Winnipeg | James Armstrong Richardson International Airport

[esquire]

Originally Posted by CoryB

My gut feel is if ATL happens it is going to be as a soft replacement for a ORD direct with a connection happening in ATL for ORD travelers. It is similar to how Chicago was important as Winnipeg isn't a big enough city to support a direct to NYC but moving passengers to Chicago gave them good options for connection onward to NYC.

ORD is so useful though, when you consider the range of destinations + geographical location ORD is hard to beat. It's almost as useful to Winnipeg-based travellers as YYZ, and it adds numerous attractive options from a price standpoint (for cheapniks like me) or a service standpoint (when money is no object)... yet there are many flights a day to YYZ but none to ORD.

ATL can't come close to what ORD offers.

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by CoryB

My gut feel is if ATL happens it is going to be as a soft replacement for a ORD direct with a connection happening in ATL for ORD travelers. It is similar to how Chicago was important as Winnipeg isn't a big enough city to support a direct to NYC but moving passengers to Chicago gave them good options for connection onward to NYC.

Don't think too many people will fly to ATL to connect to ORD.

[drew]

Originally Posted by esquire

ORD is so useful though, when you consider the range of destinations + geographical location ORD is hard to beat. It's almost as useful to Winnipeg-based travellers as YYZ, and it adds numerous attractive options from a price standpoint (for cheapniks like me) or a service standpoint (when money is no object)... yet there are many flights a day to YYZ but none to ORD.

ATL can't come close to what ORD offers.

Isn't ATL the busiest airport in the US?

[esquire]

Originally Posted by drew

Isn't ATL the busiest airport in the US?

Sure, it's awesome if you live in Charlotte or Birmingham. But where are you going to connect to if you're coming from Winnipeg?

I'm not saying ATL is useless, just that for us given our location and Chicago's location, ORD is going to be much more useful for most travellers.

[thebasketballgeek]

Originally Posted by esquire

Sure, it's awesome if you live in Charlotte or Birmingham. But where are you going to connect to if you're coming from Winnipeg?

I'm not saying ATL is useless, just that for us given our location and Chicago's location, ORD is going to be much more useful for most travellers.

Atlanta does have a decent amount of connections to Latin America though. Not sure if it’s as many as Orlando but definitely competitive. I would love to have both of them but if I picked one it would definitely be ATL.

Also, the connections to Africa are much needed. I told my Nigerian friends about a potential connection to Atlanta and they told me it will make travelling much easier because Atlanta has a direct flight to Lagos, and even the connections to Addis Ababa and Johannesburg would be fun to utilize. With our increasingly growing African population I think it would be very successful.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by thebasketballgeek

Also, the connections to Africa are much needed. I told my Nigerian friends about a potential connection to Atlanta and they told me it will make travelling much easier because Atlanta has a direct flight to Lagos, and even the connections to Addis Ababa and Johannesburg would be fun to utilize. With our increasingly growing African population I think it would be very successful.

Yes, good point... the African community here might be the big winner with service to ATL, I know of some people who have flown on Delta to Africa via MSP-ATL, although most go via Europe. However, an ATL route would add a more efficient and potentially more price-competitive alternative.

[drew]

Originally Posted by thebasketballgeek

Atlanta does have a decent amount of connections to Latin America though. Not sure if it’s as many as Orlando but definitely competitive. I would love to have both of them but if I picked one it would definitely be ATL.

Also, the connections to Africa are much needed. I told my Nigerian friends about a potential connection to Atlanta and they told me it will make travelling much easier because Atlanta has a direct flight to Lagos, and even the connections to Addis Ababa and Johannesburg would be fun to utilize. With our increasingly growing African population I think it would be very successful.

just to be clear - ORD is the Chicago airport code. Apparently Orlando's is MCO.

[zalf]

Originally Posted by drew

Isn't ATL the busiest airport in the US?

The world.

[thebasketballgeek]

Originally Posted by drew

just to be clear - ORD is the Chicago airport code. Apparently Orlando's is MCO.

Oh brain fart I thought for some reason it was Orlando but yea I would rather not have to choose between Chicago and Atlanta if I had too. Picking between those two it would be tough but I’d rather have ORD.

If only we could have both…

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by thebasketballgeek

Also, the connections to Africa are much needed. I told my Nigerian friends about a potential connection to Atlanta and they told me it will make travelling much easier because Atlanta has a direct flight to Lagos

I know someone that travels the Africa often. Even holding a US passport has them looking for alternatives to connections in the USA. It is easy to forget that the US has a fairly recent history of racial profiling on air travelers connecting through there and it makes a lot of possible African travelers carefully consider choices.

---

And my bad, I too misread ORD as being the code for Orlando. Obviously someone wouldn't fly Winnipeg-Atlanta-Chicago unless there was some insane fare pricing. Winnipeg-Atlanta-Orlando though makes some level of logical sense.

[kattiff]

my friend up north saw that Air North is doing limited flight thing … like Porter did that time I’m assuming

May 23 Whitehorse Yellowknife Winnipeg Whitehorse
May 26 Whitehorse Winnipeg Yellowknife Whitehorse

If you know anyone interested here ya go

[esquire]

^ I noticed that... I wonder what the point of that one-off is?

[Atrial78]

Will be great to get a direct flight to Chicago. However, if it is Westjet, will it be a little difficult to connect there given Ohare is a large hub for AA/United?

[optimusREIM]

Originally Posted by Atrial78

Will be great to get a direct flight to Chicago. However, if it is Westjet, will it be a little difficult to connect there given Ohare is a large hub for AA/United?

It would be nice if there was another airline in Canada that was part of One World or Skyteam. Too bad that neither AC nor UA are really able to pick up the slack, because at least then we could get in on those Star Alliance code shares.

[Brule-le]

Any additional destination in the US would be welcome. Our isolation really hits you when looking at the international flight map:

https://www.waa.ca/en/passengers/flights/destinations/

[kattiff]

Originally Posted by Atrial78

Will be great to get a direct flight to Chicago. However, if it is Westjet, will it be a little difficult to connect there given Ohare is a large hub for AA/United?

I am positive westjet has baggage agreements with UA

[thewave46]

Chicago-O’Hare makes a lot of sense. Probably enough origin-and-departure passengers to make it work unto itself, a reasonably short hop so that it doesn’t 🞵🞵🞵🞵 up huge crew time/airframe utilization, and a large hub for its interlining partner American Airlines.

Sure, it’s not a Delta hub, but Delta hubs tend to be less desirable as destinations themselves. Aside from MSP, they’re pretty out of the way from Winnipeg too.

Winnipeg’s connections worldwide would get better too at O’Hare.

[Sheepish]

Just announced...WJ to Atlanta.
Would have preferred Chicago or Denver, but this helps.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Sheepish

Just announced...WJ to Atlanta.
Would have preferred Chicago or Denver, but this helps.

Any new destination is good, but this is way less useful than UA to ORD or DEN. Very curious about the business rationale for this.

CoryB mentioned that Netflix/the film industry could be a factor. But beyond that? Price Industries? VFR traffic connecting to Africa? People connecting to Florida leisure destinations on DL? Seems like a weird mix to build a flight on. I don't know about this.

[drew]

Maybe they figure service to ORD and/or Denver will return "organically" without any need to kick in financial incentives.