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

[Dominion301]

Today’s departure count: 74

Today’s cancellation count (so far): 2

[YOWflier]

Originally Posted by 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!

Very nice feedback, thanks.

Edit: forgot to ask if you checked out the Aspire lounge? I haven’t been yet but by all accounts it seems quite good.

[VaskoYOW]

Originally Posted by YOWflier

Very nice feedback, thanks.

Edit: forgot to ask if you checked out the Aspire lounge? I haven’t been yet but by all accounts it seems quite good.

The Aspire lounge was good, everyone traveling Sky Priority with AF has access to it. It filled up pretty quick with the AF flight, obviously is not as big as the Maple Leaf lounge.
Food wise, you do get different options with hot/cold foods which is great. Same with the alcohol, different wines, beers and spirits.
Views of the Apron and 14/32 were decent. The only negative thing was the temperature inside the lounge. It was very hot, not sure why but hopefully it was an isolated incident.
I’ll definitely use the lounge again in the future.

[Dominion301]

Today’s departure count: 75

Today’s cancellation count (so far): 0

[Dominion301]

Today’s departure count: 62

Today’s cancellation count (so far): 5

[Dominion301]

WS appears to have loaded their winter 2023-24 schedule. The YOW cutbacks are even larger than I thought they’d be vs winter 22-23, especially factoring Swoop was still here until early February. YVR, YEG & YWG cut for the winter…the latter has never been seasonal. YYZ stays 1x daily continuing from summer but moves to an 0600 departure time. Here’s the really strange one: YYC is only 1x daily this winter. Equipment on the two domestic routes varies between 73G, 738 and 7M8. Not flying YYZ 2x and keeping and 1730ish departure is a head scratcher too.

On transborder/international it looks like about the same with CUN, MBJ, RSW & MCO all 2x weekly each although I think the latter was 3x weekly last year. One MCO and one RSW is a 738.

There’s massive opportunity for Porter this winter.

YOW at 22x weekly still fares substantially better than YUL where all that remains this winter is YYC with ZERO service on Saturdays. Also looks like none of the YHM Swoop flying transferred to mainline. Only YYC less-than-daily.

[solo748]

Originally Posted by Tesladom

CDG is not the destination for most travelers, it is a hub that connects to over 270 other destinations.

O/D between Ottawa adn Paris is relatively strong. Paris and anywhere, really

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I'm a little worried because AF doesn't have good options to scale in Ottawa. No substantial codeshare. And with no XLR on order they can't swap this flight to a double daily XLR with a modest increase in seat count.

AF would never offer 2X service to YOW, with any type of plane

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Honestly, I think Porter would actually see numbers go up if they had more than two flights per day.

Huh?? More flights and the numbers would go up ... Meaning total passengers? Or LF would go up??

Originally Posted by 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.

Great to hear it's full but a J cabin with a bunch of $750CAD SDU does not bode well for the service. I have no idea of the % of SDU vs Z vs J fares. This is the achilles heel for Ottawa.
Flew transcon on WS few weeks ago. Was offered SDU for like $150 each way. While great for me personally on the flight, That's not a good sign.

Originally Posted by VaskoYOW

The Aspire lounge was good, everyone traveling Sky Priority with AF has access to it. It filled up pretty quick with the AF flight, obviously is not as big as the Maple Leaf lounge.
Food wise, you do get different options with hot/cold foods which is great. Same with the alcohol, different wines, beers and spirits.
Views of the Apron and 14/32 were decent. The only negative thing was the temperature inside the lounge. It was very hot, not sure why but hopefully it was an isolated incident.
I’ll definitely use the lounge again in the future.

Aspire lounge is a solid lounge and definitely nice and great to have for the AF PAX.
The AC has been broken for MONTHS. MONTHS. Absolutely pathetic. The AIF YOW charge and can't have something as basic as HVAC working mid-summer. Not a good look

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Dominion301

WS appears to have loaded their winter 2023-24 schedule. The YOW cutbacks are even larger than I thought they’d be vs winter 22-23, especially factoring Swoop was still here until early February. YVR, YEG & YWG cut for the winter…the latter has never been seasonal. YYZ stays 1x daily continuing from summer but moves to an 0600 departure time. Here’s the really strange one: YYC is only 1x daily this winter. Equipment on the two domestic routes varies between 73G, 738 and 7M8. Not flying YYZ 2x and keeping and 1730ish departure is a head scratcher too.

On transborder/international it looks like about the same with CUN, MBJ, RSW & MCO all 2x weekly each although I think the latter was 3x weekly last year. One MCO and one RSW is a 738.

I am not surprised by the loss of YVR, YEG & YWG, and reductions to YYZ. I am surprised at YYC being cut to 1x daily though, as that makes for poor connections. I am also surprised that there are as many transborder/international flights as there are, unless some of those are replacing WG flights.

There’s massive opportunity for Porter this winter.

I see it as less of an opportunity and more of WS throwing in the towel as they know they can't compete with PD out of YOW.

YOW at 22x weekly still fares substantially better than YUL where all that remains this winter is YYC with ZERO service on Saturdays. Also looks like none of the YHM Swoop flying transferred to mainline. Only YYC less-than-daily.

No big surprise there. WS has never really understood the Quebec market. Being from the west (but living in Ottawa for all of my adult life and having worked for Quebec companies on several occasions), I totally get why. Time will only tell if PD does better in Quebec (or out west).

If they were smart, PD and WS would form an alliance.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by solo748

Huh?? More flights and the numbers would go up ... Meaning total passengers? Or LF would go up??

First total pax. And then LF.

Induced demand is real.

[YOWflier]

A bunch of YYZ diversions incoming. AC 77W, 333, and 788…AF 772 (2 AF birds on the ground at YOW right now it seems).

There’s an LH 744 suspiciously close by and ditching altitude. Might be a candidate. There’s also a TS 332 over the city at 6000’, seems incoming.

Edit: hard to keep up. The 788 went to YUL, the 744 is at 9K' and flying near Mtl. The TS did indeed land here.

etc. The spotting at YOW will be fun for the next couple hours.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by YOWflier

A bunch of YYZ diversions incoming. AC 77W, 333, and 788…AF 772 (2 AF birds on the ground at YOW right now it seems).

There’s an LH 744 suspiciously close by and ditching altitude. Might be a candidate. There’s also a TS 332 over the city at 6000’, seems incoming.

Edit: hard to keep up. The 788 went to YUL, the 744 is at 9K' and flying near Mtl. The TS did indeed land here.

etc. The spotting at YOW will be fun for the next couple hours.

I saw back-to-back 330s depart off 25. I was in Riverside South and everything departing was backlit so I couldn't make out any markings, save for a PD DH4 heading east. It was around 1830, so I assumed AF's YOW-CDG had already departed earlier. Seemed like a higher than usual number of narrowbodies also departing.

[Dominion301]

Today's departure count: 76

Today's cancellation count (so far): 0

[caetura]

I am 3 for 12 for Air Canada flights departing on time (within 30 mins of schedule) between YOW and YYZ/YUL or return in the past 3 months. The chaos it causes on international connections has been an absolute pain.

I want to support YOW but departing international direct from YUL feels like the only safe option. That or find a US connection via EWR/IAD/ORD.

PD doesn’t offer international connections. AF via CDG has opened up a few possibilities but so far has not worked with my plans.

[RomanR27]

So far for Florida flights we have

TPA - Rouge 1x weekly
RSW - WS 2x weekly
MCO - WS 2x weekly, Rouge 2x weekly
SFB - Flair 3x weekly
FLL - Rouge 4x weekly, Flair 4x weekly (exact same days, both are early AM departures but Rouge is a noon return whereas Flair is in the evening)

Indeed seems like a good opportunity for Porter to slide in. As we saw last winter which had much higher frequencies, demand was there.

Edit to add last winter's numbers:

Originally Posted by JakeLRS

YOW_Winter22-23 by freerealms454, on Flickr

Here are the stats for the 2022-2023 winter season. This is data is available to the public.

Can someone confirm if AC Rouge actually had a substantial increase in YOW-MCO frequencies in February? That seems to be a significant outlier, but its what the BTS is reporting.

[YOWflier]

I remember not too long ago when FLL was not just daily but on some days double daily on AC alone. WS was also in the fold and even WG for a time.

There’s room for Porter here for sure and I’m eagerly awaiting news from them in this regard.

[Richard Eade]

I expect that RSW had fewer flights / lower load factors at the beginning of 2023 because a lot of the town was shut down by hurricane Ian. It seems to be opening up again for booking this coming winter. Maybe that is a possible destination for Porter.

[Dominion301]

FLL, MCO/SFB and TPA all at present will have demand vastly outstrip supply unless PD does something this winter.

Would love to see PD revive the old YOW-SRQ CanJet route or give a crack at MIA, which WG never brought back.

[solo748]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

First total pax. And then LF.
Induced demand is real.

Umm, right.
YOW-NYC local market .... There have been 4-5 carriers come and go, add freq, reduce freq, upgauge to offer F seating, downgauge to smallest frame, drop the market altogether.
And you're here to share your wisdom that a carrier with miniscule feed on one end and zero beyond-connectvity on the other end will see increased LF longer term with increased frequencies. Absurd

Originally Posted by Dominion301

FLL, MCO/SFB and TPA all at present will have demand vastly outstrip supply unless PD does something this winter.

Can you elaborate? Are you saying demand > supply for YOW - Florida from Jan 5- Feb 15? OR, Do you mean over Spring break and xmas only??

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by solo748

Umm, right.
YOW-NYC local market .... There have been 4-5 carriers come and go, add freq, reduce freq, upgauge to offer F seating, downgauge to smallest frame, drop the market altogether.
And you're here to share your wisdom that a carrier with miniscule feed on one end and zero beyond-connectvity on the other end will see increased LF longer term with increased frequencies. Absurd

Can you elaborate? Are you saying demand > supply for YOW - Florida from Jan 5- Feb 15? OR, Do you mean over Spring break and xmas only??

I mean if you look at YOW-Florida capacity in 2019-20 or 2016-17 or even 2022-23, compared with 2023-24, capacity as-is for this coming winter can’t possibly meet local demand.

[Dominion301]

Today's departure count: 73

Today's cancellation count (so far): 1