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

[Dominion301]

Today's departure count: 72

Today's cancellation count (so far): 4

[Dominion301]

Saturday’s departure count: 65

Saturday’s cancellation count (so far): 2

[Djeffery]

My daughter took the Air France flight last night, said it was pretty full, mostly old people (in her words). She's 21, so who knows what old means to her lol.

[Dominion301]

Today's departure count: 62

Today's cancellation count (so far): 11

[originalmuffins]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

My daughter took the Air France flight last night, said it was pretty full, mostly old people (in her words). She's 21, so who knows what old means to her lol.

Hey, as long as the flights are full - it bodes well for our market!! Next stop is to add British Airways and hopefully Porter can join an alliance sometime in the near future (Oneworld or Skyteam, thank you very much!).

[fanofYOW]

*double post by accident, deleted*

[fanofYOW]

I took AF as well last week. LF looked to be around 90-95% just by the looks of it. I didn’t actually count the seats of course. Business and Premium economy were full though, maybe 1 or 2 seats empty. It was such a seamless trip, the 7 hours to CDG just flew by even in economy. I never knew how much I needed to avoid YYZ and YUL until I actually did. It’s amazing. However, even though connecting in CDG is very simple and straight forward, prepare yourself for lots of walking.

I wonder what AC is thinking right now. They are probably waiting for the XLRs but they can clearly see (or maybe not?) that YOW is filling a 224 seater, soon to be upgraded to a 279.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by originalmuffins

Hey, as long as the flights are full - it bodes well for our market!! Next stop is to add British Airways and hopefully Porter can join an alliance sometime in the near future (Oneworld or Skyteam, thank you very much!).

Or even better, remain unaffiliated and codeshare with partners from multiple alliances.

OBJ article on the Ottawa delegation to Paris. Sounds like a success and opened the eyes to Europeans about the Capital.

https://obj.ca/vive-la-france-ottawa-tourism-hopes-paris-builds-bridges/

[Coho]

Selfishly I'd love to see Porter join OneWorld, mainly because I have a few hundred thousand AS miles that are effectively orphaned if trying to fly from YOW

[YOWflier]

Originally Posted by RomanR27

Compared to the A330-220, their 787-9 has 6 less business seats but 61 more economy seats, so they've just added a bunch of inventory for those winter dates which should help bring prices down and (hopefully) keep them more competitive.

Edit: Their connection pricing is weird though. Looking at going to see the Sens in Sweden this year, round trip YOW-CDG is $851 (for all dates around then). If I change the destination to ARN, price rockets to minimum $1569 round trip. If I look at the CDG-ARN segments round trip it's $307 ($1158 total YOW-CDG-ARN). Obviously booking separate tickets pooches you if there's a misconnect, but weird that adding CDG-ARN leg almost doubles the price.

Cross-posting here, FYI.

Originally Posted by YOWflier

The Senators have created a group tour for the upcoming games in Sweden . It’s called “Official Ottawa Senators Global Series Fan Tour 2023”. If you’re a STH you should’ve received an email.

Pre-arranged flights using the YOW AF flight, transfers, hotels, excursions, game(s) tickets of course, etc. There are 2 packages to consider. Currently it’s in STH pre-sale but opens up to the public soon.

[RomanR27]

Originally Posted by YOWflier

Cross-posting here, FYI.

Yes I'm a STH and got it! Much to think about....

[Dominion301]

Today's departure count: 73

Today's cancellation count (so far): 3

[Dominion301]

Porter’s CCO hinted in an interview that YVR-YOW bookings are strong ahead of the July 26th launch.

https://www.travelweek.ca/news/we-are-re...-importance-of-travel-advisors-and-more/

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by Dominion301

Porter’s CCO hinted in an interview that YVR-YOW bookings are strong ahead of the July 26th launch.

https://www.travelweek.ca/news/we-are-re...-importance-of-travel-advisors-and-more/

Standard PR speak. I can't imagine him saying "wow, these things aren't selling at all" lol.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

Standard PR speak. I can't imagine him saying "wow, these things aren't selling at all" lol.

Obviously there’s that but it’s also obvious that reading between the lines, YYC is the weakest “it’s doing well” is all that was said.

[Dominion301]

Today's departure count: 72

Today's cancellation count (so far): 2

[Dominion301]

Today's departure count: 73

Today's cancellation count (so far): 2

[YOWflier]

June Int’l numbers are out: 1066.

AF had 4 flights in June x 224 seats. F8 had 2 flights x 189. Total int’l seats: 1274. Am I right?

Statisticians…go.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by YOWflier

June Int’l numbers are out: 1066.

AF had 4 flights in June x 224 seats. F8 had 2 flights x 189. Total int’l seats: 1274. Am I right?

Statisticians…go.

Yeah that's an overall 83.7% LF for International for June. If we assume the last flight south to CUN only had 40 pax on board = 21.2% LF (a safe assumption for the last southbound flight of a season on seasonal sun routes) and 170 northbound = 89.9%, that would equate to a 95.5%% LF on AF's first four YOW flights. Here's the full breakdown for June's pax stats:

Sector / Jun-22 / Jun-23 / % Change
Dom: 283,120 / 317,392 / +12.1%
TB: 14,639 / 38,800 / +165.0%
Int'l: 0 / 1,066 / #DIV/0!
TTL: 297,759 / 357,258 / +20.0%

Sector / YTD 2022 / YTD 2023 / % Change
Dom: 1,079,918 / 1,479,342 / +37.0%
TB: 63,204 / 279,978 / +343.0%
Int'l: 42,722 / 193,995 / +354.1%
TTL: 1,185,844 / 1,953,315 / +64.7%

Month-Over-Month Change
Sector / May-23 / Jun-23 / % Change
Dom: 287,675 / 317,392 / +10.3%
TB: 41,476 / 38,800 / -6.5%
Int'l: 2,200 / 1,066 / -51.5%
TTL: 331,351 / 357,258 / +7.8%
Avg/Day: 10,689 / 11,909 / +11.4%
% of month's avg daily pax vs 2019 (13,990 avg pax/day) = 85.1%
YTD TTL vs YTD 2019 = 76.1%

Based on the YTD daily pax average, YOW's now on pace for 3.89 million pax in 2023. At the midpoint, that's almost +300K higher vs January 2023. 4 million is looking realistic.

12 Months Rolling / % Change vs Year End 2021
Dom: 3,108,423 / +171.7%
TB: 407,109 / +3,521.3%
Int'l: 244,273 / +1,466.2%
TTL: 3,759,805 / +221.1%

[VaskoYOW]

My family and I just returned home yesterday to YOW, after 3 weeks of European vacation. We were on the inaugural AF flight on the 27th of June and came back with AF328! The inaugural flight was completely sold out and yesterday’s flight there were only 2 seats available in business (J) and one was due to broken seat, which was next to mine.
Service again was top notch, I don’t think I’m bias but it felt even better than on the inaugural. FA’s were constantly coming and checking, if we needed anything and filling up our wine glasses. Food was amazing and my four year old was made sure she was entertained the whole flight.
My in-laws were initially traveling economy but they were able to upgrade to business at CDG for $750 CAD! They were very pleased and glad that they did after the flight.
I’ve flown in J with AC and LH but in my humble opinion AF is a level higher. I hope they are successful with the route and continue to service our city. I’ll be more than happy to give them my money. Glad the Dreamliner (nothing against the A332, great plane) is coming with the winter schedule and I hope the route becomes daily next year!