Failed Encore Route
Feb 17, 2014, 7:51 am
#1
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Join Date: Apr 2006
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Failed Encore Route
Feb 17, 2014, 9:42 am
#3
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 797
I am a bit surprised they even bothered with YVR-YKA in the first place with that schedule.
I wonder where they'll put that airplane? You can be sure they won't park it on the ramp for 3hrs every morning. Kamloops's loss is another market's gain!
They operate this flight once a day in the morning so without an evening return, there'd be no business traffic.
Its an easy 3.5hr drive on the Coquihalla highway to the lower mainland for leisure travelers and they took the toll off a few years ago. It's a little more than 2 hours to Kelowna.
The Kamloops - Calgary route feeds everything in Alberta and to the east and to US South and Mexico as it has always done. Travel time to do YKA-YVR-LAS/PSP/PHX/LAX vs flying through Calgary, assuming connections are equal, and Calgary has way more flights south than Vancouver, are marginally higher...maybe 20-30 mins more so that isn't a big deal for most people. I doubt many people liked to fly to Vancouver to fly to Calgary or Toronto anyway.
The current flights timing doesn't connect both directions to Victoria or Prince George, and was no good for Hawaii on the outbound so they aren't losing anything there because they never had it in the first place. I read somewhere that the only legitimate market that is gone is Kamloops to Terrace. I doubt WestJet is very worried about not being able to participate in that market!
I don't think WestJet is very worried about having too many airplanes for Encore and not enough places to fly them.
Not only that, it's good that even after launching Encore, they still remain very profitable and are still more than willing to ruthlessly cut routes that are dogs because of the lack of equipment to be able to operate an effective schedule.
Maybe some of the airlines that always appear as the least profitable in the industry should do more of that!
Having too few aircraft is a way better problem to have than having way too many airplanes available for 6-7 months a year and not knowing what to do with them!
I wonder where they'll put that airplane? You can be sure they won't park it on the ramp for 3hrs every morning. Kamloops's loss is another market's gain!
They operate this flight once a day in the morning so without an evening return, there'd be no business traffic.
Its an easy 3.5hr drive on the Coquihalla highway to the lower mainland for leisure travelers and they took the toll off a few years ago. It's a little more than 2 hours to Kelowna.
The Kamloops - Calgary route feeds everything in Alberta and to the east and to US South and Mexico as it has always done. Travel time to do YKA-YVR-LAS/PSP/PHX/LAX vs flying through Calgary, assuming connections are equal, and Calgary has way more flights south than Vancouver, are marginally higher...maybe 20-30 mins more so that isn't a big deal for most people. I doubt many people liked to fly to Vancouver to fly to Calgary or Toronto anyway.
The current flights timing doesn't connect both directions to Victoria or Prince George, and was no good for Hawaii on the outbound so they aren't losing anything there because they never had it in the first place. I read somewhere that the only legitimate market that is gone is Kamloops to Terrace. I doubt WestJet is very worried about not being able to participate in that market!
I don't think WestJet is very worried about having too many airplanes for Encore and not enough places to fly them.
Not only that, it's good that even after launching Encore, they still remain very profitable and are still more than willing to ruthlessly cut routes that are dogs because of the lack of equipment to be able to operate an effective schedule.
Maybe some of the airlines that always appear as the least profitable in the industry should do more of that!
Having too few aircraft is a way better problem to have than having way too many airplanes available for 6-7 months a year and not knowing what to do with them!
Last edited by HangTen; Feb 17, 2014 at 9:50 am