Insiderdude

I fly the PHX/LAS-YYC route at least once a month (actually, SAN-YYC connecting through either hub). For the last 6 months the equipment have always been 319/320 or 733s. As a plat, that was great news because I'm 10/10 in upgrades. Booking a few months in advance, I notice that the YYC routes are all showing CRJs from mid-June on. What did they do with the larger planes and is this usual with AWA and with other routes?? No more F for the 3 hour flight - goodness, I'm already starting to think another airline ...

TopGun

Yeah, they did that on all the YEG flights too. A friend of mine stopped flying HP because of it.

AIRcop

Don't have my handbook with me.... YYC is Calgary? Delta is all RJ too from SLC...and to Vancouver......real bummer....the only mainline craftwould be ASthru SEA or PDX

Tanic

Westjet uses B737s between PHX and YYC. They fly 3 or 4 days a week.

hp_fa

I believe it is a seasonal downgrade. Last year I worked a mainline flight to YYC around Easter and it was already known that the RJ was going to replace the mainline flight just before the Stampede, which struck us as kind of dumb. At any rate, the mainline came back in the Fall.

BearX220

You can fly NW through MSP, too.

haiderodes

I noticed that too lately more and more flights are being serviced by RJ's...not only YYC. Why is that?

andrewp

Loads to different destinations are seasonal. Based on historical information HP likely realized that there wouldn't be a high enough load over the coming months to support a 733/A319/A320 on these routes. Since flying a full CRJ-900 is much cheaper than a 2/3 full 733 we get to enjoy the CRJ fun on these routes.

I've noticed a similar swing on a number of the routes that I travel.

I wonder if the people making these decisions have ever actually flown in a CRJ, much less one for 3 hours. How do they think that they are going to maintain their customer base by flying these routes exclusively with CRJs??

kanerf

Sure would be nice to get some of the Avro RJ-85s that NW Express uses on some of these routes. They have 14 First Class seats! Four engines too, which I think is a bit safer. Kind of like a baby 747.

Altaflyer

YEG has not seen any mainline HP service during this most recent entry into the market. Frequencies on YEG-LAS have also been reduced to less than 1x daily for the summer.

Insiderdude

Now that I think about it, during summer last year, Calgary (yes, that's YYC) used CRJs to both LAS and PHX. They started using 733/319/320s at around November or so, so maybe it makes sense that it's a seasonal shift - for exactly 6 months. But one would wonder why the loads would be less during the summer, if anything it should be the other way around - but then again there's all the snowbird/charter traffic during winter.

Either way, I'm not happy about 3 hr flights in a cramped CRJ - I'm 10/10 in F upgrades to/from YYC this year. Then again, Delta flies in from SLC in a CRJ, Alaska from SEA in a Bomb.Q400, and United/Air Canada does SFO in a CRJ - the only other mainline would be UA from DEN/LAX in a mainstream and UA's SAN schedules are horrible.

mac5192117

I fly SNA/LAS every week. AWA tried to convert this route to RJ's and the backlash was so great they eventually went back to 319/320/737 service. It must have been some recently hired MBA from Harvard that figured it works on paper so it will work in practice. AWA actually held a meeting for all the folks who travel this route regularly. There were about 75 people on the list. LAS is a vacation destination and most folks travel with bags, not just computer cases. Those MBA's can't figure this out. The level of complaints was unbelievable.

Keep complaining about the RJ's. AWA is listening. I have read on the AWA Yahoo message board that the contracts AWA has with MESA will not allow them to begin eliminating the RJ's for many years. Too bad. They need to go. They only make a miserable experience worse.

AS Flyer

Actually, AS has two mainline flights a day to SEA as well, from YYC that is.

Insiderdude

True, I remember that now.

Still, the few times I've flown AS, there were always delays beyond what most would consider reasonable (1hr+). While HP is not the most timely, their service (and timeliness) has improved so much I think I'll still with them, even on a CRJ.

Maybe we can all petition for the reinstallation of F in the RJs!! ^