TheTechnologyGuy25

So I was reading an article on Vancouver's capacity rapidly being reached, and it said Westjet is planning to add 47 more weekly flights to various destinations including Kelowna.

I live in the Kelowna area, so do any of you know how many more weekly flights Westjet is adding on the Vancouver - Kelowna route?

Thanks!

YYCguy

According to this article, that route will see 7 flights daily.^

http://blog.westjet.com/winter-fligh...ency-blog-link

Frequentlander

http://blog.westjet.com/winter-fligh...ency-blog-link

"We’ve also extended our non-stop flight schedule between Vancouver and Montreal, Toronto and Gander as well as Toronto and Brandon from seasonal summer service to year-round."

Yay! Definitely good news for me!

mahasamatman

I'd love to see YVR-SFO go year-round. I still can't believe 3x daily to LAX, but no service at all to SFO.

Frequentlander

I'd be more than happy with YVR-OAK.

tracon

WS dropping YYZ-YBR route.

keitherson

There is absolutely no intl feed potential at OAK. At SFO they are feeding QF as well as the US carriers.

Canadian flying patterns give me a headache. They chose to fly WS and Rouge on YVR-LAX which caused AS to drop service and AA and UA cut back, even when the US airlines offered superior products. AC and WS dumped cheap capacity on the market and Canadians ate up the inferior good. Now not a single US carrier runs mainline.

Fiordland

One can fly mainline on a Canadian airline (AC or WS). Why would one go for the inferior regional product. I would not be surprised if the us airlines pull out completely since they are having a hard time competing.

keitherson

They used to be mainline, now they're not. Because Canadians preferred Canadian LCCs over mainline US. Now they get LCCs and US regionals.

US airlines do have a hard time competing in Canada right now, you're right. They've completely pulled out of many cities like Halifax, London ON, Quebec City, and so forth. Delta flies only Delta Connection out of most Canadian cities. IMO it says more about Canada than the US carriers.

Also mainline on AC is recent, up until recently it was all completely Rouge.

sokolov

Halifax still has United Express (Delta and AA regionals right now, too, but they are leaving this Winter). The question is: Will UAx stay? They used to share ground staff with AA. And without AA, the operation at YHZ becomes more expensive.

I wonder if YHZ management could have done more. For example by advertising the extremely comfortable US border checks in YHZ, to get more people to fly from YHZ to the US. Or by lobbying AC/UA to offer routings through BOS without fare breaks.

This is not a sudden event. YHZ has lost several US destinations over the last few years. I remember ORD, DCA (UAx and AA), ATL, DTW. And IIRC ACx reduced BOS to one rotation per day after Encore started BOS.

I see myself driving all the way to Bar Harbour next year...

tracon

With respect to YVR-LAX, AA has gone from 2 daily EMB to 1. DL has 2 EMB/day. UAx has only had 1X daily for years.
AAx and DLx both started after it was announced RV would serve the route.
WS flew the route 17X weekly and I believe it will be almost 3X daily this winter.
Do the American carriers really offer a superior product? Behind the curtain it's all equally painful isn't it?
Other than AS, it's been the early 90s since a US mainline operated this route. That was DL after they bought out Western. Shortly after AS entered the market and DL was gone.

cedric

Didn't HP offer YVR-LAX (& YVR-SAN) prior to the merger with US?

tracon

Not immediately before the merger.
There may have been a YVR-LAS flight.
But if someone can prove me wrong........

cedric

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...ept-1-6-a.html
But it was a CR9, not mainline.
YVR-LAS was mainline and lasted for a few years after the merger. I took it several times.

Funny to think that HP had more destinations from YVR then (SAN, LAX, PHX, LAS) than AA does now (LAX, PHX, DFW).