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

[fanofYOW]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

How exactly would YOW be able to kick AC out of their LHR slot? What are you talking about?

I’m not saying they are going to, it was a hypothetical scenario.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by fanofYOW

What's farfetched? Poor relations between an airline/airport resulting in either decreasing their business relationship? In an email YOW sent me over a question I had, they said maintaining good relations between the two is important when it comes to service out of the airport and I'm no business expert but kicking AC out of their LHR slot doesn't seem to me like they will take it lightly.

The LHR side of the slot is what is valuable and belongs to Air Canada or nobody. YOW can't give it away. If they could how is Air Canada going to retaliate? Any loss of customers for YOW is a loss for them. I guess it's very rare for someone to drive to Montreal or Toronto to take a flight on Air Canada as they throw the connection in for free. It is Air Transat or foreign airlines with no connection where that is done.

[fanofYOW]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

The LHR side of the slot is what is valuable and belongs to Air Canada or nobody. YOW can't give it away. If they could how is Air Canada going to retaliate? Any loss of customers for YOW is a loss for them. I guess it's very rare for someone to drive to Montreal or Toronto to take a flight on Air Canada as they throw the connection in for free. It is Air Transat or foreign airlines with no connection where that is done.

Again, I was speaking totally hypothetically. I never expect AC/YOW to ever follow through with this. I was making a point about Airline/Airport relations.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by fanofYOW

I’m not saying they are going to, it was a hypothetical scenario.

It's not a sensible hypothetical. Air Canada's hold on Ottawa is derived from the services they provide at YOW. If they cut back, somebody else will fill the gap. The only exception to this is to slot restricted airports (like LHR).

As for YOW-LHR, the reason we don't have this yet is airlines have decided there's better places to use a precious Heathrow slot pair (ballpark value of $10M). There's a limited supply of Heathrow slots (especially at morning peak arrival and afternoon peak departures) and a whole world that wants to fly there. Flying a 788 or 789 to/from YOW isn't going to as profitable as another 77W from YYZ.

[fanofYOW]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

It's not a sensible hypothetical. Air Canada's hold on Ottawa is derived from the services they provide at YOW. If they cut back, somebody else will fill the gap. The only exception to this is to slot restricted airports (like LHR).

As for YOW-LHR, the reason we don't have this yet is airlines have decided there's better places to use a precious Heathrow slot pair (ballpark value of $10M). There's a limited supply of Heathrow slots (especially at morning peak arrival and afternoon peak departures) and a whole world that wants to fly there. Flying a 788 or 789 to/from YOW isn't going to as profitable as another 77W from YYZ.

Since when does a hypothetical, made up scenario have to be "sensible". I used it to make a point about business relations (third time saying this now).

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by fanofYOW

Since when does a hypothetical, made up scenario have to be "sensible". I used it to make a point about business relations (third time saying this now).

A hypothetical scenario has to be somewhat in the realm of possible. You are basing your scenario on leverage that does not exist, based on your interpretation of a boilerplate response from YOW authorities.

There's no airport authority that is ever going to say they want a hostile relationship with the largest operator at their airport.

[YOWflier]

No need to pounce on “fan” for mentioning slots. I didn’t take that literally and he may not know that has a very specific meaning in commercial aviation (I have no idea what/how much he knows).

I took it as him fearing some retaliatory behaviour by AC if an alternative airline is recruited to fly to LON or nearby. To that, I say “meh”. Unlikely considering in the past they’ve had to fend off airlines like Canada 3000 and Zoom and Thomas Cook flying to Gatwick, Glasgow, etc. and they didn’t “retaliate” against YOW then.

I also say “screw ‘em”. Nothing stopping them from restoring that service; if someone else comes in beforehand and starts cutting their grass they can blame themselves and their network planners and start competing.

[fanofYOW]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

A hypothetical scenario has to be somewhat in the realm of possible. You are basing your scenario on leverage that does not exist, based on your interpretation of a boilerplate response from YOW authorities.

There's no airport authority that is ever going to say they want a hostile relationship with the largest operator at their airport.

I seriously don't get your point here. Nothing in the airline industry is impossible and therefore it is still hypothetical. You're mistaking unlikeliness for impossible. If you think it's impossible with a 0% chance and will never happen, then that's your opinion.

[fanofYOW]

Originally Posted by FlyYOW

No need to pounce on “fan” for mentioning slots. I didn’t take that literally and he may not know that has a very specific meaning in commercial aviation (I have no idea what/how much he knows).

I took it as him fearing some retaliatory behaviour by AC if an alternative airline is recruited to fly to LON or nearby. To that, I say “meh”. Unlikely considering in the past they’ve had to fend off airlines like Canada 3000 and Zoom and Thomas Cook flying to Gatwick, Glasgow, etc. and they didn’t “retaliate” against YOW then.

I also say “screw ‘em”. Nothing stopping them from restoring that service; if someone else comes in beforehand and starts cutting their grass they can blame themselves and their network planners and start competing.

Exactly my point. Thank you for getting it. Other people on here are literally picking apart my comment word for word and looking up the definition of each and every word. God. I'm honestly thinking about changing my vocabulary on here because my comments are being taken too seriously. Like I should have just said "totally made up but....." instead of hypothetical, even though I stand by my comment as still being hypothetical. Everything will just keep getting more likely with YOW’s and other tourism organizations beginning a fund to attract carriers (and no I don’t think YOW will try to get every carrier here because I used the word “everything”).

[Tesladom]

YUL has a few significant advantages
1) it is relatively close by offering many more direct flight option. Let's say I want to fly to Los Angeles, I can either fly direct from YUL (drive 2 hours) or fly out of Ottawa (say 30 minute drive) and transfer. Then face potential delays, missed connections etc... 90 minutes in the net difference in time driving vs 3-4 hours mmore time running and waiting in Airports
2) YUL has great connections to Europe and even Asia; YOW-crickets!
3) More competition out of YUL usually means lower prices. Just for fun, I picked a standard family trip to Cayo-Coco All-Inclusive, assuming family of 4 same hotel same day
YUL $1245
YOW $1509
$264 x 4 is over $1000

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by fanofYOW

Again, I was speaking totally hypothetically. I never expect AC/YOW to ever follow through with this. I was making a point about Airline/Airport relations.

Don't want to add to the argument but threats have to be real. I agree even a small chance of a huge retalitation from Air Canada would have to be considered but lots of examples of airports enticing new airlines and rare a successful pushback. I don't know Canadian regulations but they could eliminate the passenger fee and landing fees for flights outside of North America. Would this attract a carrier I don't know but it might be worth a try. The idea Air Canada would even threaten to abandon YOW doesn't make sense. More likely they do what they did pre-pandemic to chase away Iceland Air etc which is offer cheap flights to Reykjavik and bleed them dry. This is a real threat that would have to be taken seriously.

[Tesladom]

I wonder what it would take to get Transat or Eurowings (Luftansa) to offer seasonal 2x week service out of Ottawa to European hubs?

I flew Eurowings (FinnAir operated A350-900 - beautiful bird!) through Munich this summer (out of YUL of course!) and they had great connections to other cities (I connected and flew on to Florence). Amazing price for $870 return in July

[YOWflier]

Originally Posted by Tesladom

I wonder what it would take to get Transat or Eurowings (Luftansa) to offer seasonal 2x week service out of Ottawa to European hubs?

For starters, it would take local paying customers.

[Truenorth00]

2x / wk is so useless. I'd rather have daily narrowbody service to a European hub than a few widebodies multiple times per week.

[Calfan12]

Originally Posted by Tesladom

I wonder what it would take to get Transat or Eurowings (Luftansa) to offer seasonal 2x week service out of Ottawa to European hubs?

I flew Eurowings (FinnAir operated A350-900 - beautiful bird!) through Munich this summer (out of YUL of course!) and they had great connections to other cities (I connected and flew on to Florence). Amazing price for $870 return in July

Any International flight route nonstop to Europe from Ottawa will need enough paying (O&D -local Ottawa area passengers).

The Eurowings (FinnAir Airbus A350-900 plane ✈️ is now doing the Frankfurt FRA Germany - Calgary YYC summer seasonal flights is 4x weekly from August 1 - September 10 & 3x weekly September 12 -end of October 2022.
As Munich- Montreal YUL has switched back to Lufthansa mainline, as the FinnAir Airbus A350 was just operating it (temporarily).

[Dominion301]

Thursday's departure count: 68

Thursday's cancellation count (so far): 1

[Dominion301]

Today’s departure count: 69

Today’s cancellation count (so far): 1

[fanofYOW]

Seems like Swoop, Flair, and Lynx have been pretty quiet lately..... They haven't announced any new routes lately other than Flair's new YYZ-Cancun route yesterday. I guess they aren't expecting new deliveries anytime soon?

[Dominion301]

Today’s departure count: 58

[Stacmon]

Originally Posted by fanofYOW

Seems like Swoop, Flair, and Lynx have been pretty quiet lately..... They haven't announced any new routes lately other than Flair's new YYZ-Cancun route yesterday. I guess they aren't expecting new deliveries anytime soon?

While I am excited for new routes announcements from anyone and everyone, including Porter, I think the finding that Flair is indeed "Canadian enough" to keep operating is huge by itself. I recently checked what it would cost for two adults and a child to fly non-stop round trip from Ottawa to Calgary during the Christmas Season and found the following:

- Air Canada / Westjet - $2500
- Flair - $550!

Admittedly it isn't exactly apples to apples since Flair's lowest fare doesn't include carry-on, but even so, you can see the kind of difference in cost we are starting to see between the established carriers and the lower cost alternatives.

There was a time not long ago that my family and I avoided Flair because the competition brought down prices on the big carriers enough and the difference wasn't huge, plus because of some bad reviews/posted experiences with Flair. Now though, we gave it a try and it may be "dependable" enough for our purposes travelling from the city where we live non stop to a city where we stay with family and can easily adjust to delays/cancellations compared to people with connections or travelling for work/paying for hotels.

In a lot of ways, this is an exciting time for YOW and many airports across the country which stand to be better connected thanks to these lower cost options and the expansion expected by Porter!