I'd say that's 90% the case. Edmonton still is a big market, so they need to make sure they appear to be paying attention to them, but yeah, from a business side, WS would prefer to route traffic through YYC as much as they can.

The pilots will land on their feet. Even cabin crew should be quickly picked up by other carriers, particularly if they're bilingual. Ditto the 737s, with Boeing's production issues they'll quickly go to another carrier.

In a way that kind of sums up the problem I have with Flair, it is sucking up resources that other, more successful carriers, need.

Whoa, look at all those aircraft departures from Air Canada at Waterloo (YKF) and Hamilton (YHM)! Wait... that's a bus aircraft... no ITS A BUS?

TIL bus service is considered an airline flight? :sly:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...19e63b33_c.jpgYHM/YKF AC Bus Service by freerealms454, on Flickr

I think that pretty much ensures no AC aircraft will be touching down from anywhere at both airports anytime soon. YYZ clearly marking it's territory with AC busses.

When was the last time an AC aircraft landed at either anyway? What I'm concerned about is if these things "take off", will AC cancel flights from places like London in favour of buses too? I don't think there is an airport closer to YYZ with flights there than YXU.

AC previously served YHM-YUL from 2016-2018. It was doing well at 2x daily, so they boosted it to 3x daily on weekdays but axed the service due to lack of business travelers 3 months after boosting it to 3x daily.
This was also the period when swoop was rapidly growing. Less people wouldve likely connected in YUL when they could've flown direct with swoop for less.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4712423/a...ontreal-route/

AC was also slated to start YHM-YYC daily with rouge in 2015 but when they lost an aircraft due to an incident, they pulled the route due to lack of aircraft. Demand would've been there once the route matured.
https://globalnews.ca/news/1986530/p...ilton-service/

Lots of news here lately. A Provincial Airlines flight ran slightly off the runway. All hands fine.

WestJet's direct flight to London is up and running, so we can keep calling ourselves an international airport I guess, ha!

And WestJet's CEO is here to talk about their "ambitious growth" plan for YYT.

Maybe the government finally throwing some money into securing direct connections to Europe is making a difference. We've been so far behind, one of the most expensive airports for airlines to land at, and gen nickeling and diming them for everything like we were the ones doing them a favour letting them fly here. Things might be turning around and we're starting to play ball.

Is the YYT-LGW flight subsidized?

I don't think there has ever been any expectation of AC serving YKF.

I assume but don't know. The timing suggests so. It came back after the airport authority said it needed money to attract transatlantic routes, government announced $1.5M, and then voila.

LAX released their 2024 January-March stats here - https://www.lawa.org/-/media/lawa-we...hare-2024.ashx.

I have a copy of the January-February stats, and by comparing the two PDFs I get the following:

• March 2024 Passenger Arrivals - (6716-3267)=3449
• March 2024 Passenger Departures - (7320-3936)=3384

Given 132 seats on Porter's E195-E2 jets and 31 days in March I get 4092 seat capacity and the following load factors:

• March Arrivals - 3449/4092=84%
• March Departures - 3384/4092=83%

I wonder what YYZ<->LAX LFs Porter is looking for before they add non stop LAX service at YOW.

Pretty good LFs if they are correct. I don't think PD is comparing YYZ and YOW the same way. Seems like they have every intention of making YOW a North American fortress hub with 25 frames being based there. Pretty much guarantees YOW to LAX, SFO, LAS, PHX, ATL, DFW, YYJ, YLW, YQR, YXE, more Florida (frequency and new markets like RSW, TPA), and Caribbean when they get there. Apparently, PD are extremely happy with their LFs to Florida from YOW even though there still isn't 100% knowledge that this service with them is offered so the CEO called that "encouraging". The SFO and LAX routes will push people onto AS so there's even less risk of launching those. On top of that, there's still slack to spare so no idea where they would deploy that slack to.

YYZ can handle O&D alone. Whereas YOW, just like YEG and YYC, need traffic through connections to make them work. PD's advantage is the 132 seat frames they have that make risk taking less risky. The CEO mentions that YOW is better airport for connections (and his favourite airport other than YTZ) in terms of pax experience (compared to YYZ). They are not a fan of using D8's in YYZ currently so they are using them to bring pax to YOW from the maritimes and YQT and even connecting people from YTZ for those totally unwilling to use YYZ. Sorry, that was a long way of saying YYZ and YOW play different roles for them haha.

YYT has 3x/w flights to St. Pierre for the "International" label! :-)

AS is starting YYZ-SEA service is two weeks time with a daily flight. Wonder if there will be much PD feed traffic for AS.

YOW-LAX/SFO are two of the largest unserved Canada-US markets. So those should work, but will need decent feed to make them stick, because, as you said, O&D alone won't cover it. LAS should work well as well. Not sure about PHX, ATL and DFW though. You're starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel there.

Top 10 largest Canada-US unserved markets in terms of PDEW (Passengers per day each way), as of Feb 2024, are:

YVR-FLL 61
YVR-TPA 44
YEG-IAH 39
YVR-PHL 38
YOW-LAX 36
YOW-SFO 35
YYJ-LAX 33
YHZ-LAS 31
YYC-MIA 31
YYZ-SAT 29

So this is interesting but still murky. Who is Flair's senior lender whose affiliate bought 777 Partners' shares?

Bonza’s sister airline cuts 777 Partners, restructures debt
Ayesha de Kretser
Senior reporter
May 2, 2024 – 2.03pm

Canadian low-cost carrier Flair Airlines has moved to quell speculation about its future after its Australian sister airline Bonza entered voluntary administration, saying its backers will take shares owned by 777 Partners.

In an announcement on Thursday, the Canadian airline said “an affiliate of Flair’s largest senior lender is acquiring a portion of the shares owned by 777 Partners and providing new non-binding debt funding”.

We are excited about this strategic evolution and the new financial commitment,” Flair Airlines chief executive Stephen Jones said.

“We are grateful for their support as we chart the course for continued growth.”

Sources said 777 Partners’ stake of about 24 per cent in Flair was written down to close to zero and it had given up board seats accordingly. The identity of Flair’s senior funder and the affiliate are not clear.....

https://www.afr.com/companies/transp...0240502-p5foes

I assume this data doesn’t take into account ottawa folks leaking to YUL in their own vehicles? Time will tell about those last 3 you mentioned, except ATL. I truly think YOW-ATL will be a thing sooner rather than later with the PD-DL partnership that we all discovered a couple of weeks ago. Still no PR! Not sure what’s taking them so long to discuss it. Also, with YUL-SFO/LAX, seems like PD is open to the idea of less than daily.

Flair is done for. I hope they can stick it out for competition sake, but yeah all signs point to a shut down.

AC released their Q1 results. I hadn't realized so many A220s were out of service with GTF issues.

Air Canada reports first-quarter loss, expenses up as carrier added seat capacity
ERIC ATKINSTRANSPORTATION REPORTER
PUBLISHED 8 HOURS AGO
FOR SUBSCRIBERS

Air Canada slumped to a loss in the first quarter as the country’s largest airline faced higher expenses after it added seat capacity.

For the three months ending on March 31, Montreal-based Air Canada lost $81-million or 22 cents a share, compared with profit of $4-million in the same quarter a year earlier.

Operating revenues rose 7 per cent to $5.2-billion from a year ago, and capacity increased 11 per cent, Air Canada said in an earnings release on Thursday.

Operating expenses climbed by 6 per cent or $311-million, compared with the same quarter of 2023. “The increase was due to higher costs in nearly all line items reflecting higher operated capacity and traffic year over year, in addition to higher labour, maintenance and information technology expense. Lower fuel expense partially offset the increase,” Air Canada said in a statement, released before markets opened...

....The airline is also adding leased Boeing 737 Max jets that are expected to be flying next year.

Mr. Rousseau declined to say how many 737s will join the fleet. The addition of the 737s is a “defensive” move to replace some of the six or seven Airbus A220s that are grounded because of problems with the Pratt & Whitney engines. Like other affected airlines, Air Canada is in talks with the engine maker for compensation, he said. The airline has 33 A220s, a narrow-body plane developed as the C Series by Bombardier....

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/busi...nings-quarter/

YXU London's annual report came out today and showed passenger gains of 45% over last year, to 332,000. Still a long way off from where they were in 2019 with 683,000, and I would say with the lack of Swoop and what seems to be lower Flair flights, that this year is going to be hard pressed to keep up.