still 'planning' on returning for summer 2019.

[msmariner]

Originally Posted by Tobuz

OK, so it in no way makes up for the loss of BA. Not even close. But...

Frontier is adding YYC-LAS non-stops.

2x weekly, Wednesdays and Saturdays, starting August 15.



Source: https://news.flyfrontier.com/frontier-ai...other-15-routes-with-fares-as-low-as-39/

I tried booking a flight for the end of September. Cost is $19 one way plus taxes.... total cost $96. Not bad

[hollywoodcory]

Originally Posted by Acey

It would be counter-productive for BA at this stage to tell the airport authority anything other than a planned return for S19, so she parroted that, and told CBC that. It's interesting to watch Facebook be the root of where this mess started.

I like how this hit the media mere hours after being posted online, yet NRT’s seasonal cut has been known for months and virtually nothing.

I do suspect BA will resume next year. But who knows really at this point.

[Johnny Aussie]

In that CBC article though BA states it is suspending YYC due to lack of demand. Therefore, they’ve publicly admitted for the first time it’s a poor performing route. Especially in the winter obviously.

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by Acey

We already know it's not a top performer if other cities are the metric; we didn't need them to say that. I can go look on the airplane and see nobody in J and tell you that. The question is, without 789 engine issues creating a shortage of frames to the point that they're wet leasing Skybusses from Qatar, would we be in this predicament? The answer is probably no.

But we technically didn’t know. Just based on rumours and yes, some of your observations. So yes, there was plenty of speculation but they now have actually stated what was rumour. Most people who wouldn’t follow any type of aviation forum wouldn’t have had a clue. But now it’s been made public by BA stating that to the press. They made no mention about aircraft issues regarding this particular route... just about traffic demand and poor performance. Usually they use the former “excuse” to soften the blow to a particular market not the latter.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by Acey

We already know it's not a top performer if other cities are the metric; we didn't need them to say that. I can go look on the airplane and see nobody in J and tell you that. The question is, without 789 engine issues creating a shortage of frames to the point that they're wet leasing Skybusses from Qatar, would we be in this predicament? The answer is probably no.

BA is a premium heavy airline, consequently they get 2/3rd of their revenue from Club World and World Traveler Plus cabins. Specific to the 788 cabin config BA sends to YYC, for the route to be profitable the following must be true:
- 60% of revenue comes from 28% of the seats located in the Club World (35seats) and World Traveler Plus (25 seats).
- 40% of the revenue comes from 72% of the seats in World Traveler (154 seats).

An empty Club World cabin guarantees that BA is losing money on the route, even if WT cabin is full and overflowing into the WT+ cabin.

The Europeans are willing to sustain losses on a route for much longer than North American airlines. BA's unwillingness to have seasonal TransAt routes is a sign of their willingness to sustain losses over the weaker season.

October 2016 is when the BA/WS codeshare was dropped. I believe the current BA seasonal drop is a culmination of a number of factors:
1. Inability to sell the premium cabins.
2. Loss of feed from WS codeshare
3. Competition in WT and WT+ markets from WS.
4. Current RR engine issues gave BA revenue controllers the reason to drop the route due to issues 1-3.

The 5th reason, BA historically flew a large number of pax YYC-LHR-India. A portion of this market is now flying AC through either YVR or YYZ. Even 10-20 pax per day in WT/WT+ cabins is enough to scuttle the LHR-YYC route for BA.

[lubicon]

Originally Posted by Acey

Sure we technically don't know, but Cage's post right there (to me) is sufficient evidence that a conclusion can be drawn from the consistently poorly occupied J cabin I observe.

Of note is that, from basically day 1 year-round, YYC-LGW for WS goes out with 240+ people out of 262. It seems to hardly be impacted by seasonality. I mention this because the "oh everyone can just fly WestJet now!" is not so simple. There is a staggering lack of similarity in the demographic of people that fly WS and BA. The former I feel is more tourist traffic destined to the UK, the latter is a "cavalcade of internationalism" and people connecting to points far beyond the UK at the LHR hub. In that respect, the biggest beneficiary of this is potentially the KL flight or AC844 to FRA, as capacity to large European hubs is really what we're losing.

WS1 already goes out full, so they're not seeing any huge increase anyway unless they planned to up WS1 to daily for the coming winter.



I know for a fact that there are consistent bookings on AC going YYC-YVR-DEL. Of course I cannot say with certainty if, prior to the introduction of YVR-DEL, that this traffic was going YYC-LHR-India... but there's at least a few data points suggesting it's plausible.

This more than anything else is significant. London service is still good with both WS and AC providing a lot of lift. It's connecting passengers who are impacted by the loss of BA. Neither WS or AC have much of an ability to connect anyone through London. KL gains as does AC FRA service as both flights go to global connecting hubs where the airline is either the major player (KL) or partnered with one (AC with Lufthansa/Star Alliance).

Those two flights stand to pick up a nice chunk of passengers who would otherwise have connected through LHR on the BA flight.

[Johnny Aussie]

Coincidence?

The day after BA axes YYC, they are commencing a new nonstop to DUR (Durban, South Africa). They are also increasing JNB. These flights to be operated by.... 787-8s.

https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/air...eathrow-long-haul-changes-as-of-06jun18/

[Cage]

Originally Posted by Acey

It does look like that's where our frame went. Ouch. On the other hand, that's quite a bit of juggling that even with the engine issues they could have probably freed a frame for at least 3x weekly (like BOS) if they actually saw a need for it.

It's what we get for nobody flying J, plain and simple. Even BNA is filling J.

Gonna be fun watching WS have 2 people go out in J everywhere they fly their shiny new airplanes.

Aircraft is not an issue for BA at LHR. Slot times at commercially viable time of day are the primary constrictor.

The LHR-DUR flight is departing LHR at 15:30 local and arrives back at LHR at 17:45. Both of these times are at the tail end of the super crunch for LHR. By comparison, the YYC-LHR flight times were outside the crunch time but before the final push before LHR night curfews set in.

WS will get more than 2 people in J, with only 16 seats in J they should fill out every flight to capacity. WS problem is their revenue management for J and PE is off by a country mile. They under price the advance bookings to the point where their WS Plus cabin is filled well before peak pricing occurs. For AC this is great as they can offer the high value last minute booking economy flyer a seat commensurate with amount charged. The best WS can do is a center aisle seat in the back cabin of economy.

The hope is that WS J will fix the PE problem as its unlikely WS will discount their J product to the extent as PE cabin. If they get into a tight capacity situation, the higher paying PE cabin can get upgraded to J to open up capacity in the PE cabin.

[casper]

Originally Posted by lubicon

This more than anything else is significant. London service is still good with both WS and AC providing a lot of lift. It's connecting passengers who are impacted by the loss of BA. Neither WS or AC have much of an ability to connect anyone through London. KL gains as does AC FRA service as both flights go to global connecting hubs where the airline is either the major player (KL) or partnered with one (AC with Lufthansa/Star Alliance).

Those two flights stand to pick up a nice chunk of passengers who would otherwise have connected through LHR on the BA flight.

I suspect London is still a major airport where Air Canada transfers a lot of passengers onto connecting flights to various parts of the world. AC has interline agreements with most of the major airlines includes BA. It also has code share agreements with a number of airlines outside of star alliance. I would expect in the oil sector a number of passengers are connecting to the middle east in London.

[MalcolmTucker]

What is that you say? A made in Alberta technology to convert bitumen directly to low sulphur bunker fuel you say? Cheaper than conventional upgrading and accessing a whole new market?

https://www.reddeeradvocate.com/opinion/opinion-an-alberta-made-high-seas-pollution-solution/

https://cleanseas.ca/

Sure, it is just a demo plant, but it is still 400,000 liters a day.

And yeah, plants that produce bunker will have to add another sulphur treatment. They'll have had 4 years or more to do it. Changing regulatory requirements and meeting them isn't a new thing for the industry.

[YYCguys]

Originally Posted by Acey

...I feel like this might not have anything to do with airplanes.

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by Acey

It does look like that's where our frame went. Ouch. On the other hand, that's quite a bit of juggling that even with the engine issues they could have probably freed a frame for at least 3x weekly (like BOS) if they actually saw a need for it.

It's what we get for nobody flying J, plain and simple. Even BNA is filling J.

Gonna be fun watching WS have 2 people go out in J everywhere they fly their shiny new airplanes.

Yeah... sort of nixes the whole rumour the route was being dropped, even partially, because of engine issues. Like I said BA was clearly not happy with the route's performance. That's what they stated and nothing to do with aircraft issues. Wah wahhh. If there were serious engine issues they wouldn't be coincidentally launching a new route to DUR and expanding JNB the next day with the same aircraft!

As for Westjet... depends on which routes they deploy them on.... J to London should be ok.... but depends on where else they send them.... if too "ambitious" or "crazy" you could be looking at some very empty J cabins!

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

Yeah... sort of nixes the whole rumour the route was being dropped, even partially, because of engine issues.

Not really. BA still has 3 undelivered B788s on order. DUR was announced well before YYC was made seasonal. Could very well be the plan was to use one of the new deliveries on that route, and that they really do need some down time on the older B788s.