YVR Airport & Sea Island Developments Discussion

[nname]

Interjet increase YVR-MEX to 6x weekly for the month of February, and daily starting April all the way to end end of schedule in Nov 2020. Jan and March remains 4x weekly.

4O2850 MEX 1800 - 2145 YVR 320 D
4O2851 YVR 2310 - 0700+1 MEX 320 D

During DST adjustment, the additional flight will have the flight number 4O2853

AeroMexico is also increase MEX to 16x weekly base service (from 15x weekly) from Apr to end of schedule in Nov 2020.

Icelandair seems like will operate 5x weekly YVR-KEF this summer, day x26

[casper]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

You said YUL gained BOG but lost LIM. Simply pointed out that YUL gained far more than BOG this year (and next). So that LIM loss is pretty insignificant, and is not comparable to the lack of new destinations at YVR.

I am pretty certain no one who is playing with real money (e.g., the airlines) or the people who operate the airport view any of this as a competition between YUL and YVR. So why should we.

It is good to see YUL growing. Love the airport and the city. It has a lot of potential but it is going to have to deal with some difficult physical constraints at some point. As a gateway between Europe/Africa and the Americas it has a lot of potential. YVR will never be a significant gateway in that respect.

YVR also a bit more flexibility it how it grows. It is growth will be drive by local demand, Asia Pacific and Australia.

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by nname

Interjet increase YVR-MEX to 6x weekly for the month of February, and daily starting April all the way to end end of schedule in Nov 2020. Jan and March remains 4x weekly.

4O2850 MEX 1800 - 2145 YVR 320 D
4O2851 YVR 2310 - 0700+1 MEX 320 D

During DST adjustment, the additional flight will have the flight number 4O2853

AeroMexico is also increase MEX to 16x weekly base service (from 15x weekly) from Apr to end of schedule in Nov 2020.

Icelandair seems like will operate 5x weekly YVR-KEF this summer, day x26

Good news about MEX flights. AM is going to 20 weekly (3 daily except only 2 on Tuesdays) mid June right to end of October. With InterJet going daily that’s a total of 5 daily YVR-MEX in the summer (4 on Tuesdays). Good result.

[whatnext]

YVR's choice of land McArthur Glen is coming back to bit it in the ass. They need to realize their priority is passengers using the airport, not shoppers:

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Another Boxing Day has come and gone, but not without frustration.

Once again, people who say they were driving to Vancouver International Airport are expressing their angst over the outlet mall near YVR, after they were stuck in traffic backing up into Vancouver.

“Stupidest place ever for a mall,” reads one tweet in response to the congestion caused by deal hunters at the McArthurGlen Designer Outlet....

...Some drivers called NEWS 1130 to air their grievances directly, with some saying they waited about 40 minutes to get across the bridge toward the airport from Bridgeport. At least one passenger said they were probably going to miss their flight...

https://www.citynews1130.com/2019/12/27/commuters-yvr-passengers-boxing-day-traffic/

[Henbo]

Originally Posted by whatnext

YVR's choice of land McArthur Glen is coming back to bit it in the ass. They need to realize their priority is passengers using the airport, not shoppers:

They do, that's why they built this mall, to bring in additional revenue that can help lower the cost burden for airlines and travellers

The issue is that parking at the mall is free. With the Canada Line at the door step, I'm wondering if in their lease agreements, would they be able to charge for parking? I know retail centres aren't in favour of this, but if YVR want's to better manage vehicle demand..

I also wonder if it would be possible for YVR to implement some sort of congestion pricing scheme? It's federal jurisdiction, and with predicted passenger growth, the Arthur Laing bridge is only going to become more of a choke point.

[nname]

I think it's likely because the parking lot for the outlet is full, and some drivers choose to wait on the left-turn lane despite being asked to continue and turn around the back of the outlet mall. This cause a back up on the Templeton Station Road and onto Templeton Street, which then clogged up the intersection with Grant McConachie Way and then onto Grant McConachie Way itself.

Saw this issue earlier in December, where the line of cars trying to get into the parking went all the way onto Templeton Street.

I also wonder if it would be possible for YVR to implement some sort of congestion pricing scheme? It's federal jurisdiction, and with predicted passenger growth, the Arthur Laing bridge is only going to become more of a choke point.

Maybe have sign on the other side of the bridge telling how many spaces left in the parking lot and whether the lot is full, and/or reimburse transit fares if the total purchase is more than some fixed amount, and/or have a deal with RiverRock/TransLink to offer the P&R at Bridgeport for free for shoppers during Boxing Day (which otherwise lies empty)? At least this will encourage people to take transit and/or reduce the amount of cars driving onto the island.

[zahav]

It is annoying but back-ups like that are really restricted to Boxing Day/Black Friday , it is not an everyday occurence. I still thank that location was the best choice in terms of access and with transit. T. Mills also got hit with major traffic snarls on Boxing Day (much to the anger of locals as well), but it isn't an everyday thing. YVR warned people a lot that there was going to be traffic snarls, if people didn't leave time then that's not the airport's fault

[Klazu]

Yeah, this was completely predicted and communicated widely. If someone still missed their flight, that's on them and them alone.

I hope parking remains free as I would never visit the place unless for the free parking. SkyTrain is also always packed so it's not like it would be any solution to take it instead. We just need more infrastructure in form of more SkyTrain and more lanes. We see this everywhere in the Metro.

[nname]

Some update for S20 service from Chinese airlines:

CZ seems to closed reservation for MEX-YVR-CAN from Mar 29. Service on YVR-CAN seems to be unchanged at the moment. Unsure of where they will use the 3x weekly that was just freed up. However, since they did not use the 3x weekly slot for the winter season, they WILL lose it if they didn't find a use for them by April.

Rumor is that MU is pulling out long-hual service originating from KMG, which includes YVR-NKG-KMG. Starting from Mar 29, the route will becomes YVR-NKG only. However, this had not reflected on the schedule yet.

[WestCoastEcho]

Originally Posted by nname

Some update for S20 service from Chinese airlines:

CZ seems to closed reservation for MEX-YVR-CAN from Mar 29. Service on YVR-CAN seems to be unchanged at the moment. Unsure of where they will use the 3x weekly that was just freed up. However, since they did not use the 3x weekly slot for the winter season, they WILL lose it if they didn't find a use for them by April.

Rumor is that MU is pulling out long-hual service originating from KMG, which includes YVR-NKG-KMG. Starting from Mar 29, the route will becomes YVR-NKG only. However, this had not reflected on the schedule yet.

I suspect more adjustments, reduction in frequencies, or down gauges coming forth from many of these Chinese airlines, as many of these airlines are already struggling to turn a profit as it is, and with the current geo-political situation has caused a major downturn in traffic.

[nname]

Originally Posted by WestCoastEcho

I suspect more adjustments, reduction in frequencies, or down gauges coming forth from many of these Chinese airlines, as many of these airlines are already struggling to turn a profit as it is, and with the current geo-political situation has caused a major downturn in traffic.

That will come with the risk of not only losing the slot, but also affect the chance of obtaining future slot in another airport/country through competition, as it count toward the airline score.

Believe it or not, the Canadian routes are far from being the worse performing long-hual, mainly due to the frequency cap imposed on the Canadian side...

[zahav]

You could never go MEX-YVR on CZ anyways, it wasn't available for purchase, unlike the CX route to JFK. So if they drop the MEX route but keep the 3x weekly YVR then it is a boost in seats actually, since those flights won't be continuing on to MEX. The MEX pax never counted in YVR traffic numbers, since you couldn't from there from YVR.

[WestCoastEcho]

Originally Posted by nname

That will come with the risk of not only losing the slot, but also affect the chance of obtaining future slot in another airport/country through competition, as it count toward the airline score.

Believe it or not, the Canadian routes are far from being the worse performing long-hual, mainly due to the frequency cap imposed on the Canadian side...

A couple of these Chinese airlines are teetering on the brink of insolvency, so maintaining slots to fly to Canada, which is unprofitable as it is (witness the extremely depressed prices as everyone is trying to undercut each other) might not be in their best interests moving forward, especially since it was revealed that in general, all of the Chinese airlines collectively were bleeding money massively on international flights. They can't keep this going for much longer before capital runs out.

[nname]

YVR-CAN is currently 7x weekly for S20, so the extra 3 weekly are also gone for now (hence the question of where CZ will use those frequency on).

Normally, Chinese city will subsidize a route for up to 3 years. Now looking at some examples:

SZX-SEA: began Sept 26, 2016; ended Sept 25, 2019
CGO-YVR: began Nov 11, 2016; ended Nov 5, 2019
CAN-MEX: began Apr 10, 2017; to end Mar 29, 2020

Hmmm......

By the way, PEK-YYC began June 30, 2016... and this winter is the first to be outside of the 3 years period and the route is already down to seasonal. I wonder if subsidy was involved too....

Originally Posted by WestCoastEcho

A couple of these Chinese airlines are teetering on the brink of insolvency, so maintaining slots to fly to Canada, which is unprofitable as it is (witness the extremely depressed prices as everyone is trying to undercut each other) might not be in their best interests moving forward, especially since it was revealed that in general, all of the Chinese airlines collectively were bleeding money massively on international flights. They can't keep this going for much longer before capital runs out.

Firstly, CA, MU, CZ, and 3U are currently just fine.
Secondly, most of the airlines are making huge profits on domestic route, and they use them to subsidize long-haul. Even if long-haul are bleeding money, they are still making profit overall. This is what's keeping them going for so long.
And thirdly, there are subsidy. If a route is really unprofitable, then airline will shut it down after exactly 3 years when the subsidy stopped (see above). When subsidy is ongoing, they are almost guaranteed to not lose money, so why not just fly near-empty planes to keep the slots?

By the way, subsidy for YVR-TAO and YVR-NKG should be expiring by the end of this month. So far both routes seems to be fine running over the rest of the winter season, so I don't see they'll do anything to them over the summer....

[WestCoastEcho]

Originally Posted by nname

YVR-CAN is currently 7x weekly for S20, so the extra 3 weekly are also gone for now (hence the question of where CZ will use those frequency on).

Normally, Chinese city will subsidize a route for up to 3 years. Now looking at some examples:

SZX-SEA: began Sept 26, 2016; ended Sept 25, 2019
CGO-YVR: began Nov 11, 2019; ended Nov 5, 2019
CAN-MEX: began Apr 10, 2017; to end Mar 29, 2020

Hmmm......

By the way, PEK-YYC began June 30, 2016... and this winter is the first to be outside of the 3 years period and the route is already down to seasonal. I wonder if subsidy was involved too....

Bet you 5 bucks it was subsidized.

Have you actually looked at the prices of the flights involved? They are ridiculously low, and my understanding is that they aren't filling the flights either. From what I've understood, the passengers are almost all outbound leisure passengers from Mainland China, which isn't exactly high yielding to begin with.

[nname]

Originally Posted by WestCoastEcho

Bet you 5 bucks it was subsidized.

Have you actually looked at the prices of the flights involved? They are ridiculously low, and my understanding is that they aren't filling the flights either. From what I've understood, the passengers are almost all outbound leisure passengers from Mainland China, which isn't exactly high yielding to begin with.

Like I said, if there are subsidy they don't really care... The government is paying 70-100% of the operating cost, so whatever they earned is theirs to keep. When subsidy expired... well I just checked a few fare for direct flights and they aren't really that cheap anymore. They are quite comparable to the what AC offers...

I don't know about the other routes, but I see reports that the LF on YVR-NKG is about 85% over the past few months.

By the way, AC is offering round-trip YVR-PVG at $510 CAD right now, and is now the cheapest direct flight fare to Asia from YVR

[casper]

Originally Posted by nname

I think it's likely because the parking lot for the outlet is full, and some drivers choose to wait on the left-turn lane despite being asked to continue and turn around the back of the outlet mall. This cause a back up on the Templeton Station Road and onto Templeton Street, which then clogged up the intersection with Grant McConachie Way and then onto Grant McConachie Way itself.

Saw this issue earlier in December, where the line of cars trying to get into the parking went all the way onto Templeton Street.




Maybe have sign on the other side of the bridge telling how many spaces left in the parking lot and whether the lot is full, and/or reimburse transit fares if the total purchase is more than some fixed amount, and/or have a deal with RiverRock/TransLink to offer the P&R at Bridgeport for free for shoppers during Boxing Day (which otherwise lies empty)? At least this will encourage people to take transit and/or reduce the amount of cars driving onto the island.

My biggest compliant is actually is before the mall opens. They block entrance to the mall parking lot until the mall opens. End result is if you are using the long-term parking and arriving on an morning flight you be stuck not being able to leave the airport due to the line up of cars waiting to enter that silly shopping centers parking lot. It is quite unsafe.

The weekend before Christmas arrived on the early flight from Edmonton, trying to leave the long-term parking, had to drive down the wrong lane of traffic to get around that nonsense. That is clearly the fault of the operators of the mall for not opening the gates to their parking lot when they see that traffic is backed up.

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by nname

I think it's likely because the parking lot for the outlet is full, and some drivers choose to wait on the left-turn lane despite being asked to continue and turn around the back of the outlet mall. This cause a back up on the Templeton Station Road and onto Templeton Street, which then clogged up the intersection with Grant McConachie Way and then onto Grant McConachie Way itself.

Saw this issue earlier in December, where the line of cars trying to get into the parking went all the way onto Templeton Street.




Maybe have sign on the other side of the bridge telling how many spaces left in the parking lot and whether the lot is full, and/or reimburse transit fares if the total purchase is more than some fixed amount, and/or have a deal with RiverRock/TransLink to offer the P&R at Bridgeport for free for shoppers during Boxing Day (which otherwise lies empty)? At least this will encourage people to take transit and/or reduce the amount of cars driving onto the island.

they could block or close templeton on such days, and cars for the outlet are directed to the two northern entrances perhaps.

[twoNeurons]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

they could block or close templeton on such days, and cars for the outlet are directed to the two northern entrances perhaps.

Or perhaps charge $5/hour parking, and then validate parking if you make a purchase.

Sidepoint: I have occasionally used that lot and taken the train to the airport.

[casper]

Originally Posted by twoNeurons

Or perhaps charge $5/hour parking, and then validate parking if you make a purchase.

Sidepoint: I have occasionally used that lot and taken the train to the airport.

Better solution is encourage transit. Getting rid of the $5 airport charge would make a lot of sense.