Posted Nov 12, 2023, 12:22 AM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Vancouver
Posts: 1,952
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Having daily LGW and LHR on WS was kind of overkill, I know BA left and theoretically WS should be able to absorb their seats, but I don't think it works exactly like that, losing BA could possibly affect the inbound pax from Europe, who would have familiarity with BA and not WS. But who knows, this is all just possibilities, I am in no way in the industry or privy to any of that info, it's just a suggestion. I feel like WS providing the two flights to two airports in the same city maybe didn't produce the best results. It is a lot of seats, their Dreamliners have capacity for 320 pax. For comparison, BA operated the 787-8 with a 204 seat capacity. And much more premium. Two planes of 320 pax each is a huge increase. If they are cutting it, it's for a reason. They would look at their entire network and make these decisions strategically, not emotionally. I was skeptical about AC's commitment to the route before, but it survived the latest routes of cuts that got rid of LAX, FRA, etc. So it had to be relatively strong for them to bother sticking around with a single long haul route (LHR is AC's premier route, undoubtedly the most popular European route across the whole country, and will likely be the first destination to return to airports like YYT, YEG, and YOW). They must be over the moon to see WS pull one of it's daily flights, I bet they weren't expecting to be handed a win in YYC lol, it's been cuts galore and yet LHR stayed. And with this news of WS pulling back their capacity, Air Canada is probably not going anywhere.
Of course this could all be false, and maybe Air Canada will smell weakness in WS's international business and re-establish some presence in YYC. Who knows, but with only 7 Dreamliners in the fleet, axing an entire daily route is not insignificant, I too am curious what the aircraft will do. For some reason it would be so anti-climactic if it got deployed on more YYZ pairings or something lol. I feel like it calls for use in Europe or Asia on a route with more demand, not on a domestic or sun route. Would Copenhagen really be the next logical destination? I'm just asking,it very well could be. But I feel like Athens or
Madrid, or even bringing AMS back would come before, but that's not based on anything other than my first gut instrict personally.
I wonder if they are even considering reestablishing YYZ, who knows, it's very hard to predict what they are doing now. I could even see them flip flopping on the all Dreamliners based in YYC thing, not for any reason in particular, just that I could see anything being a possibility with WS nowadays
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