Atlantic Canada airport thread

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by habs33

NewLeaf drops Moncton from summer flight schedule
https://www.telegraphjournal.com/tel...412/?nopromo=1

A bit more on this from the T&T today.

The dropping of Moncton from the NewLeaf schedule may be temporary.

The airline is just trying to maximize coverage of their "core" cities with their three currently leased aircraft. Their partner, Flair Air is in the process of attempting to lease another two 737s, and if successful, then Moncton and Kelowna will be back, maybe even in time for the summer schedule.

According to the NewLeaf spokesperson, their route with the greatest PAX on a consistent basis is the one from Moncton to Hamilton. If this is the case, one wonders why they decided to sacrifice Moncton rather than, say, Halifax.........

I still have very guarded hope regarding the long term viability of NewLeaf, but in the short term, I am now somewhat optimistic the airline will be back at the GMIA.

[J81]

According to the T&T today Moncton will be back on Newleafs schedule once they secure another aircraft from Flair. Good news i guess. It really is an odd business model.

As far as service expansion we are limited to the NYC airports and Europe. We lost our connection to both those areas due to a shift in the airlines business model. I believe some regulations changed in the US regarding regional airline pilots which caused a pilot shortage so regionals were forced to downsize. I think we will see a return of a US connection.

Europe is definitely going to happen once more and more airlines take delivery of the A321NEO.

St johns is a no brainer for any airline. Its absurd that this still hasnt happened.


Looks like Monctonrad beat me to it. Had this all typed out for hours and forgot to hit submit.

[Ire Narissis]

Despite all this, it's still going to be almost half the price for me to fly to Seattle this summer out of Halifax compared to Saint John, Fredericton, or Moncton. Definitely still room for improvement when a 4-hour drive can save me over $400.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Ire Narissis

Despite all this, it's still going to be almost half the price for me to fly to Seattle this summer out of Halifax compared to Saint John, Fredericton, or Moncton. Definitely still room for improvement when a 4-hour drive can save me over $400.

A four hour drive (eight hours return) plus the cost of parking your car at Halifax Stanfield. If you're gone for a week, the cost of parking & gas for your car would likely be over $200.00

On top of that is inconvenience, and the wear & tear on your vehicle. It might not be worth it after all........

[Nashe]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

A four hour drive (eight hours return) plus the cost of parking your car at Halifax Stanfield. If you're gone for a week, the cost of parking & gas for your car would likely be over $200.00 On top of that is inconvenience, and the wear & tear on your vehicle. It might not be worth it after all........

This is often the quandary we deal with. Unless Stanfield has a flight time or route we prefer, we'll fly out of Moncton, even if it's $100 each more expensive for those reasons. Sometime the flight comes back into Halifax late and you need to stay overnight again so you're talking a tank of gas, two tolls and two nights in hotel... plus 5 hours of driving. It's not really worth it at all.

[Feneant]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

A four hour drive (eight hours return) plus the cost of parking your car at Halifax Stanfield. If you're gone for a week, the cost of parking & gas for your car would likely be over $200.00

On top of that is inconvenience, and the wear & tear on your vehicle. It might not be worth it after all........

As ridiculous as it may sound to some, for me this is all about the principle. I've gone to Vegas from Halifax and Orlando from Bangor because Moncton had pricier flights at worse times. I'd rather save the money (but like you say, accumulate other costs) than spend more for the convenient of leaving from Moncton. I know to Orlando for example it was 800$ more from here than Bangor so I gladly drove to Bangor, paid for a hotel, for parking, etc.

If Air Canada/Westjet, etc. won't give us good deals, I would rather inconvenience myself by driving farther and staying in a hotel than to give them my business- which also indicates to them that I am willing to pay more for the same service I can get cheaper elsewhere.

[Ire Narissis]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

A four hour drive (eight hours return) plus the cost of parking your car at Halifax Stanfield. If you're gone for a week, the cost of parking & gas for your car would likely be over $200.00

On top of that is inconvenience, and the wear & tear on your vehicle. It might not be worth it after all........

Depends on if I can mooch driveway space off one of my Halifax-office coworkers.

[OliverD]

Originally Posted by Ire Narissis

Depends on if I can mooch driveway space off one of my Halifax-office coworkers.

Then you still have to get to and from the airport.

[q12]

Westjet is adding service from Halifax to Montreal on March 15th.

http://www.routesonline.com/news/38/...ervice-in-s17/

2x Daily Westjet Encore Halifax - Montreal

This will make that route highly competitive like Ottawa and St. John's with Air Canada, Westjet and Porter all flying non-stop now to Montreal.

With all three airlines combined by the summer there will be approx up to:

15x daily Halifax - Ottawa

12x daily Halifax - Montreal

11x daily Halifax - St. John's

[MonctonRad]

Some pictures of the GMRBIA (from their website)


Could the airport name get any longer? There's no more space on the sign!!!


Upstairs bar (only open at times inconvenient for most travellers).


Departures lounge looks busy!


More expansive view of the departures lounge.


Check-in area.


Main concourse


Don McClure Aviation Museum on the second level of the airport terminal.


Tunnel from the parking area to the terminal


It's a Sunwing convention!!!


New operations centre and fire hall.


Main terminal


Control tower and a couple of hangars (on the opposite side of the airfield from the main terminal).

[MonctonRad]

So New Leaf isn't returning to YQM this summer after all.

At one flight per week, this is no great loss, and in the long term, the prospects of New Leaf must be considered as quite guarded, especially with WestJet just announcing a new ultra low cost subsidiary to the market beginning this year.

I suspect that this new WestJet subsidiary will be the kiss of death for New Leaf.

The next question will be whether the new WestJet subsidiary will service the Maritimes or not.........

[J81]

Im curious as to how much more "no frills" westjet can get? They can keep their bag of nuts and small cup of water as far as im concerned. If those are "Frills" then i dont need them. Westjet has strayed far from their original business plan and they keep gettting further and further from it. I hope it doesnt hurt them down the road.

[ghYHZ]

Elite Airways just announced a new PWM-YHZ flight beginning in June.

https://res.eliteairways.net/Media

[J81]

Interesting. Not a city pair i would've thought had much traffic but hope it works out.

[Nashe]

Originally Posted by J81

Interesting. Not a city pair i would've thought had much traffic but hope it works out.

Good jump-off point to other places if the price is right.

[OliverD]

Originally Posted by Vorkuta

Good jump-off point to other places if the price is right.

$169 USD each way. Not exactly cheap.

[q12]

Here is a story New Brunswick forumers might find interesting.

Read the full story here: http://huddle.today/new-brunswicks-airport-problem/

New Brunswick’s Airport Problem



May 4, 2017 by Cherise Letson

He says the real problem is when you need to fly important people in to see you. That’s why when Alongside helped organize the Amplify conference back in March, they decided to host it in Halifax instead of Moncton.

“We flew in speakers from San Francisco, New York … We had limited options with how we could make that accommodate all of the schedules and speakers because we were flying in seven different people,” says Boudreau. “So we just decided to do it in Halifax to reduce the risk of anything happening from layovers or storms and whatnot. It’s a lot easier to convince someone to fly directly to Halifax than it would have been from New York to Moncton.”

But the lack of U.S. flights doesn’t impact just business events. It can also impact whether or not a New Brunswick business gets investors or an exit offer.

[Marty_Mcfly]

I traveled St. John's to Halifax to Moncton for business back in the fall. Two things that surprised me about Moncton airport: I expected it to be a lot bigger than it was, including more gates (though the departures lounge is really, really nice). The second: I figured Halifax to Moncton (and vice versa) would be a high volume route, especially flying back to Halifax. I was very surprised to see a 19-seater for the route.

[q12]

Here is a great interactive website with up-to-date flight connections from any city worldwide:

http://www.flightconnections.com/

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Marty_Mcfly

I traveled St. John's to Halifax to Moncton for business back in the fall. Two things that surprised me about Moncton airport: I expected it to be a lot bigger than it was, including more gates (though the departures lounge is really, really nice). The second: I figured Halifax to Moncton (and vice versa) would be a high volume route, especially flying back to Halifax. I was very surprised to see a 19-seater for the route.

The Moncton Airport is rated for about 700,000 passengers per year. The current passenger volume is about 650k. I'm sure they won't consider expansion until we're at 800k or so. With continued growth, the airport may see an expansion in 5-10 years.

The departure lounge was really crowded when I flew out last Saturday morning. There was a big Sunwing flight to Orlando, and people were starting to arrive for a WestJet flight to Cancun. Add this to regular traffic and the lounge was getting stuffed.

As for Moncton connections to Halifax, Moncton is only a 2.5 hour drive, so people on their way to Halifax usually just take their car. Usually it's only connecting passengers who fly, and the vast vast majority of connecting passengers out of Moncton make their connections in Toronto or Montreal, not Halifax.