finnster

I am wondering what the barriers are for Alaska to offer direct flights to US destinations from YVR? I fly Alaska as much as I can - usually OGG, DEN, SAN, SNA, LAX but have to fly thru SEA or occasionally BLI, and never noticed direct flights - always seemed to have to fly through Seattle. I assumed it was a regulatory thing. Now there's a direct YVR-LAX flight. (It may have been around before but i didn't notice).

I would love to see a direct OGG-YVR flight, and given that CDNs are in the top 4 of demographics of the visitors to Hawaii there is a market. Air Canada and Westjet have the market , but AC is not perceived as very reliable because of labour issues and Westjet can be expensive and has no first class. Daytime flights to and from the islands are hard to get. Most AC and WJ flights are overnight, at least back from Maui so I would be ecstatic to get an Alaska flight direct to and from Vancouver that arrived back in Vancouver before midnight.

Why aren't there more direct Alaskan flights to other destinations and Hawaii in particular? Is the market too small to support another airline? Id even be happy with Bellingham but they only have limited flights to hnl and no ogg.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can shed light on how route decisions get made, particularly for Canadian market.

beckoa

I think the answer is taxes. The LAX-YVR has been there for quite a while AFAIK, and we had an ANC-YVR for a couple summers. But Canada has high taxes that make it cheaper to offer flights from BLI for example, for both consumers and the carrier. Hence BLI-HNL, and the 2x a day BLI-LAS.

Eastbay1K

There is also no realistic connecting traffic available. SEA already provides "1 stop" service from the entire Pacific Northwest and western Canada, and AS is never going to be providing domestic Canadi>n services. And, AS cannot sell a ticket XXX(US City)/ YVR / ZZZ (US City) as part of the same fare.

eponymous_coward

I'm going to get to this before CZBB does.

http://www.westjet.com/guest/en/trav...xes-fees.shtml

$5.50 US Customs
$5.00 APHIS
$7.00 Immigration User Fee
$16.70 International Transportation Tax
7.5% Domestic Transportation Tax (That counts for everything within 225 miles of USA, so most of Canada)
$3.80 Flight Segment tax (That counts for everything within 225 miles of USA, so most of Canada)

So it isn't just Canada that's putting high taxes on flights from YVR.

Anyways, the reason why AS isn't expanding in YVR is similar to why they haven't added flights to Hawaii out of SFO/LAX, I guess- they are trying to avoid head-on battles with legacy carriers in hubs where they'd get squashed. And AC is very aggressive about that. VX tried to run SFO/LAX-YYZ, and AC dumped a bunch of capacity on the route and chased them off pretty quickly. What AS has done is add capacity and routes to neighboring airports like OAK/SJC/SMF/STS for SFO, SAN for LAX, and... BLI for YVR.

hgdf

LAX-YVR has been around for at least 10 years. In fact, it's currently the only mainline route serving YVR. IIRC, it used to run 6X daily, but now it's down to 3X. They flew from SFO in the not so distant past, but I can't recall exactly when that stopped.

In addition to SEA, QX also flies 2X daily from PDX.

Chugach

AS used to have a big presence at YVR, big enough to even have a Board Room. There's the aforementioned YVR-LAX, plus in the past there have been the following routes that I can remember:

YVR-SFO
YVR-LAS
YVR-SNA (I think most of us know that story)
YVR-ANC (started in response to AC starting this route; AS lasted for a few years, AC is still in the market seasonally although I strongly believe someone could make this route work year-round with the right aircraft)

And of course there is still the Q400 service from YVR to SEA and PDX.

I think the AS drawdown at YVR is two-fold:

1. The advance of WestJet up and down the west coast
2. G4 starting (and succeeding) at BLI, just down BC99.

G4 has been rumored for several years to be looking at BLI-Hawaii, which in reality would be to serve the Lower Mainland a lot more than Bellingham. AS started BLI-HNL as a pre-emptive strike in that market, and BLI-LAS as a response to G4. I think if it wasn't for the Bellingham factor, you'd see many more AS flights out of Vancouver now, particularly to Hawaii.

As for WestJet, I don't think they've had as big of an effect on AS as G4 has in the Lower Mainland, but they do serve many of the same west coast routes that AS did. I think at the end of the day, AS decided it wasn't worth it to compete with two entrenched Canadian carriers on that corridor when their "mega" hub at SEA was only a 20-minute flight away, as well as the aforementioned opportunities at BLI. In some respects YVR suffers from "Portlanditis" in the eyes of AS due to being so close to the SEA hub.

Smeadcw

Also, AS's biggest partner DL codeshares with WSon Canadian flights that route through YYZ. It doesn't do AS any good to try to gain partner elites by addding YVR as another hub. Too much competition.

COpltASgldPHX

you left out YVR-PHX

Chugach

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9B176 Safari/7534.48.3)

Come to think of it, there was SAN-YVR too, although that may have been seasonal.

CZBB

Thank you, remind me to buy you a drink in LAS next month.

The US places very high protectionist taxes on flights entering the USA; however, it's free to drive across the border. That makes BLI very attractive (and for a lot of people, it's actually closer/quicker than YVR).

Add onto that, that US airports are subsidized by the FAA (massive grants), versus Canadian airports being self-funded, and it's a heck of a lot cheaper to fly a US domestic route, than an Canada-US route.

Back to the flights from YVR; I think that the YVR-SFO was actually YVR-SFO-PSP. There was mainline YVR-SEA (last flight to YVR, 1st to SEA); and at least one flight was YVR-LAX-SJD(or maybe PVR). The LAS flight, AS682 left YVR at 20:00, which made it great for a day at work and then head to the airport. The return flight is was AS649 (I assume a funny joke based on 6/49 being Canada's version of the powerball type-lottery)

dave1013

Just as an information point, those massive grants are largely funded by airline ticket taxes that are paid by airline passengers (of all nationalities) and other users of the system. FAA merely administers the Airport Improvement Program.

hgdf

Protectionist fees? Are they supposededly to protect the economy from tourists??

Most of the taxes fees you pay on Canada-US flights are actually imposed by Canada. For example:

YVR-SEA
Fare: 142.99

GST: 7.26
HST: 2.43
Airport Improvement Fee: 20.26
ATSC (security fee): 12.26

U.S. Flight Segment Tax: 3.80
U.S. Agriculture: 5.00
U.S. Immigration: 7.00
U.S. Customs: 5.50

Total:206.50

Conversely:

SEA-YVR
Fare: 141.36

U.S. Flight Segment Tax: 3.80
Passenger Facility Charge: 4.50
September 11 Security Fee: 2.50

Total: 152.16

So, while Canada doesn't charge for customs/immigration/agriculture inspections, but they certainly do make everyone pony up big time for airport improvements, security, as well as mandatory donations to the welfare state.

CZBB

Note so fast there....

YVR-SEA
Fare: 133.01 (above fare included 7.5% USA transport tax)
GST: 7.26
HST: 2.43
Airport Improvement Fee: 20.26
ATSC (security fee): 12.26
U.S. Air Tax 9.98
U.S. Flight Segment Tax: 3.80
U.S. Agriculture: 5.00
U.S. Immigration: 7.00
U.S. Customs: 5.50
Canada: $42.21 (note the GST & HST are reclaimable if you're a business)
USA: $27.48

SEA-YVR
Fare: 131.50 (above fare included embedded US taxes)
US Air Tax: 9.86
U.S. Flight Segment Tax: 3.80
Passenger Facility Charge: 4.50
September 11 Security Fee: 2.50
Canada: $0.00
USA: $20.66

TOTALS
Canada: $42.21 (of which $9.63 is reclaimable by businesses)
USA: $48.04

Looks like we're able to pay for our 'welfare' state, and still have less tax burden than the United States.

jlemon

I remember some comments made by then AS CEO John Kelly a number of years ago concerning YVR....something to the effect that YVR would turn out to be just as important some day as SEA to AS. Didn't happen.

And with regard to YVR-Hawaii, I think CO tried flying YVR-HNL at one point. Didn't work.

Then some years later, Aloha flew YVR-HNL with a 73G. Didn't work either.

YVR appears to be a difficult market.....and last time I had business up that way, I flew in F on PMCO into SEA instead, rented a car, drove up the I-5/BC 99 and probably saved about 800 bucks by doing so.

hgdf

Theoretically, there is supposed to be a way to reclaim GST/HST, but I've never been able to comprehend all the conditions and hoops you have to jump through. Under the old system, I think you had to spend at least $200 CAD in taxes to qualify, and it only applied to exported goods. Now, there's a new system targeted toward convention and all-inclusive tour operators which is even more narrow and convoluted.

Tell yourself that the next time you're pricing a canadian domestic flight.