WS announces Canada to London-Gatwick
#31
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Join Date: May 2002
Location: YEG
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I'd be interested to hear why? YEG already his direct on AC, and Icelandair has excellent connections and timing to the UK and Europe, and KLM also recently started to AMS. The market in YEG is fairly tight with the amount of competition and smaller population area, so I would be surprised to see WestJet go to YEG.
Edmonton is after all the 6th largest metro market in Canada and not far behind Calgary at #5 though yes, I know there much more corp. travel with the southern cities HQ's in the energy sector.
BTW I haven't heard where WS is acquiring it's 767-300ERW from so does anyone know?
#33
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I take it these will be 763s with RR engines (assuming it matters to WS if there is engine commonality)? They're pretty rare birds as I believe only a handful of airlines every ordered those (QF, BA, NZ?)
#34
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Calgary
Posts: 1,437
No, all four of the 767-300ER(WL) are ex-Qantas aircraft fitted with GE CF6-80C2B6 engines. The aircraft all have the same configuration, the only major changes are the addition of winglets, a seat configuration that was 30C/224Y changed to 24W/238Y (using the existing seats with new leather) and addition of the Panasonic IFEC system.
#35
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: London, Ontario
Posts: 5,210
Certainly facility wise, YXU can handle a 767 (we used to get large charter flights in long before we even had jet bridges). Not sure business wise, we could support more than once a week. I know YXU management has long wished for UK service and talk like it's a very good possibility.
#37
Join Date: Jun 2010
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Makes sense to me, but one can make a strong argument for many other airports too. Guess we'll see.
#38
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 796
YYC-YVR was pretty competitive in 1996 with both AC and CP operating 15x daily n/s flights each. WJ managed to carve out a pretty good business out of that.
WJ will have close to 140 737's and Q400's feeding their network from points in Canada and even the US by the time the first flight is operated.
Transat has zilch feed. They rely solely on O&D traffic. It was the same with all the other charter type airlines that have come and gone. No feed or uneconomic double drops.
I'm not sure if WJ will continue to codeshare with BA once the flights begin.
There is the school of thought that BA might be of the mind that, strategically, "the enemy of mine enemy is my friend".
If that is not the case, BA will no longer get domestic Cdn feed at their gateways, unless they are prepared to pay a healthy dollar for it.
WJA has always done thing a little differently and I would expect to see some, but not all, of the same when gateways are announced. In the meantime, the competition will chase ghosts and degenerate their yields and route profitability.
#39
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YEG is rumoured to be in line for 1-3 weekly frequencies. There is also a possibility WS would enter the highly competitive YYZ-LGW market with a few weekly frequencies.
#42
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 796
Brilliant on so many levels...
It's the most central location for feed from the west coast, central BC, all of Alberta and Saskatchewan. It will generate all kinds of "domestic portions of international journey" traffic that WJ has not had the opportunity to tap that is a significant reason why network airlines typically report higher l/f's, especially during periods of high demand.
It puts Icelandair on notice that the free ride comes to an end, and remember, WJ has Cdn domestic feed out of the yang yang into YEG and can/has developed partnerships in Europe. Icelandair has no feed at the Cdn end of the pipeline. They need O&D traffic and will have to generate it solely on price. That will only succeed if they have the lowest unit costs, which, when operating 757 vs 767 equipment together with their labor costs, is unlikely to be the case.
It will force high cost Air Canada mainline to have to be very competitive on pricing to the UK and beyond from ALL of Western Canada which is not difficult to do, but very difficult to do profitably.
I suppose they could end up Rouging all UK service from western Canada to LHR to stay price competitive at the low end they now seem to be completely obsessed with, but that won't do much for the premium passengers who pay the freight and who underwrite much higher cost mainline route profitability, especially during the summer when the sun is shining.
A lot of hay has to be made in the summer months to underwrite all but about 6 weeks from mid October thru the end of April. A bad harvest in the summer causes all kinds of problems in the winter.
Premium traffic, who obsessively resist any service that has them having to interface with budget travelers at any level will move over to BA, LH. or KLM for their Western Canada to the UK and beyond premium service.
It will be very interesting to watch this all unfold.
It's the most central location for feed from the west coast, central BC, all of Alberta and Saskatchewan. It will generate all kinds of "domestic portions of international journey" traffic that WJ has not had the opportunity to tap that is a significant reason why network airlines typically report higher l/f's, especially during periods of high demand.
It puts Icelandair on notice that the free ride comes to an end, and remember, WJ has Cdn domestic feed out of the yang yang into YEG and can/has developed partnerships in Europe. Icelandair has no feed at the Cdn end of the pipeline. They need O&D traffic and will have to generate it solely on price. That will only succeed if they have the lowest unit costs, which, when operating 757 vs 767 equipment together with their labor costs, is unlikely to be the case.
It will force high cost Air Canada mainline to have to be very competitive on pricing to the UK and beyond from ALL of Western Canada which is not difficult to do, but very difficult to do profitably.
I suppose they could end up Rouging all UK service from western Canada to LHR to stay price competitive at the low end they now seem to be completely obsessed with, but that won't do much for the premium passengers who pay the freight and who underwrite much higher cost mainline route profitability, especially during the summer when the sun is shining.
A lot of hay has to be made in the summer months to underwrite all but about 6 weeks from mid October thru the end of April. A bad harvest in the summer causes all kinds of problems in the winter.
Premium traffic, who obsessively resist any service that has them having to interface with budget travelers at any level will move over to BA, LH. or KLM for their Western Canada to the UK and beyond premium service.
It will be very interesting to watch this all unfold.
Last edited by HangTen; Jun 29, 2015 at 10:59 am
#43
Join Date: May 2013
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Market-wise it makes sense, too.
#44
Join Date: Apr 2011
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It puts Icelandair on notice that the free ride comes to an end, and remember, WJ has Cdn domestic feed out of the yang yang into YEG and can/has developed partnerships in Europe. Icelandair has no feed at the Cdn end of the pipeline. They need O&D traffic and will have to generate it solely on price. That will only succeed if they have the lowest unit costs, which, when operating 757 vs 767 equipment together with their labor costs, is unlikely to be the case.
#45
Join Date: May 2013
Location: west coast best coast
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Posts: 3,987
It puts Icelandair on notice that the free ride comes to an end, and remember, WJ has Cdn domestic feed out of the yang yang into YEG and can/has developed partnerships in Europe. Icelandair has no feed at the Cdn end of the pipeline. They need O&D traffic and will have to generate it solely on price. That will only succeed if they have the lowest unit costs, which, when operating 757 vs 767 equipment together with their labor costs, is unlikely to be the case.
I suppose they could end up Rouging all UK service from western Canada to LHR to stay price competitive at the low end they now seem to be completely obsessed with, but that won't do much for the premium passengers who pay the freight and who underwrite much higher cost mainline route profitability, especially during the summer when the sun is shining.
Premium traffic, who obsessively resist any service that has them having to interface with budget travelers at any level will move over to BA, LH. or KLM for their Western Canada to the UK and beyond premium service.
It will be very interesting to watch this all unfold.
It will be very interesting to watch this all unfold.
And look at any BA/LH/KL configuration flying into Canada and you tell me that we're a "premium market"