Originally Posted by
DanJ
YYC/YEG-Hawaii might work out if WS can convince AA to bring a 757 in to do the job instead of WS paying Air Finland to do it.
Not likely solution to the issue. The issue is that American's pilots will demand equal flying or flying in their favour (e.g AA must do equal amount of flying or total amount of flying must be larger for AA). Further compacting this issue is that Hawaii is about 30% of the transborder ASMs and LAS is another 25-35%. If AA applies its entire transborder operation to the codeshare agreement, they will still not equal WS operation. Therefore WS will not be able to bring its own metal into AA hubs and might have to transfer some existing flying to AA.
While getting AA to operate AB-Hawaii would help to solve the problem, this presents some major obstacles.
1) AA does not have a 757 base on either end of the route. To get a/c and crews to operate this flight, AA would have bring in 757 from either DFW or ORD to YYC and flood the existing market (currently served by MD80 and ERJ respectively). This will make the existing flying unprofitable.
2) AA is short of 757 capacity as they are sending some airframes in Atlantic. Moving capacity from profitable domestic and Atlantic flying onto marginally profitable leisure transborder flying is a tough financial pill.
3) AA cost structure is among the highest in North America, this will further pull down and likely eliminate any profit for the route.
4) Westjet relies upon their Vacations division to maximise the profit on the Hawaii runs (they need commission from hotel and package sales). Bringing AA onto the route eliminates the portion of profit from air operations.
Overall AA is a poor fit for WS due to:
1) militant pilots union that is known for killing codeshare/revenue share opportunities in the past (CP/AA in the 90s, limit growth of Eagle operations, scope limit on 70 seat RJ while AA watches DL and UA eat their lunch).
2) hub system that does not complement Canada to USA traffic flows. JFK is good for eastern Canada, ORD is slot constrained, MIA is to far away, DFW is a good option but a little far away compared to DFW (UA-AC) and SLC (DL), LAX is good option, but T4/T5 is filled up so connections would be brutal with WS in T2 and AA in T4.
3) AA high cost structure would mean that WS brings profitable flying into the codeshare while AA brings break even or worse flying.
4) AA is too distracted with their alliance issues (Atlantic ATI with BA/IB, Pacific ATI with JAL) to worry about codeshare with WS.