Just a couple comments on the tidbits from the last couple weeks, I haven't been able to do my usual forum participation.
The YYC-LHR-DEL is definitely multi-purposed. Yes there is a lot of YYC-India pax, but they are doing this to bolster their LHR flight just as much. I think WS is eating away at them to Europe (LHR especially) and this was a win-win since India is definitely AC territory (so far at least), plus it ensure full flights to LHR at least. As others have said, the market is massive and yet has only recently resulted in a decent # of flights from cities like YVR and YUL, the market is still wayyyy larger than the level of service we have, but it's a start. The layover in LHR is really long; if you search YYC-DEL on Google Flights and sort by "Duration", the shortest routing is YYC-YVR-DEL, by 2 hours and 25 minutes, so significant. Of course some people want to only fly with AC (the YVR routing is Air India YVR-DEL), and some might like the longer break in London to split the trip up, so just because it's longer doesn't mean it's bad. But it is indeed an unexpected add. Like I said, if you need to add this onto a route like LHR, it might show AC is struggling against WS, and therefore going for something completely unexpected, which WS probably hasn't considered.
I never knew YYC-DEL non-stop was impossible due to high altitude? I can't imagine distance and altitude restrictions will be an issue in the future, aircraft just keep getting better and previous limitations are solved. The difference between now and even the 90s is huge, so many more route pairings are possible. So if the altitude thing is the main issue, do you think that would be remedied with better aircraft (or even new engine variants of existing planes).
I flew Virgin to YVR-LHR in the summer of both 2013 and 2014. Very nice airline, even in economy, but nothing too different than any other decent airline (I feel like business class and up is where you start seeing airlines separate from each other, in economy it was not that different than AC). Ultimately this YYZ add is replacing what WS used to provide back when it hubbed there, but still nice to see them try it. Toronto-London is a huge market, O&D plus all the connection opportunities, in both directions. But it is also well served by competitors (AC 4x daily in summer with heavy aircraft plus 2x daily BA, and 2x daily TS). So VS will be the underdog, WS partnership or not. And they are trying to market the connection opportunities, but compared to BA, they are very limited. Apparently YVR-LHR was successful, but they were encouraged/pressured to move to SEA because of the Delta buyout of VS (well, 49%). VS also joined Skyteam, so SEA made more sense when DL was building it up around that time. But who knows, as always these are just musings.
Interesting April stats. The most striking thing to me is the decline in domestic pax in both YUL and YYC (down 3.4% and 3.7% respectively). Both airports also recorded similar declines (slightly smaller actually) in March as well. Someone shed some light on this for me again, I think one reason was Lynx folding? What was the other reason (s) people think? I am curious, as YYC and YUL are very different airports in terms of their focus, airline dominance, pax profile, etc. Yet both had similar declines for two months, I feel like there are obvious factors that I am just forgetting, so someone chime in. YVR managed a small gain of 1.5% domestic growth, normally a sad # but better than over 3% shrinkages I guess. But both YUL and YYC saw healthy growth in international and/or transborder (YYC had a huge 16.7% international spike, yet very tepid growth of 1.1% transborder, which is kind of surprising given WS operations there?). It is just one month, not nearly enough to indicate any sort of trend or decline, just interesting to know why. What's notable is just how much the domestic weakness pulls YYC down, compared to YUL and YVR. Even though international spiked big, it's relative weight in the pax totals is so low, hence why YYC ended up actually shrinking April 2023-24 overall, just due to domestic pulling it all down. In April, YYC was 65% domestic, and 35% international (20% transborder + 15% international). YUL was even more uneven, with only 27% domestic and 73% international (25% transborder and 48% international). So domestic weakness barely makes a dent. And then there's YVR, which is almost exactly equal, 49% domestic and 51% international (25% transborder and 26% international). So even the components of international are basically the same, and then international overall is basically the same as domestic. Not sure if April is typical of the pax breakdowns, but I never realized just how evenly split YVR actually is. Will be interesting to see what happens traffic-wise in the summer at the big Canadian airports, lots of big expansion happening. WS is putting a lot into YYC, hopefully for them these numbers are just blips, and not indicative of WS not filling as much as they'd like at YYC.
YYZ as elusive as ever, no stats to speak of, unbelievable. They should at least be able to keep up with basically every other airport in terms of reporting. They all seem to doing it just fine, not sure where the roadblock is for YYZ lol. But if use YYZ's 2019 breakdown from StatsCan (they have 2020-2022 as well but those are not appropriate comparisons since air travel was restricted and didn't follow any norms). But in 2019, YYZ was basically the exact inverse of YYC, with 36% domestic and 64% international instead. Who knows now, I suspect domestic might've shrunk even further relative to international at YYZ; they lost a lot of WS, lost Lynx, even TS moved more to YUL. And Flair spreads the love quite well in Southern Ontario, serving YYZ but also lots of the other airports, so not a major factor. Porter could of course change things, we will start to see soon, they will likely tip the balance slightly by increasing domestic. But they also are also doing transborder, so who knows if it will affect the split overall at YYZ. Likely trending to a more international than domestic airport in the long run me thinks.
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