YVR Airport & Sea Island Developments Discussion

[thenoflyzone]

Interesting development. AF needs to get creative with PPT. It's a loss making route. Has been for decades. And with the arrival of UA on SFO-PPT, as well as low cost carrier French Bee on ORY-SFO-PPT, fares and yields are down between Europe-PPT and US-PPT.

Canada-PPT has no non-stop, so this new flight could inject some much needed life into AF's PPT operations, with improved yields.

Let's see what happens. Winter 2019-2020 launch could very well be likely. Will be an uphill battle for AF, that's for sure. They will need to rely on WestJet to give them adequate feed from the rest of Canada, as YVR-PPT O&D alone isn't enough to sustain the flight.

If this doesn't work, next step would be to cut PPT entirely, and leave it to their JV partner Air Tahiti Nui, which btw, hasn't been profitable for one single year of their existence.

AF has already considered cutting PPT entirely, back in 2013.

[casper]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

Interesting development. AF needs to get creative with PPT. It's a loss making route. Has been for decades. And with the arrival of UA on SFO-PPT, as well as low cost carrier French Bee on ORY-SFO-PPT, fares and yields are down between Europe-PPT and US-PPT.

Canada-PPT has no non-stop, so this new flight could inject some much needed life into AF's PPT operations, with improved yields.

Let's see what happens. Winter 2019-2020 launch could very well be likely. Will be an uphill battle for AF, that's for sure. They will need to rely on WestJet to give them adequate feed from the rest of Canada, as YVR-PPT O&D alone isn't enough to sustain the flight.

If this doesn't work, next step would be to cut PPT entirely, and leave it to their JV partner Air Tahiti Nui, which btw, hasn't been profitable for one single year of their existence.

AF has already considered cutting PPT entirely, back in 2013.

Sounds like the logical next step would be the move the existing flight from LAX to YVR. How are the facilities at LAX for continuing passengers. YVR might make for a smother connection.

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by casper

Sounds like the logical next step would be the move the existing flight from LAX to YVR. How are the facilities at LAX for continuing passengers. YVR might make for a smother connection.

A fascinating development.

Very possible.... with UA’s launch perhaps they are losing too much feed to SFO from LAX.

Could also help support the YVR-CDG route to daily in the summer and support it in the winter. Connecting a French overseas territory to France I’m assuming this would be subsidised anyway.

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by casper

How are the facilities at LAX for continuing passengers. YVR might make for a smother connection.

You need to clear customs at TBIT, so pretty crappy I would say. LAX customs is a disaster at the best of times. To be expected, as it's the world's busiest O&D airport, meaning a fair chunk of passengers need to clear customs.

YVR will offer a far superior experience for transit passengers.

That being said, AF is only 3x weekly LAX-PPT, so it's not that many passengers doing CDG-PPT to begin with.

Originally Posted by casper

Sounds like the logical next step would be the move the existing flight from LAX to YVR.

I dont think they will exit LAX-PPT when/if they start YVR. The O&D is far greater there than in YVR, and DL gives them excellent feed from the rest of the country.

Also, I believe the Air France-Air Tahiti joint venture I was referring to above was rejected by the US DOT (and even it wasn't, it would have only covered the LAX-CDG leg). So AF needs to maintain a foothold on LAX-PPT alongside a potential YVR-PPT.

I can see them keeping LAX-PPT 2 or 3x weekly, and launching 1 or 2x weekly YVR-PPT.

If AF exits LAX-PPT, its because they've given up on French Polynesia altogether.

[Klazu]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

YVR will offer a far superior experience for transit passengers.

Did you just... say something positive about YVR??? Wow. You're sure it's not YUL that is the superior one? I cannot believe what I am reading here.

Interesting development regarding Tahiti as the topic has been coming up before and always been killed as "never gonna happen". I have a feeling that trofirhen was in the know all along! Next up: South America?

[deasine]

Originally Posted by Hourglass

Replace “teenage girls” with “human beings” and that’s closer to the truth. You can search online yourself about AC/SQ and CX/QF tensions. Here’s an example of the discussions around QF/CX: https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=20426091#p20426091. Whether it’s more than imaginings by armchair aviation enthusiasts I couldn’t say.

Not that I don't deny the "bad blood" between AC/SQ, but SQ's partnership and codesharing with AS only makes sense given they are flying to SEA and need onward feed onto their flights.

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by Klazu

Did you just... say something positive about YVR??? Wow. You're sure it's not YUL that is the superior one? I cannot believe what I am reading here.

Interesting development regarding Tahiti as the topic has been coming up before and always been killed as "never gonna happen". I have a feeling that trofirhen was in the know all along! Next up: South America?

Easy there, I can quickly edit what I wrote....

Applying for the license and starting service are 2 different things. Let's see if AF follows through with this. Like I said, it will be an uphill battle for them.

[zahav]

Not that it makes much difference in flight decision, but CDG-YVR-PPT is almost evenly split between flight segments CDG-YVR and YVR-PPT, vs routings thru LAX and SFO.

And I agree with SQ partnering with AS in SEA. They are just so big there and have so many other destinations to connect with, it is strategic to have the most reach. It wasn't do diss AC on that one route. They could still codeshare with AC to YVR and YYZ (YYZ even more likely) but who knows if they will even bother

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

I agree the Max grounding definitely having an effect.

Eg AC reduced YVR-LAS to one daily from two daily rouge. That reduces 136 daily departing seats from the market.

Look at the May results more closely and put it in perspective.

The May Transborder result is a reduction of only 90 departing passengers per day. Not taking anything else into account, that one reduction on YVR-LAS, which is a direct result of the grounding, removed more seats than the actual reduction in passengers carried.

Voila.

Well that is assuming it would be 0% growth otherwise.

While the example does put it into perspective and the max grounding definitely accounts for some loss of growth, it is still perplexing to me why YVR is now growing slower than every other major airport in Canada when Vancouver's economy continues to grow the fastest.

I expect this downturn in growth, particularly to the US, to be temporary given that.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by nname

Seems like it's the time of the year when AF and TN applies for extra-bilateral service to operate service from Canada to Tahiti via US. However, I've noticed something new this year:

https://www.otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/ruling/a-2019-131

Now for the first time in all the years I've checked, AF is specifically asking for the license to operate on Route 3.

Am I looking at it too much?

Interesting development. While it makes sense for AF to try and fill their plans a little to YVR, especially in the slow winter months, I would be (pleasantly) surprised if they end up going through with this application.

[nname]

Seems like AC is planning to remove MAX from the entire winter schedule.

Currently YVR-PHX is switched to 320 instead of 7M8.

ALL of YVR-Mexico increase had been rolled back to W18 level.

Schedule update for the next few weeks should be interesting...

[Hourglass]

Originally Posted by nname

Seems like AC is planning to remove MAX from the entire winter schedule.

Currently YVR-PHX is switched to 320 instead of 7M8.

ALL of YVR-Mexico increase had been rolled back to W18 level.

Schedule update for the next few weeks should be interesting...

Yes, starting to look like MAX groundings could possibly extend into 2020, especially if regulators find additional problems or require revisions or refinements to the software fix.

[zahav]

The MAX issue is why I took the AC schedule update a few weeks ago with a grain of salt. All of the sun lfying they added from YVR was scheduled with 737, meaning it wasn't worth a damn, it was all speculation and assumption it wouldn't happen

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

Well that is assuming it would be 0% growth otherwise.

While the example does put it into perspective and the max grounding definitely accounts for some loss of growth, it is still perplexing to me why YVR is now growing slower than every other major airport in Canada when Vancouver's economy continues to grow the fastest.

I expect this downturn in growth, particularly to the US, to be temporary given that.

True true. But compared to SEA, probably YVR's more direct competitive airport, YVR still added more intl pax than SEA in May. SEA added only 14,000 compared to YVR's 26,000. And that's after SEA added JL, CX and DL's new KIX flight. JL has certainly taken a bite out of NH there. And even more fascinating is DL flew fewer intl passengers in May compared to last year. So the gap continues to grow between the two.

YYC's growth is definitely due to WS growing their connecting hub there no question.

Not sure if we consider YEG a "major" airport anymore but they had an abysmal May.

[CloudInspector]

WestJet’s winter schedule announcement shows an increase in flying in YVR.

http://westjet.mediaroom.com/2019-07-22-More-flights-more-often-with-WestJets-winter-schedule

Additions to YVR Include:
YWG: 2 daily (+1/week)
SNA: Daily (+1/week)
SJD: Daily (+2/week)
PVR: 9 weekly (+1/week)
HUX: 2 weekly (+1/week)
CUN: 9 weekly (+2/week)

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

True true. But compared to SEA, probably YVR's more direct competitive airport, YVR still added more intl pax than SEA in May. SEA added only 14,000 compared to YVR's 26,000. And that's after SEA added JL, CX and DL's new KIX flight. JL has certainly taken a bite out of NH there. And even more fascinating is DL flew fewer intl passengers in May compared to last year. So the gap continues to grow between the two.

YYC's growth is definitely due to WS growing their connecting hub there no question.

Not sure if we consider YEG a "major" airport anymore but they had an abysmal May.

I don't think YEG has ever been a major airport (no offence YEG, but let's be honest).

I'm hoping 2019 is an aberration year and 2020 continues the strong growth. The economic, population, and wealth growth in YVR are just too strong for this slow growth at YVR to persist.

And before anyone jumps in and says "YVR couldn't keep up its fast growth", it's average growth over the last 20 years is 2.8%, so more or less inflationary. The last 4-5 years were only making up for the lost years of the first and last three years of the 2000s. YVRs growth for the last two decades has been decidedly average.

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

I don't think YEG has ever been a major airport (no offence YEG, but let's be honest).

I'm hoping 2019 is an aberration year and 2020 continues the strong growth. The economic, population, and wealth growth in YVR are just too strong for this slow growth at YVR to persist.

And before anyone jumps in and says "YVR couldn't keep up its fast growth", it's average growth over the last 20 years is 2.8%, so more or less inflationary. The last 4-5 years were only making up for the lost years of the first and last three years of the 2000s. YVRs growth for the last two decades has been decidedly average.

Let's hope!

The growth encountered in the last few years may have been some catching up but I think we all realised those very high growth rates wouldn't last indefinitely. Each year with the denominator growing that much higher, the ability to maintain those high growths would have meant adding even more capacity year on year than in previous years. Aggregate numbers still going up but % wise harder to achieve. And comparing to SEA, which economically is just going sky high, YVR is still adding more intl passengers than SEA.

Nice to see WESTJET adding to its YVR "hub." All up looks like 8 extra flights per week this winter of which 7 are international.

Still good to see Westjet continuing to build their mainline ops at YVR.

[nname]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

Nice to see WESTJET adding to its YVR "hub." All up looks like 8 extra flights per week this winter of which 7 are international.

Still good to see Westjet continuing to build their mainline ops at YVR.

If you exclude Encore, seasonal extension, and 787 upgauge, YVR actually gained the same or more mainline service from WS than YYC and YYZ

But again, this is probably due to almost no growth from WS last winter/summer.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

Let's hope!

The growth encountered in the last few years may have been some catching up but I think we all realised those very high growth rates wouldn't last indefinitely. Each year with the denominator growing that much higher, the ability to maintain those high growths would have meant adding even more capacity year on year than in previous years. Aggregate numbers still going up but % wise harder to achieve. And comparing to SEA, which economically is just going sky high, YVR is still adding more intl passengers than SEA.

Nice to see WESTJET adding to its YVR "hub." All up looks like 8 extra flights per week this winter of which 7 are international.

Still good to see Westjet continuing to build their mainline ops at YVR.

Which 7 new Westjet routes are international, please? I would imagine they're pretty much all in Mexico, possibly the Caribbean. ( Or does that include transborder?) Thanks.
(btw, I did consult the westjet link a few posts above, and found only 6 from YVR, one to Winnipeg, one transborder, the rest - 4 - in the list to Mexico.)
no comprendo.

[CloudInspector]

Flew on WestJet the other day, flight attendant mentioned they can now apply for the 787 in YVR. Thought that was interesting.