General Aviation Thread

[DTcrawler]

Came across an IG ad for a flight sim experience called AviaSim. Looks like Ottawa is their fourth Canadian location where they’re operating out of the Brookstreet Hotel. Just thought I’d pass it along in case people hadn’t already heard of it. If anyone has tried it, how was it?

https://www.aviasim.ca/

[YOWflier]

Super cool!

[YOWflier]

Porter sent a survey to VIPorter members asking for opinions on ad concepts for a Porter credit card. So it seems that’s on it’s way.

[DTcrawler]

Originally Posted by YOWflier

Porter sent a survey to VIPorter members asking for opinions on ad concepts for a Porter credit card. So it seems that’s on it’s way.

I noticed this comment on one of their recent IG posts, which led me to believe the same thing

[acottawa]

It would be nice if they would join one of the alliances.

[AuxTown]

Time for my annual summer flights out of "not Ottawa". I don't expect us to get a Rome flight and direct out of YUL is just too easy but I'm sad that I won't get to see some of the updates at YOW.

That said, did Vegas through Chicago last month and it was seamless, 100% would do again :-)

Hotel update from last month

[YOWflier]

Yawn

[AuxTown]

Fair points above re: my trip today. From my perspective, my options:

1) Drive 1h45m to YUL and fly direct to FCO - $1100 per person

2) Add an extra $210 per person (4 in family=$840) and connect YOW-YUL-FCO. So spend more money and increase the chance that they will lose my bag...and not really save any time.

3) YOW-CDG-FCO - $2088 per person. I like AF but the price is a non-starter.

AC and the airports are very aware of my postal code so to suggest that our family driving to YUL is somehow affecting their decisions is ridiculous. What I think they are starting to learn, at least, is that there is massive demand for direct flights from Ottawa. People fly make travel plans specifically to avoid connecting.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by AuxTown

Fair points above re: my trip today. From my perspective, my options:

1) Drive 1h45m to YUL and fly direct to FCO - $1100 per person

2) Add an extra $210 per person (4 in family=$840) and connect YOW-YUL-FCO. So spend more money and increase the chance that they will lose my bag...and not really save any time.

3) YOW-CDG-FCO - $2088 per person. I like AF but the price is a non-starter.

AC and the airports are very aware of my postal code so to suggest that our family driving to YUL is somehow affecting their decisions is ridiculous. What I think they are starting to learn, at least, is that there is massive demand for direct flights from Ottawa. People fly make travel plans specifically to avoid connecting.

Are 1 and 2 the same AC flight YUL to FCO? If so it's a no brainer to drive to YUL. Even the same price it's probably worth it. Though a bunch of posters here will try and make all kind of justifications why you have to leave from Ottawa every time.

[fanofYOW]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Are 1 and 2 the same AC flight YUL to FCO? If so it's a no brainer to drive to YUL. Even the same price it's probably worth it. Though a bunch of posters here will try and make all kind of justifications why you have to leave from Ottawa every time.

Not one person here would blame them for picking the itinerary that they have chosen. With that amount of money saved, it makes sense. Here are 2 things that do not make sense though:

1) It's still worth it to drive to YUL if the price is the same? With adding on cost of gas and parking at YUL? The only reason I could see anyone doing this is if they had a vendetta against YOW, other than that, that does not make sense.

2) No one cares, especially not AC, about the origin postal code of the pax driving to YUL. That does not help the cause for more direct flights. Why would they add more in YOW when they see that people are willing to drive? Get connecting pax without having to put in the effort and resources to get them to the hub? Sounds like a wet dream to me if I was the carrier. Whether they are paying attention to the origin of the pax or not, driving to YUL hurts the cause.

The same people who are advocates for the opinion that YOW cannot sustain direct flights are the same people using YUL as the point of origin

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by AuxTown

Fair points above re: my trip today. From my perspective, my options:

1) Drive 1h45m to YUL and fly direct to FCO - $1100 per person

2) Add an extra $210 per person (4 in family=$840) and connect YOW-YUL-FCO. So spend more money and increase the chance that they will lose my bag...and not really save any time.

3) YOW-CDG-FCO - $2088 per person. I like AF but the price is a non-starter.

AC and the airports are very aware of my postal code so to suggest that our family driving to YUL is somehow affecting their decisions is ridiculous. What I think they are starting to learn, at least, is that there is massive demand for direct flights from Ottawa. People fly make travel plans specifically to avoid connecting.

If you're able to book a family vacation well in advance (I know, not always possible), AF out of YOW can be just as cheap as something out of YUL. For example, I just recently did YOW-CDG-LHR, LHR-CDG, CDG-YOW in +Y/premium economy (transatlantic portions only as all +Y earns you intra-Europe is advanced seat selection in Y for no additional charge...mind you Euro J is a joke as it is) for $1700 per person on AF. Economy I could have done for around $1000.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Dominion301

If you're able to book a family vacation well in advance (I know, not always possible), AF out of YOW can be just as cheap as something out of YUL. For example, I just recently did YOW-CDG-LHR, LHR-CDG, CDG-YOW in +Y/premium economy (transatlantic portions only as all +Y earns you intra-Europe is advanced seat selection in Y for no additional charge...mind you Euro J is a joke as it is) for $1700 per person on AF. Economy I could have done for around $1000.

How much would the same trip have been flying out of YUL? That's the question.

Slight premium for YOW over YUL is understandable. Driving there has costs in time and money. But $200 premiums are only justifiable for 1-2 travelers. Once you start getting into a family of 3-4 traveling, that $600-800 difference more than covers the cost of driving and parking there.

That said, AF is going to take advantage of the captive market. I don't blame them. That's just business.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

How much would the same trip have been flying out of YUL? That's the question.

Slight premium for YOW over YUL is understandable. Driving there has costs in time and money. But $200 premiums are only justifiable for 1-2 travelers. Once you start getting into a family of 3-4 traveling, that $600-800 difference more than covers the cost of driving and parking there.

That said, AF is going to take advantage of the captive market. I don't blame them. That's just business.

In +Y out of YOW for the date range I was looking at booking, I checked and YOW and YUL were generally within $50 of each other and a couple of days YOW was even a few $ cheaper. Even if it were more expensive, I still would have booked out of YOW for myself and 3 others.

[YOWflier]

We have a specific thread that was created for this tripe but some like to ignore that and continue here because of course they know they won’t have an audience in the other place. Too bad we have no mods that actually mod here.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Dominion301

In +Y out of YOW for the date range I was looking at booking, I checked and YOW and YUL were generally within $50 of each other and a couple of days YOW was even a few $ cheaper. Even if it were more expensive, I still would have booked out of YOW for myself and 3 others.

You were traveling in Y+ and willing to take an indirect routing to London. I don't think you were time or cost sensitive on that trip. For those who are Price sensitive, $200 per person is not small potatoes for a family of 3-4.

[rocketphish]

Originally Posted by YOWflier

We have a specific thread that was created for this tripe but some like to ignore that and continue here because of course they know they won’t have an audience in the other place. Too bad we have no mods that actually mod here.

It's the summer... your mods may be on vacation.








Photos by me
Last week

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

You were traveling in Y+ and willing to take an indirect routing to London. I don't think you were time or cost sensitive on that trip. For those who are Price sensitive, $200 per person is not small potatoes for a family of 3-4.

I forgot about the alternate thread's existence, so I'll copy & paste this here.

Since I was doing a triangle routing going to both London and Paris, it didn’t make much difference flying AC or AF, except for the fact AF in +Y were $500 per seat cheaper…and daily so AC on the outbound day would have been a connection too because of that. So on that basis, I was definitely price and time sensitive. Would have flown in Y on AC. Agreed that $200 pp is a not insignificant difference. That’s why I mentioned the caveat that if you’re able to book six months ahead of time, you’ll likely find negligible price differences but many can’t book that far ahead.

[YOWflier]

Not YOW specific per se (feel free to move to general) but it affects Porter which has a substantial presence here.

Google flights has a new feature where you can exclude basic fares from the search. Useful, but when used it seems to expose a bug uniquely with Porter in that you won’t get offered any booking options after selecting flights. You’ll get a message saying “we can’t find booking options…”. This also impacts price tracking (no price to track).

Porter should chase this down asap.

[RomanR27]

Originally Posted by YOWflier

Not YOW specific per se (feel free to move to general) but it affects Porter which has a substantial presence here.

Google flights has a new feature where you can exclude basic fares from the search. Useful, but when used it seems to expose a bug uniquely with Porter in that you won’t get offered any booking options after selecting flights. You’ll get a message saying “we can’t find booking options…”. This also impacts price tracking (no price to track).

Porter should chase this down asap.

I don't see an option to exclude basic fares explicitly, but if I change the filter to have a minimum of a 1 carry-on (implicitly excluding basic fares), I see the prices updating for Porter to show the standard fare price.

[YOWflier]

Once you enter a destination, the fare pulldown menu at the top has options for “Economy (include basic)” and “Economy (exclude basic)”. If you select exclude basic and then choose Porter flights (I tried YOW to BOS/FLL) you should get the message I described earlier.