Re: Flair Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

Some of those routes started quite late. Is that data averages for both north and southbound? The YSJ-SFB, YXU-SFB, YWG-SFB didn’t start until about Jan22, so they would be all southbound traffic flow. What are the LF%’s on just the southbound segments? YKF-LAS had been running 2 months prior to thi...

Re: Flair Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

They may be selling a handful of fares to get people talking. Trouble is that somebody pays $39, everyone subsequent watches and waits for the same deal. YWG-YVR @ $49 is 4.1 cents per mile. Neglecting crews, leases, landing fees, etc - I think that’s less than 1/2 the cost of just the fuel… One has...

Re: WestJet News and Discussion - 2024

WS seems to see themselves very much as a 737 operator, and as a WN type operator. There are good things about that, but also limitations. It’s also hard to see them anywhere but Boeing, but not impossible. I think the likely answer is more a question of where Boeing is at in 5-10 years. If the NMA ...

Re: WestJet News and Discussion - 2024

I read somewhere a few months ago that YHZ was one of the top destinations out of YWG, so it's not stretch to think winter service would works even at a reduced capacity, like they do for YEG. NYC is also amongst the top destinations out of YWG, so I would think a flight to somewhere like Newark is...

Re: WestJet News and Discussion - 2024

The 70 seat jet has been the hole in the WS network. Even before Encore launched, personally I think WS would have been better off with ATRs (both 42 and 72) and E175s for Encore, but the Q400 won out. Without legacy to deal with, WS should have had more of a free hand than most carriers for settin...

Re: WestJet News and Discussion - 2024

I’d hope they can work the schedules to make connections work well on those YWG routes. One has to wonder is fleet flexibility is considered a problem at all by WS management. They pretty much manage capacity by seasonal routes and changing how many flights per week. I can believe WS might operate Y...

Re: Flair Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

Airlines the world over have a hard time surviving. Even the marquee national airlines. Even in densely populated nations. Sabena. Varig. Mexicana. Swissair. PanAm. TWA. Ansett. Etc.

Re: Porter Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

Certainly scheduling flexibility, as well as the ability to change aircraft type to suit loads on each segment, have been part of the trend away from same-plane. And airlines have reasons why they prefer to fully unload and reload. But there is also an “everything old is new again” potential. People...

Re: Porter Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

Milk runs are out of style, but connections are common these days,. Personally I’d like to see PD run a few milk runs. Tack a YQR-YWG leg on the end of YWG-YOW. And maybe a YOW-YQB leg on the other end. The old “same plane service” is is out of favour with marketing - of course nonstop is better, bu...

Re: Flair Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

I would guess it is a better system to always pay GST and have Revenue Canada administer refunds than to have each seller tasked with determining who to exempt. And much easier to audit on both tax submissions from the vendor, and exemption/refund for the buyer.

Re: Flair Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

One thing that puzzles me is why 777 Partners continues to keep Flair going. One would assume they're still getting lease payments from Flair, even if other vendors are not being paid. But given Boeing's production slowdown surely the aircraft could be quickly leased to a more stable operator? Yes ...

Re: Flair Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

How about another innovation - they could take IOU’s. Just sign a Post-It note before you board…

Re: Flair Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

Lol.

Not that non-enthusiasts will be here, but I don’t think the public has much of a handle on a ‘good fare’ versus a fire sale. Self delusion won’t lead to healthy competition…

Re: Flair Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

Even if WS and AC fares are too high, it is possible that at the same time Flair fare are better described as unsustainable (and not ‘affordable’). Admittedly without bothering to get the rest of the fees they charge and just looking at base fare for mid-May: YXX-YYC $39 = 9.8 cents/seat mile YXX-YY...

Re: Flair Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

And yet, still operating - at least today. Nine lives. We’ll see if they have any left after the next payroll. Looks like a mess.

Re: Flair Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

Naw, they got shutout by a financial services provider. They either dont have another one or couldnt get a new one plugged in fast enough. Oh, they’ll run out of lives eventually. I just don’t know if this is the one… I don’t know what to hope for. What they offer isn’t something I am buying. There...

Re: Flair Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

Flair has 9 lives… and ironically it is their competitor named after a cat that died ~ Ransomeware would seem a more logical cause for the silence, but I find it hard to believe that is the case if a station manager didn’t know. Although things may be so partitioned between who they subcontract diff...

Re: Flair Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

I wonder if they do go to MCO, if they can get enough extra traffic to offset the costs as I assume MCO is much more expensive than SFB It doesn’t always matter. Landing and terminal fees could be a significant percentage higher, but on longer flights with international costs (like US customs fees)...

Re: WestJet News and Discussion - 2024

wjv04 wrote:

The aviation language is wholly comprised of acronyms.

Re: Air Canada News and Discussion - 2024

It’s been a couple of years since I flew through YUL, but I found almost every aspect to be good, whether connecting domestically, internationally, or travelling to Montreal. Although a good portion of the terminal is older, it’s been kept up. The main challenge is that traffic has doubled in the la...

Re: WestJet News and Discussion - 2024

1 widebody flight is absolutely lower CASM than 2 narrowbody flights. If you can fill the plane, it definitely has lower crew and fuel costs on a per-seat basis. Yes no maybe. I don’t have any better figures than this, but: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft For something of a...

Re: Porter Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

Deluce's sold Canada 3000 to John Lecky in 1998 3 years prior to any issues Canada 3000 had. By all accounts it was very successful up until then. Also, to be fair, it should also be pointed out that Canada3000 didn’t fail because of the way they left it. Three major things changed: 1. Merger with ...

Re: Lynx Fleet and Network - 2024 (Lynx to cease operations as of February 26)

In terms of making a new carrier work - The alternative carriers that I think might have been the most successful were Wardair and Canada3000. I think that looking at what worked for them, and where they went wrong, would be useful to a new entrant: 1. Both specialized in seasonal traffic, and manag...

Re: WestJet News and Discussion - 2024

WS would need more 787s to fly to Australia anyways regardless if it was from YYC or YVR. Given that the balance of the 787 operations would still be YYC-based, for the sake of the flight not being a complete failure it'd make sense for said Australian flight to originate in Calgary as a same plane...

Re: WestJet News and Discussion - 2024

Wouldn’t YWG-LAX-BNE be the best routing option for you?

Re: Lynx Fleet and Network - 2024

I remember a coworker scrambling to find another way home after having a weekend in Toronto when Jetsgo collapsed. It seems to be a lesson we perpetually repeat. We do need a healthy competition in the airline market. That doesn’t purely mean on cost. If an 1800 mile flight costs $360 each way to op...

Re: Porter Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

An analogy: auction sales. In an auction the highest bidder always wins. But the runner up determines the price paid. In pure commodities, the lowest cost always wins the most profit. And the marginal producers set the price. There is no absolutely pure commodity. But some airlines are more commodit...

Re: Porter Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

Porter is doing something different. Different airplanes. Somewhat different routes. Different service model. Different scale. There are things to be learned there. Startup airlines tend to go after casual fliers, because frequent fliers need a schedule not offered by startups. Startups go after hig...

Re: Porter Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

Well said. To that end, I think they've made it sufficiently clear: - no middle seats - WiFi - drinks - elevated hospitality Are these enough for people to pay more than the incumbents or a similar fare? On trunk routes to AB, thus far the answer is no. Clear to us. But to the average travelling pu...

Re: Porter Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

Gasoline is a good analogy. It is a commodity. People will go slightly out of their way to buy from a favourite supplier, but not far. Some years ago Shell was faced with a similar problem. They had a lot of stations and not enough volume to be economic. But if they closed stations they would lose s...

Re: WestJet News and Discussion - 2024

Maybe I shouldn’t assume their non-stop flights list gets updated the same time as sked, but it looks like throughout the summer YWG-YHZ constantly changes how many flights per week and which days it runs. Not sure if up to 6/week is an increase from last year?

Re: Porter Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

So let’s take the experiment the other way - Dropping prices 10% would take an 85% BELF, and make it 95%. Which is pretty close to unobtainable. Especially if capacity isn’t adjusted by day of week. But I’m also not sure demand would be elastic enough for them for a 10% price drop to cause 35% more ...

Re: Porter Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

Thanks Jimbo. I had hoped for an educated guess… Thought experiment here… So even assuming lower pay rates and a sweetheart lease cost, one has to imagine PD’s BELF is negatively impacted by lower yields, higher per-seat fuel costs, and low utilization. Meaning they’d have to fill 85%, maybe 90%. (M...

Re: Porter Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

What is WS and AC break even load factors these days?

It’s been a while - but not out of living memory - when it was a pretty regular occurrence to sit beside an empty seat, because airlines ran with some surplus capacity. These days airlines make money by not doing that…

Re: Porter Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

True. But it's an awful lot of new routes with no partner on the ground. True. Otoh, the Canada-US market has been slower to recover than domestic. Crewing challenges are just starting to ease. Canadian carriers are still spread thin, leaving a window of opportunity. Market softening can make sense...

Re: Porter Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

That’s more attention than AA has paid Canadian airports in a while. But it’s not like YQB, YYC or YVR are Porter strongholds. And they haven’t touched YOW. So not saying it won’t happen, but PD is likely more eager for that than AA…

Re: Porter Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

Not impossible they could try to act as a codeshare feeder to YVR for CX, JAL, Phillipine Air, etc. Whether it’s a good idea is another question…

Re: Porter Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

Opening a YVR base doesn’t even have to mean any additional flights. If they’ve having a hard time crewing, they could even just be assigning the existing YVR-YYZ/YOW/YUL flying to free up crews. And not that YVR crews would be limited to that, either. Is there a regulatory restriction on YHU not b...

Re: Porter Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

I’d actually been looking at the data earlier today, too. I couldn’t find anything that looked like their routes in the data. So I don’t think it was logged under a separate airline code - it just wasn’t logged…

Re: Porter Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

Opening a YVR base doesn’t even have to mean any additional flights. If they’ve having a hard time crewing, they could even just be assigning the existing YVR-YYZ/YOW/YUL flying to free up crews. And not that YVR crews would be limited to that, either. Is there a regulatory restriction on YHU not be...

Re: Porter Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

I would be very surprised if Florida routes don’t end up being offered from YHU not too far down the road. I don’t know what it will take to get done, but it would have to be one of the biggest wishes for both the residents that would want to fly from there, and from any prospective airline to serve...

Re: WestJet News and Discussion - 2024

Not just snowbird flights - even getting to YOW or YUL from the west. I get they want every flight profitable every day, and I don’t like YYZ to be my only choice, but whether it is supporting nonstops on YLW or YYJ-YYZ with basic connecting opportunities, giving a way to YUL on the days YYC-YUL doe...

Re: WestJet News and Discussion - 2024

“Publication of WestJet's full summer schedule will be completed over the coming week.” Kind of reads like “this announcement is to announce we may have further announcements. Or not. Here’s some things we’ve already announced.” Although announcing summer sked does generally need to be done, and I c...

Re: Porter Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

YHU is a little over a year out. Without knowing how the terminal is financed, one has to think that it is one reason shareholders might look down the road a bit for a return. Is Porter acting as developer for the terminal (ie - real estate profit vs operating carrier?) There is definitely enough sl...

Re: Porter Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

jimbo737 wrote:

50 passengers disembarked, or a L/F of 38%.

Re: Air Canada News and Discussion - 2024

after AC unceremoniously dumped Alberta to the curb? To be fair, I think: 1. It would probably be more accurate to say ‘the prairies’ than ‘Alberta’ 2. ‘withdrew from’ or ‘retrenched from’ is a less charged description. I’d like to see a more competitive regional market, and there really should be ...

Re: Air Canada News and Discussion - 2024

The question is what do they want to do with them. If MAX is the right aircraft for sunbird flying and routes like LAS, maybe. If they run high utilization at Rouge maybe it makes sense. If it’s seasonal flex capacity, then lower capital cost is more important than lower operating cost. Wait and see...

Re: Porter Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

Yeesh. I don’t know what the YWG loads are like, but sounds like they might be better off throwing in a station stop in YWG and combining the two flights…

I’m wishing I’d sat and watched a couple of their turns when I got delayed at YYZ recently.

Re: Air Canada News and Discussion - 2024

Maybe like Fin 862?
(I like the symmetry…)

Re: Porter Airlines Fleet and Network - 2024

I think the airlines know that having this much upheaval for such an extended period is a problem. I don’t think the threat of punitive action is what would trigger change. I don’t think they know how to dig themselves out. And they need someone not to focus them on the complaints, but to focus them...