Quote:
Originally Posted by ace.yyc
Contrary to your assessment that US carriers are adding service to western Canadian cities in droves, the reality is mostly the opposite. This ongoing idea that a rich Canadian metro of 1.4 million is off the radar of carriers and the "business community and airport authority" are the ones who successfully reminded Air Canada that Edmonton exists is laughable. Yes, the airline that formerly flew lucrative transatlantic service from Edmonton has completely forgotten it exists. The same applies to US carriers. If you believe YEG's lack of US service is because none of the legacies have gotten a call from the YEG airport authority whining about it, all the power to you. A far more logical explanation is that based on their own assessment, launching the service to YEG in current market conditions would not be profitable.
I do find myself wondering if you apply this logic to all Canadian airports, or is it just YEG. While many await the return of AC service on YVR-TPE for example, I've seen nobody blame this on YVR's negligence to approach AC about the service. How would you assess it?
|
You are right partially; people's expectations of the Airport Authority to bring in business is not logical. They could sell themselves in the best way possible, and it might not result in anything. Their primary purpose is to run the airport itself in a cost effective way, manage day to day operations smoothly, and be smart with organization. Rarely are they the driver behind route expansion, same at all other airports. At YVR, the airport authority almost seems surprised whenever new services are announced lol, they did not have major role in anything. They are just the management plus PR team, but the airlines would be doing their own business cases and decisions. Don't get me wrong, a good airport authority is critical, but moreso for how the airport runs and its facilities, not so much for doing airline route planning.
And you're right, at YVR there's never any blame directed at the airport authority for route losses, it's always though of as the airline's decision and that's that. Granted, the losses and lack of growth at YEG is a lot more frustrating than losing an AC route that was only in operation for a couple years, and there's still 14x weekly flights on other carriers. Kind of dulls the losses, especially when they expand other routes and and new ones, it's give and take. So not the same situation as in YEG in most cases, people's frustration is 100% understandable. There's been such a gutting of so much capacity, people are angry to see once robust service go down to near-non-existant, it's understandable. But airport authority is not the main culprit, no way. Unless it comes out they were so awful in dealing with the airlines that route planners across the country and the US chose to boycott the airport strictly due to the airport authority... ya no that's not a possibility. It was a bad combination of Calgary becoming so huge it just casts a shadow over anywhere else in the prairies, it's like a black hole there now, devouring everywhere else. But Edmonton is doing well and "Alberta is back" so addition of routes is far more likely now than say 5 years ago
Prev
Linear Mode
