As a recent migrant to YYZ from YEG, I can sympathize with your feelings about the relatively limited WebSpecials out of the west. However, you must remember that these fares represent surplus capacity and are only offered when there are large numbers of empty seats on aircraft. YYZ is AC's major hub, and as such has flights every day to just about every destination in the system. With such capacity, even trimmed back o n the weekends, there are bound to be hundreds, no thousands, of empty seats to be sold off before they vanish.

The limited capacity out of many western cities — particularly YEG and YYC — to U.S. and Canadian destinations means that most seats have already been sold, either through advance Seat Sales, or at the last minute. You can't put seats up for sale that aren't there. These are point-to-point trips and you have to make your own connections if that makes a trip possible. [i.e. No YEG-YYZ specials, but YYC-YYZ and YEG-YYC are available. Combine them at a price that still may be attractive.] But the whole purpose of WebSpecials is to sell off a perishable commodity, an empty airline seat, to spur of the moment travellers. AC doesn't add capacity on the weekends just to sell more WebSpecials. At high traffic periods there are fewer empty seats available, even from/to YYZ, and so now WebSpecials. We see this every summer and over the high volume Easter, Spring Break and Christmas periods. It's not a conspiracy, just the old market functioning as it does.

For the past two years, I pretty much relied on WebSpecials to fly back to central Canada from YEG. While I was able to do this most of the time on the dates I had anticipated travelling, there were weekends when flights to YYZ were just not available. If I had to get there, I would combine trips as noted above. What made these trips so attractive, of course, was the ability to upgrade from any fare. With few business travellers on Saturday morning flying, I almost always was able to confirm an upgrade after I booked on Wednesday morning. YEG-YYZ in the front cabin for $125 (one way) is an unbelievable deal. Thank you Cdn+. [We shall never see the likes of that again.]

As for the high add-ons to transborder fares — often 50% to 60% of the flight cost — this is a factor of high US Immigration/Customs/Agricultural/FAA segment/Airport fees. They really look obscene when you buy a $120 YVR-PDX-YVR weekend ticket.

No, the vast array of WebSpecials into and out of YYZ is not a conspiracy against western Canadians. [Hey, imagine if you lived in Regina, Saskatoon or Winnipage. How many WebSpecials do you see out of those cities?] It is just a fact that almost half AC's schedule originates or goes through YYZ every day, and the southern Ontario region has a population almost equal to the total of the four western provinces. [Ooops, now we're slipping into the realm of Constitutional politics...]

But just remember guys, you do have the MHDs. We in YYZ just can't take advantage of that fare break if we want to do a Canadian stop-over enroute, yet you can.