YVR Airport & Sea Island Developments Discussion

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by stiffdeadman

Now that Hawaiian are receiving A321Neos, the economics might be right for them to serve YVR in the future.

Wouldn’t be surprised to see that happen at all. And yet another option for YVR-Australia.

[nname]

Originally Posted by Gordon

When are we likely to see the first A220s at yvr?

June 1, 2020

AC 309	YUL 17:10 - 19:40 YVR	223	D
AC 314	YVR 23:20 - 07:12+1 YUL	223	D

That's a long time for it to sit at YVR by AC standard?

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by nname

June 1, 2020

AC 309	YUL 17:10 - 19:40 YVR	223	D
AC 314	YVR 23:20 - 07:12+1 YUL	223	D

That's a long time for it to sit at YVR by AC standard?

In order to meet 7am curfew at YUL.

[SpongeG]

Seattle airport upgrades put YVR in crosshairs

Sea-Tac’s new US$968m passenger handling facility targets international business
By Glen Korstrom | January 21, 2020


The Seattle-Tacoma International Airport aims to significantly upgrade its capacity to handle international passengers with the opening later this year of a US$968 million international passenger facility | submitted

The Seattle-Tacoma International Airport’s (SEA) evolution into an international hub and North American gateway is posing a challenge to the Vancouver International Airport (YVR) as executives at each airport spend billions of dollars in upgrades to lure passengers and new airlines.

The Port of Seattle is spending US$3.7 billion over five years and intends to spend about US$6 billion within 10 years on its airport. The Vancouver Airport Authority, meanwhile, plans to open an expanded terminal this summer – one of 75 projects over the next 20 years with a combined estimated price tag of $9.1 billion.

...

Singapore Airlines, which stopped flying out of Vancouver in 2009, launched non-stop flights between Seattle and its Southeast Asian base in September. Condor airline and Lufthansa are set to launch flights out of Seattle to Munich by mid-2020 while Cathay Pacific is readying the launch of non-stop flights between Seattle and Hong Kong in March.


Seattle now has 21 international destinations outside Canada and the U.S. That’s fewer than half of the 45 such destinations that have non-stop flights to YVR, but SEA aspires to catch up.

To achieve that, it plans to take advantage of passenger numbers that last year were estimated at 51.5 million, or about double YVR’s roughly 26 million passengers last year.

...

South America could be the tipping point
A game-changing non-stop route for the futures of the Seattle and Vancouver airports would be one to a South American city. That is because neither airport flies non-stop to that continent and the route could connect many cities’ travellers with more efficient connections.

Seattle’s non-stop international flights are to Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Vancouver has flights to Asia, Europe and Oceania (Australia and New Zealand). Turkish Airlines plans to launch non-stop flights between Vancouver and Istanbul, and that route would be the closest one that Vancouver would have to the Middle East. The Canadian government, however, has yet to agree to necessary changes in an international air agreement that would enable the flights.

Having a non-stop flight to a city in South America could lure new airlines that want to link their passengers with that route, thereby providing momentum for future growth.

Were an airline to launch a South American route from either Seattle or Vancouver, it would be unlikely to then launch a similar route from the other airport, Korenic said.

Vancouver Airport Authority CEO Craig Richmond has for years lobbied the Canadian government to expand a transit-without-visa program to allow more people to be able to fly via Vancouver on the way to third countries – at times thinking that the change would be imminent.

...

https://biv.com/article/2020/01/seattle-...yn-WXl3f7lAyVFvTxGXrmu_0rs6Zp8eotMRtTd6M

[Johnny Aussie]

^^

Should keep YVR on its toes!

The author needs to do more homework.. CX started months ago... and Boeing’s HQ no longer in Seattle.

So let's see where the two airports are at YTD 2019:

SEA had 5,261,601 international passengers to the end of November
YVR had 11,652,832 international passengers to the end of October - end of November should be over 12.5 million

So without even knowing YVR's Nov stats SEA is still well under 1/2 of YVR's intl traffic.

Definitely SEA has recently added more flights and destinations and their intl growth is much better than YVR's but to even catch up they would still have to more than double even what they will have by the end of this year despite all the new services.

However in order to do that.... SEA's problem? Despite this $1 billion terminal improvement where they are lacking is the ability for additional intl gates.... something that isn't in the cards. YVR on the other hand is not resting on its laurels and is building more gates and more to come.

Will just have to see what happens!

In fact YYC is catching up to SEA with almost 5 million intl pax through November!

[Dominion301]

I’m reposting this from the Canadian Aviation thread:

Hi everyone. The Time Air Society of Lethbridge are trying to save one of the F-28s at YXE that have been parked there for over 15 years.

They are about $3,250 shy of their goal, but only have until the end of January to succeed (otherwise it will join all the other YXE F-28s and head off to the scrapper). If you can donate even as little as $20, it would go a long way to preserving a piece of Canadian (and Dutch) aviation history.

Here’s the link to their GoFundMe page: https://www.gofundme.com/f/saving-cftav-fokker-f281000-sn11106

Even if you can’t afford to donate, spread the word.

[JiminyCricket II]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

^^
... and Boeing’s HQ no longer in Seattle.

Boeing Commercial Aircraft - The Boeing Company's largest division - is still HQed in Seattle, and employs north of 70,000 people in the Seattle area. The heart, brain, and muscle of Boeing remains in Seattle, only their wallet got lost in Chicago.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by JiminyCricket II

Boeing Commercial Aircraft - The Boeing Company's largest division - is still HQed in Seattle, and employs north of 70,000 people in the Seattle area. The heart, brain, and muscle of Boeing remains in Seattle, only their wallet got lost in Chicago.

Once Boeing shuts down they can use Boeing Field for a new airport

[Johnny Aussie]

Speaking of Boeing and yes HQ is in Chicago (the guy even tagged their ticker code) but of course their biggest division is still in Seattle.

The MAX grounding now expected into mid 2020 at the earliest.

No doubt we will see more reshuffling as schedules are moved to compensate for this prolonged grounding. Imagine another peak summer...

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

3 flights per week from 25 June for 6 weeks. Loaded and selling!

And Air North has kicked off twice weekly seasonal YVR-YZF today.

https://www.yvr.ca/en/blog/2020/yvr-celebrates-air-norths-new-seasonal-service-to-yellowknife

Wow they didn't even make an announcement at all, great news though!

[LeftCoaster]

In my endless quest to understand how on earth WestJet plans to run an intl hub out of YYC, this ended up on Daily Hive today:

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-paris-cheap-flights-yvr

YVR-YYC-CDG for $600... can they possibly be making money on these routes?

[s211]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

In my endless quest to understand how on earth WestJet plans to run an intl hub out of YYC, this ended up on Daily Hive today:

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-paris-cheap-flights-yvr

YVR-YYC-CDG for $600... can they possibly be making money on these routes?

Ugh. Anything to try and justify Calgary's WS hub status. Why would anyone from Vancouver want to connect through there?

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by s211

Ugh. Anything to try and justify Calgary's WS hub status. Why would anyone from Vancouver want to connect through there?

I think that the price would be the main draw. A longer flight, yes, but $600 return is difficult to find. Perhaps the market from CCY is such that WS seeks a LF increase.
AS LC noted, it would be hard to make money at that price, but even with the extra weight and thus higher fuel costs (?) plus the extra service per pax, it might offset empty seats.

[Johnny Aussie]

Not massive additions but interesting ones...

This summer AC will fly 4 daily to both YQR and YXE.
Also... 4N increasing YVR-YXY to 16 weekly nonstop flights. An additional early afternoon departure on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in the schedules.

[casper]

Originally Posted by trofirhen

I think that the price would be the main draw. A longer flight, yes, but $600 return is difficult to find. Perhaps the market from CCY is such that WS seeks a LF increase.
AS LC noted, it would be hard to make money at that price, but even with the extra weight and thus higher fuel costs (?) plus the extra service per pax, it might offset empty seats.

I have connected through YYC many times. It is not a bad airport. Usually it is when the timing of the direct flight does not work or the direct flight is full or nearly full to the point where the premium for direct is excessive.

[CloudInspector]

They seem to be targeting connections to fill seats. Last fall I saw a non-stop YYC-CDG for less than $150, so I’m not sure how high the yields are. Personally, I’d rather take AF or AC non-stop from YVR. The new terminal setup in YYC isn’t my favourite so I would try to avoid it myself.

[s211]

Originally Posted by CloudInspector

Personally, I’d rather take AF or AC non-stop from YVR.

This.

[Johnny Aussie]

Everyone’s circumstances are different. I’m sure most people would prefer to fly nonstop but to save hundreds many will choose to fly indirect.
I prefer to fly Star Alliance but doesn’t always mean a direct flight.
This conundrum has existed for as Long as I can remember. Ever since the 1980s... people chose to drive to BLI or SEA or fly via there. Flying to Europe sometimes has meant flying via YYC is much cheaper.
Same argument been going on for decades in Edmonton... those who choose to save hundreds will fly indirect versus nonstop.
No doubt WS is depending on copious amounts of transfer pax to fill those big birds. They won’t be making any money on those $600 fares but it would also depend how many seats per flight are allocated to that fare bucket.

[WestCoastEcho]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

Everyone’s circumstances are different. I’m sure most people would prefer to fly nonstop but to save hundreds many will choose to fly indirect.
I prefer to fly Star Alliance but doesn’t always mean a direct flight.
This conundrum has existed for as Long as I can remember. Ever since the 1980s... people chose to drive to BLI or SEA or fly via there. Flying to Europe sometimes has meant flying via YYC is much cheaper.
Same argument been going on for decades in Edmonton... those who choose to save hundreds will fly indirect versus nonstop.
No doubt WS is depending on copious amounts of transfer pax to fill those big birds. They won’t be making any money on those $600 fares but it would also depend how many seats per flight are allocated to that fare bucket.

Looking at the itinerary as pulled directly from WestJet, I can fly YVR-YYC-CDG on March 21 for $352.16 one way in Economy Basic, which means, no free checked bags, no points, no seat assignment, and no changes. Econo fare is $387.16, and EconoFlex is $482.16.

Looks like there is also a pretty lengthy layover in Calgary as well; there is a 24 hour layover in Calgary.

I also saw some other pretty odd itineraries on other dates as well; one went YVR to YYJ, then YYC to CDG.

[casper]

Originally Posted by CloudInspector

They seem to be targeting connections to fill seats. Last fall I saw a non-stop YYC-CDG for less than $150, so I’m not sure how high the yields are. Personally, I’d rather take AF or AC non-stop from YVR. The new terminal setup in YYC isn’t my favourite so I would try to avoid it myself.

Depends on timing with your connections on the Paris side. The WS flight leaves Paris in the afternoon, the Air France flight is a late morning departure.