iahphx

I seem to have very bad luck booking flights to Eastern Canada: about half the time I book a ticket -- usually for a leisure trip several months in advance -- my flight gets cancelled before I get to fly. In the past half-dozen years, I've compiled an "impressive" track record of cancelled flights:

JFK-YHZ
EWR-YQM
JFK-YYQ
ACY-YYZ
PHL-YQB (was able to rebook: service reduced to one frequency)

So what is it that makes airlines want to try these flights -- and then give up? Why are new routes to Canada from the USA so unsuccessful?

This summer, I've booked UA's EWR flight to St. John's Newfoundland. I check it every month or so to see if it's still operating. So far, so good, but something tells me (past experience?) that flying A320s to St. John's is a stone-cold loser. The seat map currently shows my flights booked to about 10% capacity. Fingers crossed.

EmailKid

Wow, a 320

My guess is it won't be cancelled, but downgauged @:-)

Cross border flights tend to be expensive due to taxes and perhaps other things which may be why they never get off the ground.

You only check once a month

With UA, I find the need to check is more like daily, probably more often. If they change to RJ like I suspect, it will involve a flight number change and possibly loss of seat assignment.

iahphx

Hey, at least it's a UA award ticket I booked on UA. I figure they'll at least call me if they cancel it. I'm more careful when, for example, I book an award ticket on a partner airline. Nobody tells you anything.

I know UA changes its schedule with remarkable frequency, and little tweaks have occurred every month on these flights. But I figure if they're going to pull the plug for summer on this flight, they'd do it by now.

That said, if anyone else from the East Coast wants to get to Newfoundland easily, this is probably your summer: the odds that this flight makes it to 2016 seem slim to me.

EmailKid

I would not count on a notification.

I've had them eliminate service on one of my connecting flights and they automatically rebooked me on a flight that would land AFTER my connection took off.

I had a reward flight on cancelled DAL-DEN (service entirely eliminated) and without notice they changed my flights to DFW-DEN at an ugodly early hour

M60_to_LGA

So you basically mean the Northeast US and eastern Canada.

Flights between the NE and YYZ/YUL definitely last. Porter seems to be doing OK with YTZ as well.

Other than that, there aren't really any big cities in eastern Canada. The cities (YHZ, YQB, YYT) don't have huge business ties to the US, and they don't attract large numbers of US tourists, particularly outside summer. Plus cross-border flights to the smaller cities tend to be rather expensive - combination of high Canadian taxes plus the prices they need to charge in order to make up for the fact that few people are flying. For a family, it can be much cheaper to drive from the NYC area or New England to YQB/YHZ, etc.

Also, AC is going to dominate the market in those cities because it's a Canadian carrier and has the Aeroplan reward program - so that's going to draw much of the Canadian traffic.

And I think your mention of ACY-YYZ is a red herring. The problem isn't that it's a flight to eastern Canada; the problem is that it's a flight to/from a one-horse casino town that's imploding.

iahphx

Right, it's Northeast USA to Eastern Canada flights. And you're right: there's obviously demand to YUL and YYZ and these flights do fine. It's all the other flights that fail. And I think the reasons you give are likely the cause. These routes are often on small aircraft, so you have to generate significant RASM. Yet, combined with high taxes, that makes the seats expensive. And most Americans are completely indifferent to Canada, especially Eastern Canada, and really wouldn't think of touring anything other than Niagara Falls. And there's apparently not enough Canadian tourists heading south -- which won't be getting better with the fall in the value of the Loonie.

BTW, I'm a bit surprised the Canadians don't ask the USA to change the air taxes. They're kind of stupid. When you drive across the border, it's free. When you fly, you get soaked. It's stupid, and obviously discourages cross-border flying. Does anyone know the percentage of BTV's leisure pax who are Canadian?

tentseller

Half of the cars parked at the long term lot at BUF seems to have Ontario plates on them.

M60_to_LGA

Actually, most of the taxes on cross-border flights are imposed by the Canadians. They have very high taxes even on domestic flights. So there's not much the US can really do (not that it should - what's the compelling US national interest in having more Americans fly to Canada?):

http://bc.ctvnews.ca/why-it-costs-so...nada-1.1733387

tentseller

Taxes on trans-boarder flights is a shooting self in the foot policy of the Canadian government.

I redeem flights to FL or CA. Flying from YYZ the taxes and fees are usually $150-$175pp. Flying from BUF is $5pp. For a cruise out of FL, including SIL and DIL now, the savings paid for two cruise tickets.

The four most important airports to Canadians are: BLI DTW BUF BTV

iahphx

Interesting. I knew the US gov't taxes flights coming from Canada, but it would seem the Canadian gov't taxes them even more! The taxes GOING to Canada from the US are quite modest. I just redeemed Avios miles and it was only $5.60 (the US security fee).

It is obviously bad public policy to encourage your citizens to cross the border to fly. You would think Canada would slash the taxes on USA flights to bring this traffic back to Canada.

drwilliams

Why is it bad to have US taxpayers subsidize their airports for our residents?

i59bravo

Are you saying the routes are cancelled or that the flights are cancelled?

I know that in bad weather, busy airports (e.g. JFK, LGA, EWR) may have to reduce capacity, even if the airport is still open. Thus, the airport orders the airlines to reduce flights. Minor routes with the fewest number of passengers get their flights cancelled first. My bf had his LGA-YOW flight cancelled 2 days in a row last March.

iahphx

Cancelled routes. I do also have problems with cancelled flights to Canada, but that's just an RJ-reliability issue in bad weather.

gglave

To me, the 'bad policy' is the subsidies that the American governments (at all levels) provide to the airlines in the USA.

Seems ludicrous that the social safety net in the USA is cut left, right and centre while at the same time billions of tax dollars subsidize air travel.

Apologies to the mods for the journey to P/R.

iahphx

Um, I don't think so.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tedreed/...re-subsidized/