Calgary International Airport II

[zahav]

Originally Posted by Acey

Skip over this post if you don't care about gates at the airport.



The terminal is nowhere near as "huge" as you think it is.

There are 24 gates. A 757 or bigger takes up 2 gates, except for 76, and 92 where heavies cannot park. In terms of our ability to handle heavy flights, 24 gates is therefore effectively only 12 gates. Why? Because at 10 am when there's a billion narrowbodies going across the border you want 24 bridges, but don't want your piers to be a mile long.

So 2 of the 12 heavy positions are swings where heavies in the midafternoon rush will never park, and instead 4 narrowbodies park. The 12 is now down to 10.

Of the 10 remaining heavy parking positions, 3 are transborder only. We're now down to 7 international heavy positions under normal circumstances (76, 78B, 74B, 80B, 84B, 87B, 83B)

AC from FRA, AC from LHR, Hainan, KLM, WS from LGW, WS from DUB/CDG, and a Transat heavy. It takes only a relatively minor bit of irrop, and there is now zero room for anybody that is not either transborder or swinging.

Big annoyance is that there are no widebody parking positions on the east end. WS Europe flights are big 4 hours turns so there's play there, they could arrive on a US gate without issue then get towed down the pier to international gate... or just go wait on the ramp in front of their shiny new hangar till the new 1730 bank clears out. I see many ways they can make it work even once there's 4+ heavies for WS arriving in the 1400-1600 range. Ultimately swing gates will no longer be able to swing if heavies need to park there, and everybody will have to get towed. WS is going to absolutely lose their 🞵🞵🞵🞵.

I said before that 84 is trash for international. That's cause in int'l config it's a long walk from the podium, and if there's a int'l heavy going off 80 or 87 at the same time there's literally nowhere to sit... at all. Better stay in the int'l holdroom.



Yes. I'm not 100% of the gate situation there and if it's the only reason for the staggers but it's got nothing to do with gates on this end.

Thanks for the explanation, I was asking genuinely, I honestly couldn't figure out why a terminal with that many gates could be at capacity. I didn't realize the 24 really meant 12, that is bizarre!! Still doesn't explain why the flights are so concentrated together, it compoinds an already bad situation and yet leaves lots of room open non-peak

[outoftheice]

One other reason for Dublin that I can think of is the 'budget conscious' Westjet economy passenger can easily use Ryanair to travel to anywhere in Europe. I can see a lot of people flying Westjet from Canada to Dublin, spending a night and then continuing on to somewhere in Europe thanks to Ryanair's large presence in Dublin.

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by msmariner

Is there a chance that there are gate restraints on the other end? Maybe WS has a time slot in LGW and has to leave here a certain time... or BA and LHR ... or KLM in Amsterdam. Just a thought

WS does have a time slot at LGW, but not due to lack of gates, rather lack of runways. LGW is a single runway airport, so you need a slot in order to land or takeoff.

Same thing at LHR. It's a runway utilisation slot, not a gate slot.

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by Acey

Skip over this post if you don't care about gates at the airport.



The terminal is nowhere near as "huge" as you think it is.

There are 24 gates. A 757 or bigger takes up 2 gates, except for 76, and 92 where heavies cannot park. In terms of our ability to handle heavy flights, 24 gates is therefore effectively only 12 gates. Why? Because at 10 am when there's a billion narrowbodies going across the border you want 24 bridges, but don't want your piers to be a mile long.

So 2 of the 12 heavy positions are swings where heavies in the midafternoon rush will never park, and instead 4 narrowbodies park. The 12 is now down to 10.

Of the 10 remaining heavy parking positions, 3 are transborder only. We're now down to 7 international heavy positions under normal circumstances (76, 78B, 74B, 80B, 84B, 87B, 83B)

AC from FRA, AC from LHR, Hainan, KLM, WS from LGW, WS from DUB/CDG, and a Transat heavy. It takes only a relatively minor bit of irrop, and there is now zero room for anybody that is not either transborder or swinging.

Big annoyance is that there are no widebody parking positions on the east end. WS Europe flights are big 4 hours turns so there's play there, they could arrive on a US gate without issue then get towed down the pier to international gate... or just go wait on the ramp in front of their shiny new hangar till the new 1730 bank clears out. I see many ways they can make it work even once there's 4+ heavies for WS arriving in the 1400-1600 range. Ultimately swing gates will no longer be able to swing if heavies need to park there, and everybody will have to get towed. WS is going to absolutely lose their 🞵🞵🞵🞵.

Not a well designed terminal at all. A lot of wasted spaces airside, especially when heavies are present. That's what happens when each gate position can handle 1 widebody or 2 narrowbodies.

At YUL, when the international pier is full of widebodies, they are literally wingtip to wingtip, utilizing every inch of space available. The gates were designed solely for widebodies, and the pier doesn't handle transborder (save for a few gates).
At YYC's international pier, there is a lot of room between 2 heavies that are parked next to each other. That's because the same "gate" needs to accomodate 2 narrowbodies. That was the mistake...

Ahh well...live and learn i guess.

[PPAR]

Anyone hear of an American Airlines Dallas-Beijing flight being diverted to YYC for medical emergency today...then plane had flap problems on landing? Apparently passengers stuck in Calgary tonight.

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by Acey

Disagree there. Gates 74 and 78 are code F gates so they're wider. Everything else is code E and would be pretty tight with 2 planes at 65 meters (i.e. 77W) but we almost never have 77W here. It's mostly 87s and 330s with 60 meter spans so the gaps seem huge. Does YUL not have a couple code F gates? How tight are those gates with a 330 on them? Not tight at all.

A lot of 80m protection at YYC, more so than at YUL. (see below)

At YUL, most are code E. Some are code F. Gates are tighter in YUL.

Distance between gate centerlines at YUL intl pier:

50/51 - 73m
51/52 - 72m
55/57 - 69m
57/59 - 70m
59/61 - 72m
61/63 - 80m
64/60 - 71m
60/58 - 72m


Distance between gate centerlines (central lane for heavies) at YYC intl pier:

80B/84B - 89 m
84B/88B - 82 m
91B-87B - 82m
95B-91B - 83m
70B-72B - ~75m

Those extra meters that are not used are wasted space. Add them up, and YYC could have easily squeezed in another gate for a heavy in there.

Source: google earth distance measuring tool (very accurate, btw)

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by Acey

What do you propose we do at 10 am when we need 24 narrowbody bridges? Build another pier? Seems to me it's clear which pier is a better bang for your buck.

I understand what you are saying, and I agree, but when a pier is built to handle two types of traffic, it does one of them efficienty. The other gets the shaft. At YYC the pier is built to cater mostly to narrowbodies. When a bunch of heavies are present, you lose a lot of room quickly.

It's the exact opposite at YUL. The pier is built to handle primarily heavies. During winter mornings, when the pier is full of narrowbodies going down south, there is a lot of wasted space.

[hollywoodcory]

Originally Posted by Acey

DFW-PEK on an AA 787-8. Diverts to YEG for medical. About 15 miles out, flaps/slats/hydraulics fail and they call mayday, bailing on the approach. Decide to come here instead, as our new runway is the longest in Canada (14,000 feet) and good for when you're heavy and might have problems slowing down.

They turn to the south and start circling around the Drumheller area for a bit dumping gas (probably loaded up with ~75 tonnes out of Dallas), then land on 17L at about 190 knots, gear doors hanging open. Towed off the runway to gate 70. Pax off to a hotel. Another 787 was supposed to leave DFW to come rescue and fly out to PEK in the morning, but it's still stuck in Dallas and we're not sure why. Mechanics and a new crew will be on board when it eventually leaves. So 2 American Dreamliners on the ground at some point in the next little bit. Not sure of the status of the pax that was originally a medical.

The odds of a pretty major mech failure in the midst of a medical diversion are pretty low for sure. That's where we're at right now.

They had more bad luck this morning. Scheduled to depart at 07:00, it was fully boarded and ready to go, when it turned out the plane didn't get its security checks and they had to deplane again for one hour. They eventually left just before 10am.

[ggopher]

Originally Posted by outoftheice

One other reason for Dublin that I can think of is the 'budget conscious' Westjet economy passenger can easily use Ryanair to travel to anywhere in Europe. I can see a lot of people flying Westjet from Canada to Dublin, spending a night and then continuing on to somewhere in Europe thanks to Ryanair's large presence in Dublin.

I think Dublin is an excellent destination. I was just there for a vacation flying Air Transat YYC-YYZ-DUB. The connection through YYZ is horrible, long layover, and doesn't really get you any closer to Dublin. The flight from Toronto to Dublin was full and that was in shoulder season (mid-September).

Now that Calgary has a direct flight to Dublin we will definitely be heading back. We spent 18 days travelling around all of Ireland and Northern Ireland and barely put a dent in what there is to see.

[PPAR]

Originally Posted by Acey

What you just said is the general concern - that it's too leisure heavy, it's seasonal, and the J seats will not fill.

Dublin is a secondary financial centre. I know of a few bankers in Calgary who have spent time there with the Canadian banks. With Brexit, that kind of activity may grow substantially as relocation out of London occurs. It is possible that WestJet gets ahead of the curve on this one, and the business seats fill. Time will tell.

[YYCFlier]

Originally Posted by Acey

What you just said is the general concern - that it's too leisure heavy, it's seasonal, and the J seats will not fill.

It's true this is a risk, but it's only 3x a week in peak season and 2x a week on the shoulder seasons, perhaps they will still find it profitable even with low J sales (only 16 seats in cabin). However, the initial seat prices are not that expensive ($2K one way up to $6K for full fare), we may see those sell via U.S. airports.

[Tobuz]

Originally Posted by Acey

I don't think WS launches it without a good business case... it would obviously be pretty bad to bail on one of your launch destinations after only one season.

Mexico City lasted a grand total of 364 days. It’s a global city, a major business centre (and the business ‘capital’ for all of Latin America), a fair-sized tourist draw, and the hub for one of their main partner airlines.

And yet they couldn’t make a go of it, so pulled the plug while the route was arguably still in its infancy.

(Many saw MEX as a big deal for WestJet, because it was really their first international destination that wasn’t primarily aimed at leisure travellers. It’s one thing to fly to Cancun, Jamaica and Maui. But you’re in a whole different league when you get into global business destinations and hub cities like MEX.)

I sure hope they’ve done their homework on DUB, but I would have assumed they’d have done their homework on MEX, too.

[zahav]

WS bailing on MEX wouldn't have been as bad had AM stuck around with it too. How long did their YYC service last, one season too? That isn't a good sign as WS was supposed to take over the route from AM. In YVR AM is 2x daily and some days 3x daily, so the WS pullout was absorbed

[YYCFlier]

Originally Posted by zahav

WS bailing on MEX wouldn't have been as bad had AM stuck around with it too. How long did their YYC service last, one season too? That isn't a good sign as WS was supposed to take over the route from AM. In YVR AM is 2x daily and some days 3x daily, so the WS pullout was absorbed

I'd love to know more about this one. This was a new route for YYC but not YVR. Why couldn't WS make it work from YVR at least? There aren't many routes ex-YVR that are not also available ex-YYC (and in most cases frequency and service is much higher ex-YYC because YYC is a much larger hub) but there are some routes likes YVR-SNA. Seems like there's more going on - other carriers can do this route.

[MalcolmTucker]

Well, I think it will be back when/if the new airport in MEX opens, maybe taking some hub traffic from Houston.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by YYCFlier

I'd love to know more about this one. This was a new route for YYC but not YVR. Why couldn't WS make it work from YVR at least? ....

Originally Posted by Acey

It's low yield. Period. Bailing on MEX is not comparable to bailing on a 787 launch destination, IMO.
...
We remain under the impression that the cuts to the overall capacity as a result of the money loss are a contributing factor to MEX, and a slight shift in narrowbody strategy.

The major change that resulted in draw down of MEX, DEN, etc. is the introduction of the Dreamliners and the effect on today's overall group profitability and near term future prospects.

This is all part of transitioning into a global network airline. In thew wide body sense, a new route like YYC-NRT is almost always 10,000,000 year one investment (read operating loss once startup costs are included). This investment excludes all new fleet indoctrination costs, which add 10s of millions more to the expense lines.

Its likely that both MEX and DEN had good long term prospects and were break even in today's environment. But with the costs of starting up Dreamliner routes, all the other services have to be super profitable.

LGW was a unique situation, London from Canada is always profitable. It was the only international route multiple airlines in the 80s. The only other option for WS Dreamliner profitability is to take over mature routes as part of Joint Venture program, and this appears less likely now with AF/KL.

[LO 044]

Originally Posted by Cage

The only other option for WS Dreamliner profitability is to take over mature routes as part of Joint Venture program, and this appears less likely now with AF/KL.

Maybe this is sort of what you're alluding to but what i didn't notice in any news story or WestJet's announcements is any mention of connectivity on Air France at CDG. Does this mean AF couldn't care less about WestJet's YYC-CDG route and they worry it is competition to the YVR, YYZ and YUL flights?

[thenoflyzone]

Speaking of MEX.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articl...-axes-network-and-fleet-after-to-452791/

None of the cuts affect Canadian airports, for now.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by LO 044

Maybe this is sort of what you're alluding to but what i didn't notice in any news story or WestJet's announcements is any mention of connectivity on Air France at CDG. Does this mean AF couldn't care less about WestJet's YYC-CDG route and they worry it is competition to the YVR, YYZ and YUL flights?

WS is all ready trying to consummate one anti-trust immunized JV with DL and their submission to the competition tribunals is only a couple days old. I only became aware of this factoid this afternoon.

Digesting the above, its possible that WS is downplaying any expansion with AF/KL group until after the DL JV is implemented.

AF/KL very much care about feed from WS. SkyTeam airlines need to make nice with WS in order to get feed from rural Canada. OneWorld Airlines have abandoned Canada that is not YYZ and YVR, so there is a market ready and waiting for non-Star A airlines.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

Speaking of MEX.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articl...-axes-network-and-fleet-after-to-452791/

None of the cuts affect Canadian airports, for now.

That none of the cuts are at Canadian airports likely speaks to how well the routes have been doing. AeroMexico just upped this winter's schedule to 15 flights per week at YVR, definitely showing some confidence in the market.