YVR Airport & Sea Island Developments Discussion

[trofirhen]

I heard some time back of a KE route ICN - YVR - Lima CHAVEZ.
Is there any basis to that, or was it just a passing rumour?

[nname]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

The CAAC website must be referring to the "if" part. As we are all aware, the CAAC press releases can be semi inaccurate... Hence the "3 daily" versus the actual "3 weekly."

Now they fixed the post.

The part about the new route now says, translated word by word:

China Southern Airlines applied for the following route:
1. Guangzhou - Vancouver - Mexico City, starting from December 2016, 3x weekly using B77W/B787/A332 (using Canadian traffic right from Guangzhou-Vancouver and Guangzhou-Toronto routes, will modify or reduce the related routes at the same time)

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

Will be interesting to see where this frequency/YVR-MEX passengers thing shakes out. I'm sure it will all clear itself out over the months.

A go? As in falls into the existing frequency allotments and can proceed despite the perceived lack of spaces?

That would be great news. I still hope to see Tianjin fly the Tianjin route though and Hainan take an unserved city for itself (Xi'an or Shenzhen being obvious unserved choices).

Originally Posted by Jebby

Do Chinese carriers have Fifth Freedom rights to fly between Canada and Mexico?

Originally Posted by nname

Now they fixed the post.

The part about the new route now says, translated word by word:

China Southern Airlines applied for the following route:
1. Guangzhou - Vancouver - Mexico City, starting from December 2016, 3x weekly using B77W/B787/A332 (using Canadian traffic right from Guangzhou-Vancouver and Guangzhou-Toronto routes, will modify or reduce the related routes at the same time)

The thing about the Canada-China bilateral is it's quite complex. It's not just a simple frequency cap. Their are exceptions in a rather round about way. That is how it has been communicated to me. I'm not privy to the details.

The term "modify" as per above may be the mysterious word at play.

As I said before there are two options. One where YVR is just a tech stop and one where YVR will have fifth freedom rights.

So to address all the above comments:

Yes, this should all clear out soon.
CZ (ie China, Canada and Mexico) would have to negotiate fifth freedom rights (probably in their best interests to tap into the growing YVR-Mexico market)
As for how the CZ MEX route falls out with frequencies will have to see how it's finalised. Again, will fall out soon.

[SFUVancouver]

I'm back!

I had a good flight home this morning on AC36 BNE-YVR route on another Air Canada Boeing 788 Dreamliner.

The flight was not 100% full this time and I won the transoceanic lottery: an empty row! I would guess that the flight was about 75% full in economy, a decent load-factor but not the stellar 100% like on the trip down on Saturday.

I had a window seat this time so I got to play around with the photo-chromatic glass that the Dreamliner has instead of window shades. Pretty neat. It takes about 30 seconds or so to fully transition from transparent to maybe a 60-75% reduction in light transmission. I wonder whether future versions will be 100% dark?

Here are some photos:

Extensive promotional signage throughout the BNE international terminal.


What a good looking plane!


Jackpot!


What a good looking wing!


Full visibility on the photo-chromatic windows.


Maximum 'dimming' on the photo-chromatic windows. I looks darker in person.


I always try to get a window seat. Just spectacular.


Bonus shot of sun-rise making its way into the cabin from my flight down on Saturday.


Double bonus: beaches and sandbars on final approach to Brisbane on my Qantas B738 domestic connecting flight this morning.

[LeftCoaster]

Thanks for all the info Johnny.

Looking forward to this winter when the S17 schedules start coming out.

SFU, looks like a great trip, any idea how full J class was?

[SFUVancouver]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

SFU, looks like a great trip, any idea how full J class was?

It was a good trip, though definitely whirlwind. 103 hours from beginning to end, 61 of which were on the ground at my destination and the rest spent in transit. Our portion of the meeting itself was 45 minutes, so we spent about an hour of travel for every minute we spent in front of the Client.

No idea how the J class load factor looked for the return trip. The aircraft entry is at the division between business and premium economy cabins, so I couldn't gauge how things looked in business. Premium economy was a ghost town; they were still asking for almost a grand to upgrade from steerage for the return flight and unfortunately my ticket class didn't qualify me to use my eUpgrade credits, to my chagrin. With that said, I loaded with zones 1 & 2 and the mini-departure lounge seating area for us was not very busy, nor was the line itself, so I don't think that the load factor in the front of the plane was stellar for the flight. It was a mid-week Thursday morning flight, so who knows how representative that is.

[LeftCoaster]

Wow and I think some of my YYZ-YVR same day trips are bad, yours is just crazy.

Hasn't your client heard of skype!?

[SFUVancouver]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

Wow and I think some of my YYZ-YVR same day trips are bad, yours is just crazy.

Hasn't your client heard of skype!?

We use GoToMeeting all the time, regardless of whether the client is in the same city or the other side of the world, but this was a special board meeting (dual board meeting, actually) and our attendance was mandatory.

Same day YVR-YYZ-YVR would definitely be draining, too.

[jlousa]

Had a similar trip like that earlier this month. Decided Friday evening to head to Paris to watch the Euro finals. Booked a ticket, flew out Sat morning to Dallas then onto Paris, arrived early Sunday morning, made my way to the stadium, picked up tickets, watched game and my team win. then a little celebrating, then train back to CDG and flew back on the first flight of the morning Monday via London. Customs were like you went to Paris on pleasure for 2 days? It was more like a few hours the rest of transit. To keep it ontopic American airlines absolutely sucked on the way there in comparison to British Air on the way back.

[Klazu]

Originally Posted by jlousa

Had a similar trip like that earlier this month. Decided Friday evening to head to Paris to watch the Euro finals.

Damn you, jet-setting millionaires.

[urbancanadian]

Oh man, I feel your pain... Whenever I fly to Hawaii for the weekend I almost don't feel like going unless it's a long weekend. It's just not a good plane to beach ratio. Like how am I supposed to relax when the sound of the waves on the beach just reminds me of plane noises?

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by Klazu

Damn you, jet-setting millionaires.

Hee hee!! Look who's talking !!

[sacrifice333]

Originally Posted by urbancanadian

Oh man, I feel your pain... Whenever I fly to Hawaii for the weekend I almost don't feel like going unless it's a long weekend. It's just not a good plane to beach ratio. Like how am I supposed to relax when the sound of the waves on the beach just reminds me of plane noises?

A 3-night Hawaiian getaway is actually superb. Once the Oahu HRT is complete it'll be even easier!

[Johnny Aussie]

So been able to look at the total Westjet peak winter schedule from YVR and the final tally will be about 69 flights per day up from 62 daily last winter.

The only routes to see decreases are:

SNA down to 6 per week from 7
LAS down to 13 per week from 14
YXT down to 12 per week from 20 (resource sector effect)

The following routes will see increases in flying:

YYC, YEG, YLW, YUL, YYZ, YYJ
HNL, LAX, PSP
CUN, SJD

Increases in both mainline and Encore.

Most of this capacity appears to be coming from YEG where they are losing about 50 flights per week.

Also, YXS will see the return of mainline, albeit only on one weekly flight.
Nice to see YUL back year-round.
Good to see they are keeping the 5 weekly flights to YMM too.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

So been able to look at the total Westjet winter schedule from YVR and the final tally will be about 68-69 flight gets per day up from 62 daily last winter. ...............

Nice to see YUL back year-round.

Hallelujah !! Great to see it served full time by both majors. It warrants it.

[mezzanine]

Is WJ leaving YVR-LGW seasonal and not year round? Even calgary is having 3 times per week winter service...

[LeftCoaster]

That is their plan as of today.

Their #1 hub is still YYC so they are naturally going to push as much through YYC as possible. I'm sure the route would do just as well if not better out of YVR but it suits their corporate goals much better to push PAX through YYC.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

So been able to look at the total Westjet peak winter schedule from YVR and the final tally will be about 69 flights per day up from 62 daily last winter.

The only routes to see decreases are:

SNA down to 6 per week from 7
LAS down to 13 per week from 14
YXT down to 12 per week from 20 (resource sector effect)

The following routes will see increases in flying:

YYC, YEG, YLW, YUL, YYZ, YYJ
HNL, LAX, PSP
CUN, SJD

Increases in both mainline and Encore.

Most of this capacity appears to be coming from YEG where they are losing about 50 flights per week.

Also, YXS will see the return of mainline, albeit only on one weekly flight.
Nice to see YUL back year-round.
Good to see they are keeping the 5 weekly flights to YMM too.

I'm guessing some of the LAS decrease is also acknowledging AC putting the 763 and extra seats on the route.

Don't like to see YEG getting the beatdown they are currently going through, but glad some of the flights are going to YVR and not all out to YYZ.

YYC is more or less flat correct?

[Hourglass]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

I'm guessing some of the LAS decrease is also acknowledging AC putting the 763 and extra seats on the route.

Don't like to see YEG getting the beatdown they are currently going through, but glad some of the flights are going to YVR and not all out to YYZ.

YYC is more or less flat correct?

Slight decrease of 4-5 flights per day according to Johnny in the Calgary Airport section, so less than a 5% reduction.

[excel]

I just got back from YUL for the weekend and having the direct flight on WS was nice to have. If I didn't have flight benefits the price would have been ridiculous. The cheapest at the time was almost $1200 return. That's what I paid for a return trip to BKK through NRT all on JAL 787. Luckily it only cost me $69 return.