YVR Airport & Sea Island Developments Discussion

[thenoflyzone]

The biggest loser in the WS cuts isn't YVR, or YUL. It's YYZ. But nice try Johnny.

More importantly, this shows severe flaws in WS's overall strategies. They announced YUL-BOS/YQB just last year, and they will be gone more or less a year after they started. Let's not even start about YYC/YVR-MEX. What will happen when they get the Dreamliners? A lot of tough times ahead for WS before the picture gets prettier.

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

The biggest loser in the WS cuts isn't YVR, or YUL. It's YYZ. But nice try Johnny.

More importantly, this shows severe flaws in WS's overall strategies. They announced YUL-BOS/YQB just last year, and they will be gone more or less a year after they started. Let's not even start about YYC/YVR-MEX. What will happen when they get the Dreamliners? A lot of tough times ahead for WS before the picture gets prettier.

Sorry but YUL has lost every destination except for 3.
This winter there will basically be a shuttle service to YYZ (13 daily Encore flights and 1 mainline) to feed the hub there. A single daily flight to YYC and 2 daily Encore Q400s to YHZ.
Gone are all USA and Caribbean flights, YVR, YWG, YEG and YQB.
YVR, YEG and YWG will no doubt come back next summer.
In terms of destinations and % of frequencies lost YUL has actually lost the most.
MEX wasn’t flying last winter so no comparison YOY. Too much capacity from YVR with AC, AM and 4O on that route. As for YYC-MEX who knows.
Just shows how powerful AC is in Montreal and YUL’s lower domestic and transborder O&D.

[casper]

Originally Posted by dharper

I have never flown Westjet before, mainly because their flights never fit my travel schedule.
If I am on a short holiday in LA or Las Vegas I want a direct flight. I can see stopping in Calgary if you are flying east from Vancouver, but if I am flying to LA or Las Vegas I am never going to make a stop in Calgary first. And it appears many of their flights from YVR to LA and Vegas already take this route.

WestJet is the largest foreign airline in Las Vegas. They have no shortage of non-stop flights from YVR to Vegas. They even have flights to Vegas from smaller centers in BC such as Victoria.

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

Sorry but YUL has lost every destination except for 3.
This winter there will basically be a shuttle service to YYZ (13 daily Encore flights and 1 mainline) to feed the hub there. A single daily flight to YYC and 2 daily Encore Q400s to YHZ.
Gone are all USA and Caribbean flights, YVR, YWG, YEG and YQB.
YVR, YEG and YWG will no doubt come back next summer.
In terms of destinations and % of frequencies lost YUL has actually lost the most.
MEX wasn’t flying last winter so no comparison YOY. Too much capacity from YVR with AC, AM and 4O on that route. As for YYC-MEX who knows.
Just shows how powerful AC is in Montreal and YUL’s lower domestic and transborder O&D.

I was talking specifically about this latest round of cuts. YUL-YYZ has been mostly Q400s for years now, especially in winter.

[Alexcaban]

WS left YUL-FLL because they were getting killed with 5 daily AC rouge 763 on the route. Plain and simple

[teriyaki]

If I saw it coreectly. Think I saw a CX 777 flight on the bus gate. That's a big boy to load and unload with the busses vs the 787s they've been handling so far.

[Gordon]

Yes th last week or so the 15:00 CAP to HKG has been the flight uinf gate D57. was the plane on one of the west pads or on of the new East Apron Remote Stands?

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by Alexcaban

WS left YUL-FLL because they were getting killed with 5 daily AC rouge 763 on the route. Plain and simple

Yup. AC too strong in YUL and pushing WS out. AC has pushed WS out of about 10 routes.

[Johnny Aussie]

After all the chat and speculation I thought I would actually sit down and calc the Westjet schedules for the upcoming winter.

As expected the media releases were quite exaggerated to what’s actually happening... be careful what you read I suppose.

Overall Westjet will be at:

Total
2018/2019: 506 weekly flights (or 72.3 daily)
2017/2018: 521 weekly flights (or 74.4 daily)

Mainline
2018/2019: 344 weekly flights (or 49.1 daily)
2017/2018: 356 weekly flights (or 50.9 daily)

Encore
2018/2019: 162 weekly flights (or 23.1 daily)
2017/2018: 165 weekly flights (or 23.6 daily)

The mainline loss is mainly attributable to the loss of YUL (6pw) and reduced YYC (5pw) flights. And the once weekly reductions of PSP and PVR. I am not sure about the reports of YYZ being reduced as I show 52 weekly both years. Also I don’t see a change in CUN or SJD compared to last year unless they had the one extra weekly for only a short period. LAX is actually up to 21 weekly from 20. The YEG reduction was just the loss of 4 weekly Encore. And the addition to YCD more than offsets the loss to YXJ. So there’s the reductions in a nutshell.

So overall YVR lost 2.1 daily flights... still over 72 daily and close to 50 of that is mainline. Also still ahead of 2016/2017 when they had 69 (49 mainline to 20 Encore)... so not quite the dramatic slash and burn as some suspected.

In comparison YEG mainline has been slashed from about 33 daily to about 28. As I was saying WS continues to wind back mainline there in favour of Swoop and Encore. A trend that began with the 2015/16 schedule.

[Hourglass]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

After all the chat and speculation I thought I would actually sit down and calc the Westjet schedules for the upcoming winter.

As expected the media releases were quite exaggerated to what’s actually happening... be careful what you read I suppose.

Overall Westjet will be at:

Total
2018/2019: 506 weekly flights (or 72.3 daily)
2017/2018: 521 weekly flights (or 74.4 daily)

Mainline
2018/2019: 344 weekly flights (or 49.1 daily)
2017/2018: 356 weekly flights (or 50.9 daily)

Encore
2018/2019: 162 weekly flights (or 23.1 daily)
2017/2018: 165 weekly flights (or 23.6 daily)

The mainline loss is mainly attributable to the loss of YUL (6pw) and reduced YYC (5pw) flights. And the once weekly reductions of PSP and PVR. I am not sure about the reports of YYZ being reduced as I show 52 weekly both years. Also I don’t see a change in CUN or SJD compared to last year unless they had the one extra weekly for only a short period. LAX is actually up to 21 weekly from 20. The YEG reduction was just the loss of 4 weekly Encore. And the addition to YCD more than offsets the loss to YXJ. So there’s the reductions in a nutshell.

So overall YVR lost 2.1 daily flights... still over 72 daily and close to 50 of that is mainline. Also still ahead of 2016/2017 when they had 69 (49 mainline to 20 Encore)... so not quite the dramatic slash and burn as some suspected.

In comparison YEG mainline has been slashed from about 33 daily to about 28. As I was saying WS continues to wind back mainline there in favour of Swoop and Encore. A trend that began with the 2015/16 schedule.

Nice analysis. Thanks for taking the time to do that. Any idea how it stacks up against Westjet's other hubs in YYC and YYZ?

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by Hourglass

Nice analysis. Thanks for taking the time to do that. Any idea how it stacks up against Westjet's other hubs in YYC and YYZ?

YYC tweeted after the winter schedule announcement that Westjet will have 142 daily flights this winter from YYC. The breakdown between mainline, Encore and Westjet Link I don't know. Westjet Link has 11 daily flights.

[Hourglass]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

YYC tweeted after the winter schedule announcement that Westjet will have 142 daily flights this winter from YYC. The breakdown between mainline, Encore and Westjet Link I don't know. Westjet Link has 11 daily flights.

Cheers Johnny. So Westjet daily flights at YYC about double YVR. Will be interesting to see how they utilize their new 789s.

[Denscity]

Imagine if YVR was home to an airline.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by Denscity

Imagine if YVR was home to an airline.

It was once; Canadian Pacific Airlines.

[zahav]

It looks like for several weeks in December/early January Aeromexico service increases up to 19 weekly. Just for the holiday period before it goes back to 15 weekly.

But I wouldn't be surprised if they increase again, especially now with WS giving up the route. I wonder if they will give YYC another shot now that WS is gone?

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by Denscity

Imagine if YVR was home to an airline.

Imagine if YYZ was too!
Well... they have Sunwing but YVR has Pacific Coastal!

Originally Posted by zahav

It looks like for several weeks in December/early January Aeromexico service increases up to 19 weekly. Just for the holiday period before it goes back to 15 weekly.

But I wouldn't be surprised if they increase again, especially now with WS giving up the route. I wonder if they will give YYC another shot now that WS is gone?

I think that was too much capacity. Good that they can increase over the peak xmas period to 19 per week though.

Now if Air Canada could add just one more daily transborder flight this winter and they’d be at 40 daily from YVR. As it stands 39!

[Denscity]

I consider AC a Toronto airline even if many suits are in Montreal.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

After all the chat and speculation I thought I would actually sit down and calc the Westjet schedules for the upcoming winter.

As expected the media releases were quite exaggerated to what’s actually happening... be careful what you read I suppose.

Overall Westjet will be at:

Total
2018/2019: 506 weekly flights (or 72.3 daily)
2017/2018: 521 weekly flights (or 74.4 daily)

Mainline
2018/2019: 344 weekly flights (or 49.1 daily)
2017/2018: 356 weekly flights (or 50.9 daily)

Encore
2018/2019: 162 weekly flights (or 23.1 daily)
2017/2018: 165 weekly flights (or 23.6 daily)

The mainline loss is mainly attributable to the loss of YUL (6pw) and reduced YYC (5pw) flights. And the once weekly reductions of PSP and PVR. I am not sure about the reports of YYZ being reduced as I show 52 weekly both years. Also I don’t see a change in CUN or SJD compared to last year unless they had the one extra weekly for only a short period. LAX is actually up to 21 weekly from 20. The YEG reduction was just the loss of 4 weekly Encore. And the addition to YCD more than offsets the loss to YXJ. So there’s the reductions in a nutshell.

So overall YVR lost 2.1 daily flights... still over 72 daily and close to 50 of that is mainline. Also still ahead of 2016/2017 when they had 69 (49 mainline to 20 Encore)... so not quite the dramatic slash and burn as some suspected.

In comparison YEG mainline has been slashed from about 33 daily to about 28. As I was saying WS continues to wind back mainline there in favour of Swoop and Encore. A trend that began with the 2015/16 schedule.

Great analysis, thanks for putting that together.

Not as bad as was being reported, but still not great that WS is going down when YVR is going up.

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

Great analysis, thanks for putting that together.

Not as bad as was being reported, but still not great that WS is going down when YVR is going up.

It’s just their strategy. As I’ve stated:

1) They are really bunkering down in YYC
2) The AC hubs at YVR, YYZ and YUL are probably inhibiting growth for WS
3) They’ve literally abandoned YUL with such limited services there now
4) They’ve reduced YYZ flying
5) They are slowly drawing down mainline at YEG

YYC is their only glimmer of hope I suppose hence their aggressive expansion there. I’ll bet we see AC further draw down YYC.

YVR is still by far Westjet’s 3rd largest base.

[Gordon]

It will be interesting to see how long it takes or some of these cuts to be restored, because i would think that west Jet needs fairly decent service levels to Canada's second largest city?

It wuld be mie to see Delta's jFK & Atlanta flights as well as AA ' ORD flight change from Red Eye to mid day flights?