Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport (YOW/CYOW) 1.0

[OTSkyline]

That's weird. From my experience I always check prices from YOW, YUL and YYZ and 95% of the time I end up finding the lowest price out of Ottawa. Although I'm usually fairly flexible on date/airline and whatnot, so maybe that's the difference.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

That's weird. From my experience I always check prices from YOW, YUL and YYZ and 95% of the time I end up finding the lowest price out of Ottawa. Although I'm usually fairly flexible on date/airline and whatnot, so maybe that's the difference.

I've had similar experiences to yours (except during Ontario March Break, when flights south are much cheaper out of Montreal). But for me to be willing to drive 3 hours for a flight, the difference in cost has to be at least $400, and even at that, I am putting essentially no value on my time (that is just the cost of driving that far, plus the cost of parking less taxi/transit fare).

[qprcanada]

Originally Posted by phil235

I've had similar experiences to yours (except during Ontario March Break, when flights south are much cheaper out of Montreal). But for me to be willing to drive 3 hours for a flight, the difference in cost has to be at least $400, and even at that, I am putting essentially no value on my time (that is just the cost of driving that far, plus the cost of parking less taxi/transit fare).

I find airlines like Air Transat and other non star alliance airlines flying out of YUL do not give you the option to originate from YOW when booking so for these type of journeys we just drive to YUL instead of buying a separate ticket.

My experience is quite different from yours and I have rarely found flights from YOW any cheaper than YUL or YYZ.

[YOWhopeful]

Originally Posted by qprcanada

I find airlines like Air Transat and other non star alliance airlines flying out of YUL do not give you the option to originate from YOW when booking so for these type of journeys we just drive to YUL instead of buying a separate ticket.

My experience is quite different from yours and I have rarely found flights from YOW any cheaper than YUL or YYZ.

Air France and KLM shuttle service from Ottawa to YUL works very well and doesn’t add to the ticket price so I use them regularly.

[qprcanada]

Originally Posted by YOWhopeful

Air France and KLM shuttle service from Ottawa to YUL works very well and doesn’t add to the ticket price so I use them regularly.

Good to know, I hadn't considered that option. I ave mainly flow out of YUL on AC, Air Transat and Interjet before they ceased operations.

[fanofYOW]

Originally Posted by qprcanada

Good to know, I hadn't considered that option. I ave mainly flow out of YUL on AC, Air Transat and Interjet before they ceased operations.

How sad, a bus service to go to YUL to use Air France or KLM. Ottawa is the only city in Canada with 1m+ people who are not served by either. A bus service is justified for smaller cities, but this is starting to get ridiculous. Edmonton, an airport not a hub for any airline even have KLM serving it. I'm really curious as to what data these airlines are using to make such a decision and what that data shows. I wonder what service in YUL and YYZ would look like if hypothetically Ottawa just did not exist. For me personally, I can't wait for LH to begin in YOW. I always look for tickets with maximum one stop, travelling is hard enough as it is, could you imagine multiple stops? If one thing goes wrong somewhere like a cancelled flight, you're done. I don't care how expensive it is, starting in YOW always helps our cause.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

That's weird. From my experience I always check prices from YOW, YUL and YYZ and 95% of the time I end up finding the lowest price out of Ottawa. Although I'm usually fairly flexible on date/airline and whatnot, so maybe that's the difference.

In 2022? Before the pandemic for sure. But you can fly to Europe direct from Montreal for less than $1000 sometimes a lot less. From Ottawa you will spend not only substantially more but will have one or even two stopovers. Montreal is basically an extra hour over going to YOW so you end up saving quite a bit of time too. Air France is back with their bus and doesn't really charge more for it but went to Paris last month and the timing was so inconvenient was better to just by the ticket from Montreal. Worth paying for parking and gas.

[mxg308]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

In 2022? Before the pandemic for sure. But you can fly to Europe direct from Montreal for less than $1000 sometimes a lot less. From Ottawa you will spend not only substantially more but will have one or even two stopovers. Montreal is basically an extra hour over going to YOW so you end up saving quite a bit of time too. Air France is back with their bus and doesn't really charge more for it but went to Paris last month and the timing was so inconvenient was better to just by the ticket from Montreal. Worth paying for parking and gas.

I also find Ottawa to be pretty at par with YUL or YYZ with the exception of some sun flights at peak season. For example, I'm flying YOW-FRA with a stop in YYZ in September for $800rt with Condor/WS.

[OTSkyline]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

In 2022? Before the pandemic for sure. But you can fly to Europe direct from Montreal for less than $1000 sometimes a lot less. From Ottawa you will spend not only substantially more but will have one or even two stopovers. Montreal is basically an extra hour over going to YOW so you end up saving quite a bit of time too. Air France is back with their bus and doesn't really charge more for it but went to Paris last month and the timing was so inconvenient was better to just by the ticket from Montreal. Worth paying for parking and gas.

Yep. I just bought a flight about 5-6 weeks ago round-trip to Paris. Looked at every option out there.

Cheapest was round-trip Ottawa-Halifax-Paris with WestJet for $619

Departing from MTL, TOR or even that shuttle from Ottawa-Montreal than flying Air France were in the $800-$1000 range.

[wingman]

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

Yep. I just bought a flight about 5-6 weeks ago round-trip to Paris. Looked at every option out there.

Cheapest was round-trip Ottawa-Halifax-Paris with WestJet for $619

Departing from MTL, TOR or even that shuttle from Ottawa-Montreal than flying Air France were in the $800-$1000 range.

YOW > YHZ > destination, while adds a stop is not ridiculous... at least it is "on the way".

When I fly to even just the East Coast of Canada, I feel like an idiot for having to back-track to YYZ. I am heading to the pacific in June, and even then most options are nudging me to make an extra stop at YYZ (which I avoided this time around)... I find it frustrating.

[Coho]

Originally Posted by fanofYOW

How sad, a bus service to go to YUL to use Air France or KLM. Ottawa is the only city in Canada with 1m+ people who are not served by either. A bus service is justified for smaller cities, but this is starting to get ridiculous. Edmonton, an airport not a hub for any airline even have KLM serving it. I'm really curious as to what data these airlines are using to make such a decision and what that data shows. I wonder what service in YUL and YYZ would look like if hypothetically Ottawa just did not exist. For me personally, I can't wait for LH to begin in YOW. I always look for tickets with maximum one stop, travelling is hard enough as it is, could you imagine multiple stops? If one thing goes wrong somewhere like a cancelled flight, you're done. I don't care how expensive it is, starting in YOW always helps our cause.

Edmonton had 8.1 Million passengers fly through it in 2019, compared to Ottawa which had only 5.1 Million, so an ~3 million passenger difference. KLM is the only European service that Edmonton sees, so I'd say we were doing pretty good when we had direct flights to Frankfurt and London with only 5 million passengers. Although maybe WestJet was running some London flights from there that same year. Either way, for having 3 million less people flying per year I think our European service in 2019 was decent. I anticipate that next summer we'll see the return of direct flights to Europe through YOW.

[fanofYOW]

Originally Posted by Coho

Edmonton had 8.1 Million passengers fly through it in 2019, compared to Ottawa which had only 5.1 Million, so an ~3 million passenger difference. KLM is the only European service that Edmonton sees, so I'd say we were doing pretty good when we had direct flights to Frankfurt and London with only 5 million passengers. Although maybe WestJet was running some London flights from there that same year. Either way, for having 3 million less people flying per year I think our European service in 2019 was decent. I anticipate that next summer we'll see the return of direct flights to Europe through YOW.

We have a 3 million people difference between us and Edmonton because people are less likely there to drive to Calgary due to the longer distance they have compared to Ottawa to Montreal. When people here drive to Montreal it shows up as a YUL originating passenger, not YOW. Coupled with the fact that if you look at Edmonton's direct flight options, they have way more than us. These things factor into how many passengers fly out of a specific airport (hence why people from Ottawa are driving to Montreal). I will not believe that there is less demand from Ottawa as compared to Edmonton. We are the capital and as such people need to fly in and out of here. Our downfall is plain and simple, YUL. If airlines see that people here are willing to drive to YUL, why would they add direct flights? This is amazing news for them, less planes, less service, less routes to manage. Also on that note, remember that WS has made Edmonton a pretty busy airport, and when I search flights, I constantly see options where Edmonton is a connecting airport (when WS used to serve YOW to YEG). Remember that numbers count connecting passengers, so how many of those 8.1m people are just connecting? YOW has a connecting rate of about 2.5% only. This data is coming straight from YOW's website.

[YOWhopeful]

The drive from Edmonton airport to Calgary airport is 2.5 hours. From Yow to Yul is just under 2 hours. I don’t know if that difference wholly explains the discrepancy in service. Edmonton is also a hub for Swoop and Flair I think. But mostly I think Ottawa is not on anyone’s radar to he honest.

[fanofYOW]

Originally Posted by YOWhopeful

The drive from Edmonton airport to Calgary airport is 2.5 hours. From Yow to Yul is just under 2 hours. I don’t know if that difference wholly explains the discrepancy in service. Edmonton is also a hub for Swoop and Flair I think. But mostly I think Ottawa is not on anyone’s radar to he honest.

It's actually 3 hours if you type it into google maps. And I get 1 hour and 50 minutes between Ottawa and YUL. So it's more than an hour difference. May not be much to some people, but for sure that difference is just enough to deter others. In fact, about a decade ago (I don't know what year specifically), there were about 20k less people than usual driving to Calgary because they had some sort of "protest" if you will called the "stop the Calgary habit". They actually got direct flights out of it!

[Harley613]

Originally Posted by YOWhopeful

The drive from Edmonton airport to Calgary airport is 2.5 hours. From Yow to Yul is just under 2 hours. I don’t know if that difference wholly explains the discrepancy in service. Edmonton is also a hub for Swoop and Flair I think. But mostly I think Ottawa is not on anyone’s radar to he honest.

I guess I can comment on this one as a born and raised Calgarian with friends and family there, but a resident of the NCR for many many years.

Nobody drives to Edmonton from Calgary for a flight. Not a single person.

Everyone drives to Montreal from Ottawa for a flight at some point. I fly out of YUL at least 70% of the time. It's just the way it is, regardless of the closeness in drive times.

[Dominion301]

Today's departure count: 64

Today's cancellation count: 1

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by qprcanada

I find airlines like Air Transat and other non star alliance airlines flying out of YUL do not give you the option to originate from YOW when booking so for these type of journeys we just drive to YUL instead of buying a separate ticket.

My experience is quite different from yours and I have rarely found flights from YOW any cheaper than YUL or YYZ.

TS with their new codeshare with WS now offer three Euro destinations out of YOW by backtracking to YYZ. With their new interline with Avianca, they're now offering three connection destinations this winter in Latin America out of YOW. Those connections aren't going to be at the usual, but at CUN or POP!

Originally Posted by Coho

Edmonton had 8.1 Million passengers fly through it in 2019, compared to Ottawa which had only 5.1 Million, so an ~3 million passenger difference. KLM is the only European service that Edmonton sees, so I'd say we were doing pretty good when we had direct flights to Frankfurt and London with only 5 million passengers. Although maybe WestJet was running some London flights from there that same year. Either way, for having 3 million less people flying per year I think our European service in 2019 was decent. I anticipate that next summer we'll see the return of direct flights to Europe through YOW.

Yes a 3 million overall pre-pandemic pax difference, but YOW at the time was handling more transoceanic international pax - both direct and O&D overall. However, at the end of the day our geography is unlike any other large city - even Quebec City's far more isolated.

Originally Posted by fanofYOW

How sad, a bus service to go to YUL to use Air France or KLM. Ottawa is the only city in Canada with 1m+ people who are not served by either. A bus service is justified for smaller cities, but this is starting to get ridiculous. Edmonton, an airport not a hub for any airline even have KLM serving it. I'm really curious as to what data these airlines are using to make such a decision and what that data shows. I wonder what service in YUL and YYZ would look like if hypothetically Ottawa just did not exist. For me personally, I can't wait for LH to begin in YOW. I always look for tickets with maximum one stop, travelling is hard enough as it is, could you imagine multiple stops? If one thing goes wrong somewhere like a cancelled flight, you're done. I don't care how expensive it is, starting in YOW always helps our cause.

I wonder what YQB did to attract AF this summer? I'm pretty sure they used to have a bus too. I sure hope the Airport Authority succeeds in putting together the travel bank in short order. It's 20 years overdue.

[Dominion301]

Today’s departure count: 52

Saturday has definitely returned to its traditional position of fewest departures during the week. For the first two years of the pandemic it was not uncommon for it to have been the day of the week with the most or certainly not the lowest.

[JCL]

The following flights to Toronto has diverted to Ottawa!

- Air Canada 841 [Boeing 777-300]: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/ACA841/history/20220521/0730Z/EDDF/CYOW
- Air Canada 801 [Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner]: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/ACA801/history/20220521/1005Z/EIDW/CYOW

[fanofYOW]

A while ago I read a comment Porter made on their facebook page to someone else's comment that they will announce their initial routes in "late spring". Well we are now in the last third of spring so an announcement should be coming soon. Way too excited to wait personally.