Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport

[FactaNV]

Question for those in the know, why did WestJet end service to Gatwick from Winnipeg?

[Justanothermember]

WestJet became more of a hub and spoke airline, and as a result, cut back service to London from YWG, YEG and YVR and put it all in Fortress YYC, helping to pump up that airports numbers at the expense of the rest of us.

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by FactaNV

Question for those in the know, why did WestJet end service to Gatwick from Winnipeg?

It was a thin, low yield seasonal route (believe 1x/w) on used 767s (ex-Qantas) which were not fuel efficient and caused much grief for WestJet. They were retired from the fleet in 2020; sold to Amazon.

[FactaNV]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

It was a thin, low yield seasonal route (believe 1x/w) on used 767s (ex-Qantas) which were not fuel efficient and caused much grief for WestJet. They were retired from the fleet in 2020; sold to Amazon.

I imagine there just isn't enough Dreamliners to go around for a 5-7 day/week route from Winnipeg? It never did make sense that we have to go to Van or Cal first to go to Europe. You'd think it would make way more logistic sense to go to Winnipeg, which is cheaper, 2000km + closer to Europe (for Van anyways), is still a focus airport and has all amenities required for an international route to Europe. Maintenance? Check. Capable of docking? Check. CBSA capabilities? Check. Schedules can be arranged from the daily flights to Winnipeg from both cities anyways for one destination. Say Gatwick or Amsterdam. Same money, spread the load from two jam-packed airports and they pay lower fees. Someone make me CEO of WestJet.

[FactaNV]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

It was a thin, low yield seasonal route (believe 1x/w) on used 767s (ex-Qantas) which were not fuel efficient and caused much grief for WestJet. They were retired from the fleet in 2020; sold to Amazon.

I imagine there just isn't enough Dreamliners to go around for a 5-7 day/week route from Winnipeg? It never did make sense that we have to go to Van or Cal first to go to Europe. You'd think it would make way more logistic sense to go to Winnipeg, which is cheaper, 2000km + closer to Europe (for Van anyways), is still a focus airport and has all amenities required for an international route to Europe. Maintenance? Check. Capable of docking? Check. CBSA capabilities? Check. Schedules can be arranged from the daily flights to Winnipeg from both cities anyways for one destination. Say Gatwick or Amsterdam. Save money, spread the load from two jam-packed airports and they pay for cheaper fuel and lower fees. Someone make me CEO of WestJet.

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by FactaNV

I imagine there just isn't enough Dreamliners to go around for a 5-7 day/week route from Winnipeg? It never did make sense that we have to go to Van or Cal first to go to Europe. You'd think it would make way more logistic sense to go to Winnipeg, which is cheaper, 2000km + closer to Europe (for Van anyways), is still a focus airport and has all amenities required for an international route to Europe. Maintenance? Check. Capable of docking? Check. CBSA capabilities? Check. Schedules can be arranged from the daily flights to Winnipeg from both cities anyways for one destination. Say Gatwick or Amsterdam. Same money, spread the load from two jam-packed airports and they pay lower fees. Someone make me CEO of WestJet.

Many reasons why YVR and YYC are better than YWG for WestJet European flights:
- Larger O&D traffic from those cities; Calgary has Banff; and Vancouver has Whistler; plus cruise ship traffic to draw travellers.
- Much larger corporate sector in both cities and would be able to fill the premium seats and pay premium fares vs. YWG; in other words, higher yields.
- More connecting passengers to fill the flights (especially from the US) through YVR/YYC than through YWG.
- European airports are slot constrained; financially better for WestJet to use their slots for high yield flights than use a slot for a low yield YWG flight.
- YVR/YYC are larger, more affluent cities than YWG.

[Justanothermember]

We will get a European flight back at some point this decade, likely once the terminal expansion is complete. The demand is there even if it is just seasonal. My connections at the airport say WAA have started actively looking for potential European routes. They have crunched the numbers and believe the demand is there. With the city almost at the 1M mark, they are confident it will succeed, but getting the slots is the trickiest part at the moment.

And let me just say, Nick Hayes is an amazing CEO for WAA. He is the first CEO in years who has a truly ambitious mindset and vision in terms of growth for YWG. With him at the helm we are seeing that growth occur with more on the horizon. I hope he sticks around for the long haul.

[Myst]

I don’t know that there is a definitive answer on YWG-LGW, but in my view these are probably the order of importance:
1. I think WS didn’t like the AC, BA and KL long hauls at YYC, and thought it took away from their ability to protect their turf
2. I think they took a page from AC’s book to use US network to feed transatlantic. That means offering more end destinations from YYC rather than feeding a single partner hub with routes from several Canadian cities.
3. They didn’t do a good job with 767 operations. It’s true they were older aircraft, but that means you need strong operations and maintenance planning.
4. No partner connections on the east end.
5. Limited schedule. 1x weekly for 5 months the first year, and only about 2.5 months in the following
6. What to do with the aircraft in the winter
7. Westjet’s biggest marketing move usually seems to be pricing - for infrequent travellers on vacation it may take more to make them aware there is a nonstop and which days it runs

A Europe flight would be a late afternoon arrival and late departure. Gates and customs shouldn’t be an obstacle today, but there’s other things that would need to align:
- aircraft type - a 737max doesn’t have the range for YWG-Europe. The A321LR and XLR are the right aircraft, but there is a long backlog and any good prospects won’t have enough aircraft to have YWG on their radar for a few years.
- destination traffic. London is best. Dublin or Paris would have potential.
- connections. LHR is good, but is not home to WS or AC’s primary partners. I can’t see BA doing it. And slots are expensive. AMS is good, but the slot reductions means that won’t work. CDG maybe.
- frequency. For overseas I’d say it is possible to get people to book +/- 1 day. 3x weekly is a viable frequency to appeal to both business and leisure. That’s pretty necessary for it to be worth any major carrier looking at it.

I wish WS was making its strategy to feed its partner hubs (ie- CDG) from multiple Canadian cities, the way it feeds ATL. But to date that’s not the case.

Icelandair would probably be a good fit. And the most likely to try in the near term.

AerLingus has other more likely routes to add first, and probably further out before they’d have aircraft available.

Otherwise I suspect it’s a strategic (5+ years, emphasis on +) sort of thing.

[Justanothermember]

That is a pretty good analysis and I would agree with what you have said.

[kattiff]

I wish Icelandair or Play with fly to Iceland, that be a good europe connection

[roccerfeller]

^^^ it is still wild how a much smaller winnipeg had transatlantic flights

Originally Posted by Justanothermember

We will get a European flight back at some point this decade, likely once the terminal expansion is complete. The demand is there even if it is just seasonal. My connections at the airport say WAA have started actively looking for potential European routes. They have crunched the numbers and believe the demand is there. With the city almost at the 1M mark, they are confident it will succeed, but getting the slots is the trickiest part at the moment.

And let me just say, Nick Hayes is an amazing CEO for WAA. He is the first CEO in years who has a truly ambitious mindset and vision in terms of growth for YWG. With him at the helm we are seeing that growth occur with more on the horizon. I hope he sticks around for the long haul.

That’s good to hear about the CEO! YWG is such a nice airport. It’s small but it’s beautiful. To have someone ambitious at the helm is exactly what is needed

Hopefully that international side gets the initial expansion treatment

[CoryB]

I think what Myst posted about a possible EU route for YWG is spot on but missed an important point, a Government backed deal to support business in Manitoba like the LAX and ATL routes could have a dream route show up out of almost no where. Netflix EU operations are fairly separated from the NA side but it cannot be ignored they produce a fair bit of content out of the UK, Spain and have a content production deal covering Italy. It seems the local film industry drove both the LAX (Netflix HQ) and ATL (Netflix cheap us production base) routes. If they truly have the Government's ear locally there might be some business traffic from LAX/ATL looking to connection through YWG to get to EU, as crazy as that might sound. For clarity, obviously not an "immediate" connection but stop in Winnipeg for a few days then carry on to EU.

[Myst]

I don’t think Netflix had much of anything to do with getting ATL. I think it’s fair to say the people represented at the announcement were the ones who were the key stakeholders and people pushing for it. It’s been a year, but I’ll say I have a fair bit of certainty of who was represented from several companies and organizations that were at the announcement, nobody from Manitoba Film and Sound or any production companies were there.

We should also call the provincial support what it is - a revenue guarantee, not a subsidy. It is my understanding it is not paid if revenue is met, and not ongoing, but for a certain startup period only to develop the route.

Doing that support again may or may not help get NY, but I think a different support might be needed to get Europe. Any real route that would support business would probably be to a slot constrained airport. Some sort of method to help buy slots - with the condition that they would be paid back at the increased value of the slot later (to make sure carriers don’t flip them to other cities if more convenient to them if they become more valuable).