Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport

[biguc]

Again, our airport isn't just a place Winnipeggers use to leave. It brings people here as well, and for that reason international flights are a significant advantage for cities operating in a global economy.

In the long run, Winnipeg's distance from Calgary, relative to Edmonton's, could work out to our advantage.

[optimusREIM]

Originally Posted by biguc

Again, our airport isn't just a place Winnipeggers use to leave. It brings people here as well, and for that reason international flights are a significant advantage for cities operating in a global economy.

In the long run, Winnipeg's distance from Calgary, relative to Edmonton's, could work out to our advantage.

True especially if the oil industry never properly recovers. If we keep our consistent growth going then in 10 or 20 years our airport may be more important than edmonton in the grand scheme of things. The closest major airport is msp which isn't likely to directly compete with winnipeg

[ILYR]

Originally Posted by The Jabroni

Still, 4 million is better than averaging 3.5 for some odd years.

Although, didn't passenger exceeded 4 million several years back just for one year at the old terminal?

According to the stats going back to 2005 the highest was about 3.6 million. It was rising at that point then there was the 2009 crash and the the oil crash. Passenger numbers seem to have been effected by both.

http://www.waa.ca/uploads/ck/files/2...nger_Stats.pdf

[esquire]

Originally Posted by optimusREIM

True especially if the oil industry never properly recovers. If we keep our consistent growth going then in 10 or 20 years our airport may be more important than edmonton in the grand scheme of things. The closest major airport is msp which isn't likely to directly compete with winnipeg

Edmonton's airport has double the traffic of ours, and even still they have what most would regard as token levels of year round connections with overseas cities. Amsterdam and Reykjavik. Nearly everyone going to and from Edmonton from outside of North America still has to connect somewhere... all I'm saying is that it's not that huge a deal.

[Bdog]

Originally Posted by esquire

Edmonton's airport has double the traffic of ours, and even still they have what most would regard as token levels of year round connections with overseas cities. Amsterdam and Reykjavik. Nearly everyone going to and from Edmonton from outside of North America still has to connect somewhere... all I'm saying is that it's not that huge a deal.

Not only that, but for those who haven't been lately, their expanded airport absolutely dwarfs ours. It feels closer to Calgary's in terms of physical size than it does to ours...

[optimusREIM]

Originally Posted by esquire

Edmonton's airport has double the traffic of ours, and even still they have what most would regard as token levels of year round connections with overseas cities. Amsterdam and Reykjavik. Nearly everyone going to and from Edmonton from outside of North America still has to connect somewhere... all I'm saying is that it's not that huge a deal.

It would make a lot more sense geographically with calgary so nearby to have edmonton connect through calgary and winnipeg be the central hub.

[jmt18325]

A central hub for what? Realistically, Calgary and Toronto (and MSP) are very short flights.

[LO 044]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ You're right, it likely will happen eventually as growth continues to increase. But it will still mean that you'll be connecting unless you happen to be headed to one of those two or three overseas cities that we'll have direct flights to... and the only people who really care about connecting in Reykjavik instead of Toronto as if it mattered live in Edmonton.

I don't think you really understand the differences in connecting in YYZ vs KEF and AMS. One, a typical example is flying YEG-MUC, with connections in all three cities here are the results: 14h 55min via YYZ (granted its almost a 3hr layover but even if you magically dropped the connection by 1h 30min it is still 13h 25min), 10h 40min via KEF and 11h 45min via AMS. Two, Icelandair easily beats out AC and KL for pricing 95% of the time and the fares aren't close and you get more bang for your buck. Third, once you are in AMS, you can get to most places by train and avoid a 2nd flight which is a bonus. So yes it actually makes a big difference whether you connect via YYZ or KEF or AMS. Also we don't have an ORD flight so that option isn't there at YEG although when the flight was there, the pricing and schedule was never advantageous over even YYZ let alone YUL and YOW to get to Europe.

As for us caring about the YWG-LGW flight. We don't. Many just feel that the YWG-LGW and YEG-LGW are token WS flights to keep this notion that WestJet is better than AC and that they consider us (insert your City here) top priority. I personally hope you guys keep your YWG-LGW flight and increase its frequency as that does have ripple effects on connecting flights, extra businesses opportunities, etc.

[roccerfeller]

Originally Posted by Bdog

Not only that, but for those who haven't been lately, their expanded airport absolutely dwarfs ours. It feels closer to Calgary's in terms of physical size than it does to ours...

Their expansion is pretty nice. I agree it is a fair bit larger than YWG, about double the size? slightly more than that?

For fun number's sake, the last time Edmonton had current Winnipeg levels of passenger traffic, was in 2004-05 (interestingly/coincidently enough the city of Edmonton was about the same population then, albeit a bit smaller, as the city of Winnipeg is now) - but also the same passenger traffic as Ottawa is 2007, and Ottawa services a population larger than Edmonton.

YWG is as a facility a bit larger in area than it seems, I think, and that has a lot to do with one of YWG's biggest oversights/shortcomings which is the incredibly tiny entrance and exit area....should have been stretched out much more imo. Its all about design. The terminal expansion in Edmonton itself is ~44,600 sq meters - YWG as a whole is ~51,000 sq m.

Calgary's airport now is on an even larger scale, I went back there for the Xmas break and was quite impressed with the terminal expansion and the "mini buses" they have going on in the airport. Pretty cool. The recent international terminal expansion alone at YYC is purported to be ~186,000 square meters...or more than three and a half times the size of YWG. Calgary airports authority claims it appx doubles the size of the existing terminal, if that is true it certainly puts into perspective the scale of the airport there now. That would make it more than 7x the size of YWG; Calgary itself is no where close to 7x the size of Winnipeg.

It would be interesting to compare terminal sizes, if anyone knows or has hard numbers of terminals across Canada. I could only find concrete numbers for YWG and terminal expansions for YEG and YYC.

YEG doesn't have that many more aircraft movements than YWG though, might have something to do with cargo traffic.

I am still hopeful Winnipeg will get more direct connections over the years. I think its important, and agree with what biguc said above. Its a very nice sleek airport. It would be nicer if it were a bit larger, especially the departures drop off stretch. And if there was some official cell phone waiting area to ease the burden off the arrivals area which is frequently jam packed whenever I've seen it since everyone is just waiting there to pick up their family member or friend.

[jmt18325]

I totoally disagree. The ground side of YWG is more than adequate. No one spends much time there.

[esquire]

I'm inclined to agree with roccerfeller, I was slightly underwhelmed by the size of the new terminal. It's certainly way more modern than the old one was, but it's not really much bigger... it's a bit like the MTS Centre/Winnipeg Arena in that respect. Both new buildings were upgrades from the old ones and they do the job just fine, but neither was really an expansion in any meaningful way.

A little more elbow room would have been nice, but alas, WAA was probably stretched to the limit just to pay for what we ended up getting.

[jmt18325]

What's changed is that most of the airport is now air side, where as before, it was ground side. I don't spend any time on ground side if I can help it, other than walking through.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by optimusREIM

It would make a lot more sense geographically with calgary so nearby to have edmonton connect through calgary and winnipeg be the central hub.

Geographically, it would make sense. That's about it though.

As for population center, no way. Canada is much like a teeter-totter - the majority of the population is concentrated in either the Quebec City-Windsor corridor or BC/Alberta. The central part of Canada from Thunder Bay to the Alberta border is (relatively speaking) unpopulated. Actually, you can see this effect where the airlines have based their hubs (Calgary and Toronto).

If you only could have international flights out of one location in the country, I guess Winnipeg would be the least inconvenient option (or depending on your point-of-view the compromise that would annoy everyone equally).

[bomberjet]

And the BC/Alberta part is all Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton. Looking at various maps online, rural Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba have more population than rural Alberta and BC. But in total population, yes BC/Alberta of course take the cake.

[jmt18325]

Not sure if this means anything, but according to the YWG Wikipedia page, MSP is no longer seasonal on Delta mainline, and is instead year round. It probably means we're staying at just 3 flights per day.

The seasonal Westjet flight to Halifax is also gone (from YVR also).

[kattiff]

Originally Posted by jmt18325

Not sure if this means anything, but according to the YWG Wikipedia page, MSP is no longer seasonal on Delta mainline, and is instead year round. It probably means we're staying at just 3 flights per day.

The seasonal Westjet flight to Halifax is also gone (from YVR also).

Delta is getting their fourth flight back in Feb. the Airbus will be either a 630 720 or 830 launch flight depends on the day of the week. Then the other three are dual class planes. 11am 1pm 5pm departures

[The Jabroni]

Originally Posted by ILYR

According to the stats going back to 2005 the highest was about 3.6 million. It was rising at that point then there was the 2009 crash and the the oil crash. Passenger numbers seem to have been effected by both.

http://www.waa.ca/uploads/ck/files/2...nger_Stats.pdf

Yeah, I see that, but what about 2004? Wasn't that the year where it reached 4 million?

There has to be more numbers somewhere...

[DavefromSt.Vital]

2004 we were happy to pass three million:

https://www.waa.ca/uploads/ck/files/...-Marketing.pdf

[jmt18325]

Originally Posted by kattiff

Delta is getting their fourth flight back in Feb. the Airbus will be either a 630 720 or 830 launch flight depends on the day of the week. Then the other three are dual class planes. 11am 1pm 5pm departures

Awesome. If only we could get some of our United service back.

[jmt18325]

4,015,200 passengers last year - worst year for transborder since 2005.