Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport (YOW/CYOW) 1.0

[Dominion301]

Porter had a minor landing incident at YOW last month on a flight from YTZ.

http://avherald.com/h?article=4baf1804&opt=0

[RomanR27]

There is an IL-76 at YOW. Leaving at around 5pm this evening.

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/VDA2644/history/20180715/0102Z/BIKF/CYOW

[Paul29]

Originally Posted by RomanR27

There is an IL-76 at YOW. Leaving at around 5pm this evening.

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/VDA2644/history/20180715/0102Z/BIKF/CYOW

Spotting rookie here. What would that be used for? Is that a cargo plane?

[RomanR27]

Originally Posted by Paul29

Spotting rookie here. What would that be used for? Is that a cargo plane?

Yup, cargo. No idea about who it's for or what it's carrying, though.

[Dominion301]

A biplane came in from YTZ earlier this afternoon: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/CGKLH/history/20180716/1613Z/CYTZ/CYOW

[Paul29]

Originally Posted by Dominion301

A biplane came in from YTZ earlier this afternoon: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/CGKLH/history/20180716/1613Z/CYTZ/CYOW

Surprising it takes the same about of time for a biplane that it does for the jets from Toronto.
Unless they had a larger tail wind with the storm rolling in.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Paul29

Surprising it takes the same about of time for a biplane that it does for the jets from Toronto.
Unless they had a larger tail wind with the storm rolling in.

Not really for a short flight like YYZ-YOW. Jets wast a lot of time circling around, getting up to elevation, and getting into its flight path. A smaller plane can turn around quickly and make a bee line for its destination.

[RomanR27]

A small handful of diverts tonight from YYZ, most notably:

- AC B77W (from Shanghai)
- Icelandair B763
- Rouge B763

[Paul29]

Originally Posted by roger1818

Not really for a short flight like YYZ-YOW. Jets wast a lot of time circling around, getting up to elevation, and getting into its flight path. A smaller plane can turn around quickly and make a bee line for its destination.

Ah, that makes sense.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by RomanR27

A small handful of diverts tonight from YYZ, most notably:

- AC B77W (from Shanghai)
- Icelandair B763
- Rouge B763

I was wondering if we'd get any yesterday. It looks like the only other divert was a WS 738 from YVR.

[VaskoYOW]

Recently I asked the YOW Authorities, if we'll see another TransAtlantic Route coming to YOW in particular to CDG. As well as, routes to SFO and MIA and also, if they plan to extend FRA back to year round service. This is the response I received;

"Hi there,

Thank you for contacting the Ottawa Airport Authority.

As for growth in general, there are several economic and airline network planning factors impacting YOW. Flight routing is decided by airlines and based on many factors, with one of the most important being projected profitability. Profitability is dependent on the demand for a route and the fare that passengers would pay.

Our catchment/population of 1.3 million people is small in terms of global aviation. It’s tempting to compare Ottawa with other G7 Capitals; however, there is a massive difference between cities that are the major economic centre of that nation, and those who are not. It’s more accurate to compare us to other developed national capital cities that are not a the primary economic driver of that nation, such as Canberra, Australia or Wellington, New Zealand, Perhaps even Berlin, Germany. Like Ottawa, these airports are eclipsed by the larger urban centers of those nations, namely Sydney, Auckland, and Frankfurt. This happens to us on two fronts – primarily Toronto; however, Montreal is significant as well.

The world’s major network airlines subscribe to the hub and spoke model. In Canada, Toronto-Pearson/YYZ is Air Canada’s largest hub, and WestJet has a substantial operation there as well. To a lesser degree, Montreal-Trudeau/YUL as well. By virtue of geography, we’re literally sandwiched between those two larger markets that are both hubs for Canada’s duopoly airlines, Air Canada and WestJet. This is why we have about 30 daily flights to Pearson/YYZ and nearly 10 flights per day to Trudeau/YUL. For both YYZ and YUL, over 50% of our traffic connects to a place beyond.

After a marketplace study, we learned that the Ottawa-Gatineau community is keen to have non-stop connectivity to the US West Cost. San Francisco in particular. Based on industry-accepted normalized third-party data, we know that we have about 60 passengers per day, each way, that travel between SFO and YOW. Unfortunately, the aircraft required to make that range has about 150 seats; therefore, Air Canada routes this traffic through Toronto, and United does the same via Chicago. We have a similar situation for Beijing; however, an aircraft capable of that range is over 250 seats, so again, our passengers are routed via a hub – mostly YYZ.

We’re certainly thankful for our Air Canada year-round daily service to London-Heathrow and hope that our summer-only daily Frankfurt service will continue to grow.

Our Business and Development team meets regularly with Canadian, U.S., and international airlines that may see opportunities in Ottawa over time.

I hope this information has been helpful.

Have a pleasant day.
Eva"

[p_xavier]

It's a much more sensible answer than I expected.

[YOWflier]

It's the standard, cookie cutter response they've been using for years on this topic.

The apathy and lethargy in the verbiage they use is appalling. This is what happens when you have people doing "work" who are accountable to ... nobody. I wonder if they have any performance metrics against which they are graded. Probably not, otherwise they'd all have been terminated long ago.

Oh, and I call BS on their numbers. I have access to the OAG data through my work. In certain, specific cases numbers are there but in the case of AC we feed YYZ in order to help them achieve guaranteed growth commitments with the YYZ authority.

Think outside the box a bit you buffoons.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by VaskoYOW

Recently I asked the YOW Authorities, if we'll see another TransAtlantic Route coming to YOW in particular to CDG. As well as, routes to SFO and MIA and also, if they plan to extend FRA back to year round service. This is the response I received;

"Hi there,

Thank you for contacting the Ottawa Airport Authority.

As for growth in general, there are several economic and airline network planning factors impacting YOW. Flight routing is decided by airlines and based on many factors, with one of the most important being projected profitability. Profitability is dependent on the demand for a route and the fare that passengers would pay.

Our catchment/population of 1.3 million people is small in terms of global aviation. It’s tempting to compare Ottawa with other G7 Capitals; however, there is a massive difference between cities that are the major economic centre of that nation, and those who are not. It’s more accurate to compare us to other developed national capital cities that are not a the primary economic driver of that nation, such as Canberra, Australia or Wellington, New Zealand, Perhaps even Berlin, Germany. Like Ottawa, these airports are eclipsed by the larger urban centers of those nations, namely Sydney, Auckland, and Frankfurt. This happens to us on two fronts – primarily Toronto; however, Montreal is significant as well.

The world’s major network airlines subscribe to the hub and spoke model. In Canada, Toronto-Pearson/YYZ is Air Canada’s largest hub, and WestJet has a substantial operation there as well. To a lesser degree, Montreal-Trudeau/YUL as well. By virtue of geography, we’re literally sandwiched between those two larger markets that are both hubs for Canada’s duopoly airlines, Air Canada and WestJet. This is why we have about 30 daily flights to Pearson/YYZ and nearly 10 flights per day to Trudeau/YUL. For both YYZ and YUL, over 50% of our traffic connects to a place beyond.

After a marketplace study, we learned that the Ottawa-Gatineau community is keen to have non-stop connectivity to the US West Cost. San Francisco in particular. Based on industry-accepted normalized third-party data, we know that we have about 60 passengers per day, each way, that travel between SFO and YOW. Unfortunately, the aircraft required to make that range has about 150 seats; therefore, Air Canada routes this traffic through Toronto, and United does the same via Chicago. We have a similar situation for Beijing; however, an aircraft capable of that range is over 250 seats, so again, our passengers are routed via a hub – mostly YYZ.

We’re certainly thankful for our Air Canada year-round daily service to London-Heathrow and hope that our summer-only daily Frankfurt service will continue to grow.

Our Business and Development team meets regularly with Canadian, U.S., and international airlines that may see opportunities in Ottawa over time.

I hope this information has been helpful.

Have a pleasant day.
Eva"

Would you be willing to ask them a few follow-up questions? I'd be curious about things like:

a) If they've talked about 737 MAX transatlantic opportunities with AC & WS (to CDG for both airlines and in the case of WS to LGW)?

b) If they've ever spoken to the folks at YHZ about their transatlantic success given how successful they've been at attracting transatlantic vs YOW with a population of 450k and catchment of about 600k vs our 1.3 million...which is more like 1.6 million if you consider Cornwall, Kingston, the Valley, Upstate NY are all part of YOW's catchment?

c) If they've ever thought outside of the AC & WS boxes on transatlantic (e.g. Primera, Norwegian, Aer Lingus and their upcoming A321LRs, ditto TS and their 321LRs)?

d) What are they doing to attract an ULCC domestically (i.e. Flair and Swoop)?

e) SFO is a huge pipe dream. Do they ever go after trying to attract more realistic things, like Hamilton, Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Windsor, a competitor to AC to YQB, etc.?....the lack of this is a HUGE reason why YOW has lagged the likes of YHZ, YWG, YQB, YLW, etc. in terms of growth the last 5 years.

By the way a redesigned YOW.ca website has been launched. It's a huge improvement. They're even announcing Sunwing's new flight to Los Cabos, which I wasn't even aware of: http://www.sunwingtravelgroup.com/en/Our...oom/2018/June/Ottawa-to-Los-Cabos-flight

Also with the new website comes June's pax stats and they're the best since October 2016, BUT arguably they're the best since March 2012, as that is the last time that I could find all 3 sectors reporting positive growth.

Sector Jun-17 / Jun-18 / % Change
Dom: 341,922 / 357,050 / +4.4%
TB: 44,032 / 52,462 / +19.1% - the return of the 3rd AA PHL with a full month to report...what a difference eh!
Int'l: 20,473 / 21,556 / +5.3% - someone want to calculate the load factor for this for LHR, FRA & WG's weekly summer sun flight?
TTL: 406,427 / 431,068 / +6.1%

Sector / YTD 2017 / YTD 2018 / % Change
Dom: 1,800,759 / 1,862,311 / +3.4%
TB: 338,273 / 372,344 / +10.1%
Int'l: 238,014 / 231,057 / -2.9%
TTL: 2,377,046 / 2,465,712 / +3.7%

12 Months Rolling / % Change vs Year End 2017
Dom: 3,875,224 / +1.6%
TB: 681,645 / +5.3%
Int'l: 371,474 / -1.8%
TTL: 4,928,343 / +1.8%

[YOWflier]

I get 80% load factor on the following calculation:

AC: 211 seats/day*2 flights*2 directions = 844 seats/day (daily flights)
WG: 189 seats/week*2 directions = 54 seats/day ((189/7)*2)
Total: 898 seats/day

21556 int'l pax for June = 718.5333... pax/day (21556/30)

718.5333.../898 = ~80%

Pretty solid assuming I didn't eff something up.

[sgera]

Originally Posted by ac888yow

I get 80% load factor on the following calculation:

AC: 211 seats/day*2 flights*2 directions = 844 seats/day (daily flights)
WG: 189 seats/week*2 directions = 54 seats/day ((189/7)*2)
Total: 898 seats/day

21556 int'l pax for June = 718.5333... pax/day (21556/30)

718.5333.../898 = ~80%

Pretty solid assuming I didn't eff something up.

something doesn't feel right - peak load is January for international....at 58k/month passengers ...I know this is exasperated by sun locations in the winter and we don't have Frankfurt at that point of the year...but being a regular international traveler on these flights they don't feel like 80% load factors...i'd say 70% anecdotally

[YOWflier]

Well the numbers are there for the month of June. Either I've made an error or LF is pretty close to that. What happens in January or any other month doesn't factor here.

Weird how people can have such different impressions on the LF. Between myself and 3 colleagues we routinely fly 888/838 and back, and we "see" LF that appears a fair bit higher than 80%.

[VaskoYOW]

Originally Posted by Dominion301

Would you be willing to ask them a few follow-up questions? I'd be curious about things like:

a) If they've talked about 737 MAX transatlantic opportunities with AC & WS (to CDG for both airlines and in the case of WS to LGW)?

b) If they've ever spoken to the folks at YHZ about their transatlantic success given how successful they've been at attracting transatlantic vs YOW with a population of 450k and catchment of about 600k vs our 1.3 million...which is more like 1.6 million if you consider Cornwall, Kingston, the Valley, Upstate NY are all part of YOW's catchment?

c) If they've ever thought outside of the AC & WS boxes on transatlantic (e.g. Primera, Norwegian, Aer Lingus and their upcoming A321LRs, ditto TS and their 321LRs)?

d) What are they doing to attract an ULCC domestically (i.e. Flair and Swoop)?

e) SFO is a huge pipe dream. Do they ever go after trying to attract more realistic things, like Hamilton, Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Windsor, a competitor to AC to YQB, etc.?....the lack of this is a HUGE reason why YOW has lagged the likes of YHZ, YWG, YQB, YLW, etc. in terms of growth the last 5 years.

By the way a redesigned YOW.ca website has been launched. It's a huge improvement. They're even announcing Sunwing's new flight to Los Cabos, which I wasn't even aware of: http://www.sunwingtravelgroup.com/en/Our...oom/2018/June/Ottawa-to-Los-Cabos-flight

Also with the new website comes June's pax stats and they're the best since October 2016, BUT arguably they're the best since March 2012, as that is the last time that I could find all 3 sectors reporting positive growth.

Sector Jun-17 / Jun-18 / % Change
Dom: 341,922 / 357,050 / +4.4%
TB: 44,032 / 52,462 / +19.1% - the return of the 3rd AA PHL with a full month to report...what a difference eh!
Int'l: 20,473 / 21,556 / +5.3% - someone want to calculate the load factor for this for LHR, FRA & WG's weekly summer sun flight?
TTL: 406,427 / 431,068 / +6.1%

Sector / YTD 2017 / YTD 2018 / % Change
Dom: 1,800,759 / 1,862,311 / +3.4%
TB: 338,273 / 372,344 / +10.1%
Int'l: 238,014 / 231,057 / -2.9%
TTL: 2,377,046 / 2,465,712 / +3.7%

12 Months Rolling / % Change vs Year End 2017
Dom: 3,875,224 / +1.6%
TB: 681,645 / +5.3%
Int'l: 371,474 / -1.8%
TTL: 4,928,343 / +1.8%

Hi Dominion301,

I just sent a follow up email to the YOW Airport Authorities with your 5 points. I'm curious as well of their answer...I'll be posting it here as soon as I hear from them.

[VaskoYOW]

Originally Posted by Dominion301

Would you be willing to ask them a few follow-up questions? I'd be curious about things like:

a) If they've talked about 737 MAX transatlantic opportunities with AC & WS (to CDG for both airlines and in the case of WS to LGW)?

b) If they've ever spoken to the folks at YHZ about their transatlantic success given how successful they've been at attracting transatlantic vs YOW with a population of 450k and catchment of about 600k vs our 1.3 million...which is more like 1.6 million if you consider Cornwall, Kingston, the Valley, Upstate NY are all part of YOW's catchment?

c) If they've ever thought outside of the AC & WS boxes on transatlantic (e.g. Primera, Norwegian, Aer Lingus and their upcoming A321LRs, ditto TS and their 321LRs)?

d) What are they doing to attract an ULCC domestically (i.e. Flair and Swoop)?

e) SFO is a huge pipe dream. Do they ever go after trying to attract more realistic things, like Hamilton, Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Windsor, a competitor to AC to YQB, etc.?....the lack of this is a HUGE reason why YOW has lagged the likes of YHZ, YWG, YQB, YLW, etc. in terms of growth the last 5 years.

By the way a redesigned YOW.ca website has been launched. It's a huge improvement. They're even announcing Sunwing's new flight to Los Cabos, which I wasn't even aware of: http://www.sunwingtravelgroup.com/en/Our...oom/2018/June/Ottawa-to-Los-Cabos-flight

Also with the new website comes June's pax stats and they're the best since October 2016, BUT arguably they're the best since March 2012, as that is the last time that I could find all 3 sectors reporting positive growth.

Sector Jun-17 / Jun-18 / % Change
Dom: 341,922 / 357,050 / +4.4%
TB: 44,032 / 52,462 / +19.1% - the return of the 3rd AA PHL with a full month to report...what a difference eh!
Int'l: 20,473 / 21,556 / +5.3% - someone want to calculate the load factor for this for LHR, FRA & WG's weekly summer sun flight?
TTL: 406,427 / 431,068 / +6.1%

Sector / YTD 2017 / YTD 2018 / % Change
Dom: 1,800,759 / 1,862,311 / +3.4%
TB: 338,273 / 372,344 / +10.1%
Int'l: 238,014 / 231,057 / -2.9%
TTL: 2,377,046 / 2,465,712 / +3.7%

12 Months Rolling / % Change vs Year End 2017
Dom: 3,875,224 / +1.6%
TB: 681,645 / +5.3%
Int'l: 371,474 / -1.8%
TTL: 4,928,343 / +1.8%

This is the response I just received from the Airport Authority in regards to your questions;


Your email was forwarded to me for additional response. For the sake of brevity, I'll address your points in sequence.

A) 737MAX
Yes, we're well aware of the increased range of the Boeing 737MAX variants. You should also include the A321NEO-LR as it has the longest range of any commercial narrow body. For reasons previously explained, AC and WS are focused on their YYZ and YUL operations with YOW being an ideal feeder market -- nearby with steady volume justified by hourly flights to the hubs. We maintain discussions with both carriers; however, we're also pursuing other airlines with these aircraft either in operation or on their order books. The challenge with those is that AC and WS do not cooperate on feeds (e.g. YWG-YOW on AC or WS, connecting at YOW, then trans-Atlantic on a foreign flag carrier).

B) YHZ
We're well aware of YHZ and their convenient location enabling current generation narrow-body aircraft to make Trans-Atlantic destinations from Halifax. Unfortunately that's not the case for YOW. YHZ also benefits from New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and Prince Edward Island feed. Otherwise these passengers would have to backhaul (go the wrong direction) which increases cost and time. YHZ also has decent seafood freight that ships both as belly cargo on passenger aircraft as well as on pure freighters.

It should also be noted that the Province of Nova Scotia grants YHZ significant amounts of money to subsidize airlines. There is no such equivalent in Ontario.

C)
Yes, per my A response. These discussions are confidential.

D)
Yes. These discussions are confidential. You might have noticed that Swoop operates where Flair is. We maintain good discussions with Flair as well as Jetlines, should the latter get operational.

E)
SFO is a good route for a CSeries/A220. AC has these aircraft on the order books. Unfortunately most of those will be E190/A319 replacement aircraft, with only a few incremental. We maintain discussions.

UA is another possible candidate; however, 737's or A319/20's are too large for our market, and C/ERJ's can't make the range. Plus UA, like AC, doesn't like to overfly a hub. In UA's case this is ORD, which we have 3 daily flights that can connect to 15 ORD-SFO flights. Similar for AC, YOW-YYZ = 15 daily flights, then YYZ-SFO operates about 5 times daily. From a circuity perspective, not real advantage with a non-stop. From a QSI perspective, by using a hub a passenger can get to/from SFO early, mid, late, morning, afternoon, evening. A single non-stop would commit them to a single morning departure on one end and an evening departure on the other. Our SFO volume has to at least quadruple to justify morning and evening departures on both ends with a CSeries/A220, thereby requiring two aircraft and crews. We're a long way from that; however, are growing slowly and steady.

We appreciate your interest in YOW air service. Again, being in such close proximity to YYZ and YUL makes for challenging air service development, but please be assured we're doing everything possible.

Best regards,

Joel

[RomanR27]

Thanks so much for posting.