Quote:
Originally Posted by Sunnybrae
I'm not defending Air Canada.... but... here is another example of people wanting the airline to be run like a private business but act like a crown coporation. Major cities will get better service. Thats reality. Name me an airline that doesn't have hubs. It's the only way to barely make a profit. How many airlines have gone bankrupt in the last, say ten years? Is fuel getting cheaper? Are aircraft getting that much more fuel efficient? Are new aircraft getting cheaper to finance? Based on some of the comments on this forum, it's a no brainer to start up Atlantic Canada Airways again and make millions of dollars flying all over the planet from small cities and towns.
I can understand the frustration but, on the other side of the coin, it's really not like taking the bus. |
I'm not expecting it to be run like the bus, but look at the latent demand! 50% increase in traffic over a 6 year period, and that's accomplished simply by a seasonal service running for 42% of the year to provide competition. If Air Canada could give a good explanation of why their prices miraculously are cut nearly in half for the Sydney-Halifax leg, and how they can easily compete with a seasonal service to Toronto for the same price as the competition
and the same price as a flight that takes half the time (Halifax), than I might not be so hard on them. Take two high-demand seasons and compare them. For two people to fly Calgary to Sydney at Christmas is typically ~$2400. For these same two people in summer for this same flight is typically ~$1600 to ~$1800 (when there's competition). All those costs that you list are the exact same during these two time periods. Again, last Christmas it was cheaper to fly into Halifax (on either airline) and rent a car for the entire week, including gas and insurance, than it would have been to fly directly into Sydney.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MonctonRad
Business commuters want easy access to cities where they have their investments. Every time you add a waypoint to their itineraries, it makes them less happy.
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The hub and spoke system places CBRM at a significant competitive disadvantage compared to Halifax and will only serve to perpetuate Cape Breton's economic malaise.
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Further to the points you made, it's not like NS airports are set up like NB's. Look at the traffic each of the three largest airports in NB get compared to Sydney. Is it easier to get from Sydney to Halifax than it is from any of the three NB cities to any one of the others? Most certainly not. NB's geographical equivalent in NS would be to have the three airports located at approximately Halifax, Truro, and Kentville! Sydney, which sits population-wise as smaller than Saint John and Moncton and larger than Fredericton and Charlottetown gets worse service than any one of these locations.
Edit - I'm admittedly a bit scatter brained today (that's what 16 days in a row working and 4 hours sleep will do I suppose), but I just noticed this and want to squash the line of commentary I see as a possibility before it starts.
First, I'm not suggesting Sydney becomes a hub, simply that it gets some direct service outside the Maritimes year-round, be it Toronto, Montreal, or Ottawa. Toronto's the preferable one, but any of the three would do (for comparison, Fredericton airport has direct to all three of these). I'm not even asking for the same service as any of the NB cities, and especially not the same as Halifax. Just for better service and reasonable prices even during their monopoly times of the year. I guarantee you that if Encore (Westjet's regional service) comes into Sydney, you'll see Air Canada's prices come down and it won't bankrupt them. I'd also be willing to bet our passenger numbers may not pass 200,000 per year, but will come pretty damn close given a few years, more or less on par with Saint John and Fredericton airports that get service to more destinations but compete with each other in too close an area slowing their growth more than it would be otherwise.
Second, the comparison to the NB airports wasn't a matter of "look how good they are we want that model". I realize and have said several times that the NB model has it's own problems. The point was that if you can't get a decent price into Fredericton or Saint John, your still only 1 to 1.5 hours drive away from your final destination by flying into Moncton (same works for any combination of the three). Heck, if you can't get a decent price in Moncton, you're still a lot closer to Halifax there than Sydney is.
Thirdly, and I only mention this because it came up in MonctonRad's post, I am not interested in "competing with Halifax". But given a) the state of our economy b) the businesses interested in the region (publicly and off the record) c) the latent demand for reasonable air service in Sydney d) the fact that we're the 5th largest "metro" in the Atlantic Provinces (4th in the Maritimes) and get the same "during monopoly" service that Yarmouth did before air service left there, things need to change so we can compete with....well....anybody. As much as some like to think this happens, Halifax's "trickle-down" effects don't reach to areas 5 hours away.
So if a private company that was never a crown corporation can come in starting with three days a week service, changing to four days a week after the first few weeks due to overwhelming demand, and changing again to daily because of the demand and success of the service, and run it profitably to the point of considering year-round service (which they had been considering with their jets before they announced the startup of the regional service), I'm not exactly asking Air Canada to take a loss for the sake of my convenience once a year.
There are a lot of fallacies about the interest in the Sydney economy perpetually floating around out there (not just on this board) due to lack of information (and occasionally at time flat out misinformation), and since I'm the only one from the area on the board, I get a little frustrated when I see comments that arise directly or indirectly from these fallacies (usually through no fault of the poster other than believing the fallacies because they've never heard the other side so don't realize it even exists).
Anyway I'm obviously over-tired, so I'm heading to bed. 17th day in a row tomorrow, but at least I'm not working 'til midnight tonight.
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